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Tales of the unknown Ghost stories still spook, delight us

Tales of the unknown Ghost stories still spook, delight us

Edgar Allan Poe, considered one of the writers who kicked off the golden age of ghost stories, penned many a terrifying tale in his time – including a short story called “The Black Cat,” in which a seemingly supernatural cat takes center stage as the narrator reels from the death of his wife. (Image courtesy of Behance)

October 2025

Cover Story

Tales of the unknown

Ghost stories still spook, delight us

by Corbin Crable

For as long as humans have gathered around campfires to tell tales of the unexplainable, there have existed ghost stories.

Halloween itself came from the ancient Celtic tradition Samhain, which took place Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. The Celts believed that on those two days, the dead were able to roam the Earth among the living. They also dressed themselves in dead animal furs as a way to confuse evil spirits – it’s how we arrived at our tradition of dressing in costume on Halloween night, in fact.

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”

Our idea of the appearance of ghosts hasn’t changed much over the years – they still make the simplest of Halloween costumes, as proven in programs like “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” (Image courtesy of Collider.com)

The big questions

Dr. Favin Martin of the private school Arcadia University in Pennsylvania is an expert on legends and lore. He says that although ghost stories are used to frighten and delight audiences, they also represent society’s larger questions about death and related topics.

“I would argue that ghosts are cultural agents, tasked with explaining the meaning of life and the afterlife,” Martin said in a 2024 article on the university’s website. “However, I would also point out that ghost stories allow us to think about our anxieties on death, the unknown, and unresolved conflicts. To that end, the perception of ghosts varies from being scary and evil, to lost wandering souls, with each story portraying the ghost differently.”

It’s never been difficult for us to picture ghosts – they usually are portrayed as being comprised of an airy, misty material; according to the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, the early belief among many cultures is that ghosts were “the person within the person” – the person’s spirit – which appeared as “a white mist upon exhaling in colder climates.”

“The Ghost Ship” (1952)

“The Ghost Ship” (1952)

Not to be confused with the 2002 film by the same name, “The Ghost Ship” (1952) told a story of scares on the high seas. (Image courtesy of Plex)

The golden age of ghost stories

Though the oral tradition of telling ghost stories by a campfire might best bring spooky tales to life, the technological innovations born from the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries helped spread them even further. Now, magazines (and later, books like pulp novels) could bring the dead to life, so to speak. They were published in periodicals like Good Housekeeping (hey, no one ever said those houses couldn’t be haunted).

Historians generally agree that the golden age of the ghost story began with the closing years of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1830s and ended with the start of World War I – a period of nearly 90 years. Many historians maintain that writers like Edgar Allan Poe ushered in this golden age; this age also gave us Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” written in 1820, in which the bashful schoolteacher Ichabod Crane is relentlessly pursued by the villainous and otherworldly Headless Horseman. Another Victorian author who would go on to achieve literary fame, Charles Dickens, wrote perhaps the most beloved ghost story in English literature, “A Christmas Carol,” a tale with a much happier ending in which Ebenezer Scrooge sees the error of his miserly ways after being visited by the ghost of old Jacob Marley and a trio of spirits soon after.

“Sleepy Hollow” (1999)

“Sleepy Hollow” (1999)

Filmmakers have brought classic ghost stories to the big screen for decades. Pictured: Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci in Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow” (1999). (Image courtesy of FrockFlicks)

“Haunted Honeymoon,”

“Haunted Honeymoon”

Not every ghost story is scary. Case in point – the 1986 comedy film “Haunted Honeymoon,” starring comedy legends Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, and Dom DeLuise. The film has achieved cult status since its release nearly 40 years ago. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

“A Christmas Carol.”

“A Christmas Carol”

Not every ghost is designed to frighten listeners and readers of ghost stories. Take, for example, the Ghost of Christmas Present, the second spirit to visit Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol.” (Image courtesy of Wikimedia)

Hauntings in mass media

With ghost stories’ golden age ending with the start of the Great War, the years afterward began the modern era. Now, ghost stories even began being gathered and published in their own periodicals such as Ghost Stories, printed between 1926 and 1932. Another giant of the modern era of ghost stories was Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” a gothic horror novel published in 1959. And if you’re of a certain age, you just can’t think of ghost stories without thinking of 1984’s “Ghostbusters,” a true classic.

Though mass media have shown us what these terrifying specters look like, stories told using the power of the spoken word have the power to terrify as well, according to the American School of Storytelling.

“In the telling of ghost stories – voice and pace – are critical tools. When are you soft or loud, slow or fast, and most importantly where are the silences that let the audience fill in the gaps and heighten their own emotional response?” according to a 2024 post on the organization’s Instagram account. “In most stories, anticipation is doing a good portion of the work. I once told a story that began, ‘She didn’t want to be a babysitter. She didn’t want to go into the basement…’ to a group of Girl Scouts who filled in the gaps between phrases with their own imagining to the point of screaming before I got to the bottom of the stairs.”

Boy Scout camping trip

Boy Scout camping trip

What’s a Boy Scout camping trip without ghost stories told by the campfire? (Image courtesy of Science Stock)

“The Haunting of Hill House”

“The Haunting of Hill House”

“The Haunting of Hill House” made the leap from the page to the small screen, thanks to Netflix. (Image courtesy of IGN)

Spooks for Scouts

One author for the blog “Aaron on Scouting” fondly recalled his experience of listening to tales – both scary and otherwise – huddled around the fire on Boy Scout camping trips during his youth.

“One of my favorite memories from Boy Scout campouts was gathering around the fire and listening to the assistant Scoutmasters tell campfire stories. I loved movies and books growing up, but there was something about those live stories that was more compelling than the printed word or images on a screen,” author Bryan Wendell wrote. “(These stories) are an important part of the Boy Scouts of America.”

A great variety of very short ghost stories can be found online, ready for you to give your Halloween party or camping trip guests a little extra jump. For instance:

“Last night a friend rushed me out of the house to catch the opening act at a local bar’s music night. After a few drinks I realized my phone wasn’t in my pocket. I checked the table we were sitting at, the bar, the bathrooms, and after no luck I used my friend’s phone to call mine. After two rings someone answered, gave out a low raspy giggle, and hung up. They didn’t answer again. I eventually gave it up as a lost cause and headed home. I found my phone laying on my nightstand, right where I left it.”

And what is perhaps the world’s shortest ghost story, consisting of just two sentences and published in 1948 by Frediric Brown, will surely send a chill down your spine:

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door……’’