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Just in time for Halloween, the most haunted place in American has been determined. Porch.com has compiled the data to make the assertion that Port Costa, California is the most haunted spot in the country. The small Gold Rush-era town has only 242 residents but has already experienced 53 ghost encounters! That means that if each encounter is only linked to one living resident, then one out of four has seen a ghost! That may not be the case, but at any rate...
Some of the hauntings in Port Costa relate to the Burlington Hotel, which may have been a brothel in its heyday. Across the street, ghosts hang out at the Warehouse bar. According to this report, spectral breezes blow across patron's faces, and a woman in a blue dress may be seen briefly before she passes through – as in, through – the door. Down the street at a private residence, all the windows in the house were once said to slam closed simultaneously. Yeah, that’s scary...
Coming in second place for hauntedliness is Yorktown, Virginia, a Revolutionary War battle site with 25 different paranormal locations. According to some, you can see long-dead soldiers marching accompanied by drums, or witness the spectral remnants (panicked horse hooves and wagon wheel clattering) of an 1800s carriage accident.
In third place, Gail, Texas, where lights flicker in the abandoned high school and a ghost voice warns, ‘I’m here.’
Fourth? Jacksonboro, South Carolina, where a famous light bobs along, the ghost of a lantern carried by a man who searched through the night for his missing daughter – until he was struck down by a train.
And the list continues:
5. Paris, MI
6. Zoar, OH
7. Axson, GA
8. Harpers Ferry, WV
9. Saunemin, IL
10. Helenville, WI
But while all these towns earn the (perhaps dubious) honor of being most haunted, if we zoom out and look at states, the story changes. And the winner for the most haunted state will surprise no one as being darkly forested, remote... and the one we associate with Stephen King. That’s right, Maine. Here, 57.8 ghost sightings per 100,000 residents is slightly ahead of North Dakota’s number of 52.5. Third place goes to Oklahoma, with 48.2. The least haunted state? Florida, with 8.1 sightings per 100,000 residents.
The study, based on crunching data from the Ghosts of America website and the Census Bureau, is full of fascinating facts. For instance, ghosts are most likely to appear in the bedroom (15 percent) and surprisingly, not very likely to wring their spectral hands in the attic (only 5 percent). Nine percent appear in the dim, earthen basement, as they should.
The most likely form of a ghost is a girl (12 percent), with the second most frequent being a man (10 percent). Women are 9 percent, and boys are 7 percent.
Active military bases are a hotbed of scary encounters. Fifty-five of them, or 7 percent, report at least one instance. Most ghost sightings happen in small towns, and 31 percent occur in houses.
To recap, live in a big city, avoid your bedroom, and don’t move to Maine!
See the full study here.