October Haunting - The Screaming Tunnel

Exterior of the Screaming Tunnel

Many flock to Niagra Falls to bare witness to its romantic setting. However, its beauty doesn't overshadow a local legend. The tunnel is located in the northwest end of Niagra Falls and was originally built to be a rail tunnel in the early 1900s. The only problem was the Grand Trunk Railroad went bankrupt after World War I and it was never finished. Even though the tunnel was abandoned it would never be forgotten.

Over a century ago, a farm house located near the tunnel caught fire one night. A girl, clothes engulfed in flames, ran screaming from the house into the tunnel in the attempts of putting it out. Unfortunately, she collapsed and died inside the tunnel. There are variations to this story.

An interior shot of the Tunnel

One states an enraged father sat his daughter on fire in the tunnel after learning his wife was rewarded custody of their kids in a nasty divorce battle. Another story reports that a young girl was raped inside the tunnel and her body was burned to cover the evidence. No one knows which version if any are true. However, what is known is that someone did die in the tunnel.

It was dubbed the Screaming Tunnel because they say if you stand in it and light a match you will hear a scream before the flame goes out.

October Haunting - Highgate Cemetery

Like many of England's most famous places, Highgate Cemetery in Highgate, London is perhaps one of the most actively haunted cemeteries in the UK. Opened in 1839, Highgate serves as the final resting place of a long list of famous people including Douglas Adams, Karl Marx and Radclyffe Hall. Highgate Cemetery boasts ghost sightings, vampires, aliens and botanical splendor. During the pinnacle of its popularity, Highgate Cemetery was a place where the rich and aspiring rich tried to outdo each other, thus rendering the gravestones and carvings more and more gaudy as the years passed. This haunted graveyard finally succumbed to near-ruin, with no gardening or repair being done. In the 1980s, a group began, in an effort to bring back the graveyard's former glory.

Reports of the ghost of Rossetti top the list for spectral sightings. The cemetery houses over 50, 000 dead, 168,000 engravings and nearly 900 famous people residing within the walls of this architecturally fascinating graveyard. There is the Egyptian Avenue, a famous path connecting both halves of the property, with numerous ghost glimpses along its famous route. The Circle of Lebanon house urns and vaults complete with catacombs. The ghosts walk this path, too.

Haunted Highgate Cemetery includes stories of vampires from medieval Wallachia. Some claim to have found dead animals drained of blood, while others blame negative occult practices.

Witnesses report both a man in a top hat and a bicycle rider. Stories from the early 1900s show a remarkable rise in the number of ghosts sighted and the unseen touches, winds and sounds emanating from the mausoleums and arches. A 1930s story told of a man walking through the cemetery to get home, who was confronted by an imp-like creature. The story spread and became a part of the lexicon of ghost tales about Highgate.

Victorian London perpetuated and exaggerated much of the gossip and story telling that focused on haunted Highgate Cemetery. The Victorians loved a good other worldly scare and soon reports of haunted headstones, ghosts walking among the few living visitors and evil demons abound.

Highgate Cemetery reflects a time in London's history when elegance and image were everything. The cemetery's flora and fauna show a distinct Victorian flavour and the structures borrowed ancient architecture and design from the middle east and gothic influence.

Visitors to Highgate often report icy touches on the cheeks, whispers, cries and hushed talking. Visible specters visit less frequently since the Friends of Highgate group began the cleanup and restoration. But you'll find that in London, ghosts never really leave for any significant length of time. Highgate Cemetery, one of the most haunted places in one of the most haunted cities in the world.

October Haunting - Waverly Hills Sanatorium

There is always something eerie about insane asylums and historic hospitals. And haunted or not, there is something even creepier about abandoned insane asylums. But an abandoned mental institution that is also notoriously haunted? Now that takes the cake.

The Waverly Hills Sanatorium located in Louisville, Kentucky was built in 1910 specifically to quarantine and treat patients suffering from tuberculosis (an infectious pulmonary disease that affects the lungs and causes the patient to feel fatigued, run a fever and cough up blood.) Until it closed permanently in 1961, Waverly Hills was Louisville's primary treatment facility for early and advanced cases of tuberculosis. And in the fifty-one years it was operating, the sanatorium saw as many as 63,000 deaths.

The Waverlie Hills 'death shute'.
This allowed the bodies of
people to be removed without
being seen.

Other than the high number of alleged deaths, there are a number of factors and legends that make Waverly Hills Sanatorium a prime location for a haunting. As seen on an episode of the SciFi channel's hit series "Ghost Hunters", there exists a tunnel that was built in 1926 to enable construction workers to easily transport supplies in and out of the building. It operated this way as originally intended for several years, before someone realized that the tunnel could also be used to discretely transport the bodies of dead patients without other patients seeing. The corpses were placed in a cart and transported along a motorized rail and cable system. An untold number of bodies passed through this tunnel, and it is thus the site of many unexplained occurrences and paranormal activity. EMF detectors go haywire in the "body chute", and disembodied voices have been heard coming from down the tunnel. One of the popular legends surrounding the sanatorium concerns "the draining room", which was supposedly a room used to prepare the bodies for lighter and easier transport through the death tunnel. Since there was no cemetery at Waverly, and the locals were afraid of the corpses transmitting the disease through their town, the dead were hung on poles to drain them of all body fluids. Despite extensive paranormal activity witnessed time and again by various ghost hunters, and the presence of eight large spear-headed poles in the draining room, this legend has been touted as false by skeptics who state the quadrant operated only as the transformer room.

There were also allegations of severe abuse at the hands of the hospital staff, accounts of patients being grossly neglected or mistreated. An electroshock machine, a controversial method typically used to treat psychological disorders was implemented to treat the physical symptoms of tuberculosis. One of the procedures used to treat the disease was called pneumothorax, which involved deflating the infected area of the lung and then letting it heal. Another option was thoracoplasty, which involved opening up the chest and removing several ribs. The idea was that this would allow the lungs more room to expand and take in more oxygen. Only 5% of patients survived this bloody, invasive procedure. Some doctors were accused of performing highly unprofessional experiments on patients who were "going to die anyway". Other than the usual flickering of lights, slamming doors, mysterious footsteps and various noises and voices, other haunted tales of the sanatorium include visitors seeing a young girl running up and down the solarium on the third floor along with a boy who chases a ball, a hearse that drops off coffins at the back door, and an elderly woman who runs around with bleeding wrists, begging and screaming for help.

The alleged true photograph of a ghost who died of TB.

The most popular story, however, is the legend of Room 502, where a nurse named Mary Hillenburg allegedly hung herself from the doorway there in 1928 after discovering she had become pregnant out of wedlock. A variation of the story holds that she was actually impregnated by one of the (married) doctors working at the sanatorium at the time. The doctor apparently attempted an abortion that went awry and Mary died. To cover his tracks, he made it look as though she took her own life. Another nurse supposedly committed suicide by flinging herself off the roof. Either way, the experiences and sightings that have taken place at Waverly Hill Sanatorium over the years have made it one of the top five haunted locations in the United States. Here is some of the evidence that has been collected in the forty years since the hospital closed its doors -- at least to the living.

October Haunting - Unit 731 Experimentation Camp‏

“It is called the Asian Auschwitz and, in terms of inhumanity and horror, it certainly warrants this description. Yet there remains a fundamental difference with the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against Jews: While Germany has shown deep contrition and remorse, the leaders the country that spawned the evil of Unit 731 still struggle to come to grips with what occurred . . .  In the end at least 3,000 prisoners, mainly Chinese, were killed directly, with a further 250,000 Chinese left to die through the biological warfare experiments.”

In the gruesome world of Unit 731 the unthinkable was done on a daily basis. Prisoners, mostly taken in Japan’s conquest of Manchuria at the beginning of WWII, were subjected to unimaginable horrors. They were infected with diseases such as anthrax, cholera and even bubonic plague. To gauge the effect of these diseases on their subjects – whom they dehumanized by calling them “logs” – live, un-anesthetized vivisection was performed. In many cases the subjects would regain consciousness while the dissection was taking place.

Whole towns and villages were decimated by the ghoulish doctors and researchers of Unit 731 and the effects of their horrible crimes still resonate there to this day.

Parts of the Unit 731 complex still remain – there are buildings where frostbite experiments were performed, courtyards and open areas where prisoners were subjected to live bombs detonated at close range to enable researchers to evaluate the effect of explosives of the sort that Japanese soldiers were encountering in the fields. Other buildings where live human vivisections took place overlook the prisoner holding area and the long-unused railway station where the “logs” were offloaded for their horrible fate.


The Chinese government sanctioned the Unit and the surrounding area as a learning center for future generations of Chinese, and just recently visitors from the West have been allowed access to the killing fields at Harbin. But for many years there have been reports of paranormal activity associated with the old charnel houses: ghost lights and apparitions are frequently seen, including a ghostly figure that walks the empty precincts surrounding the frostbite units. Ghostly voices have been heard and anomalies frequently appear in photographs taken in the area. Recently, during the filming of a BBC television documentary, the English film crew experienced unexplainable problems with their lights and batteries – often a sure sign of ghostly activity. Many speculate that as the story of Unit 731 is more widely told, the ghosts of those tragically tormented and murdered there are becoming more and more active, and more anxious for justice than ever before.

October Haunting - Whitechapel and Spitalfields are of East London

The Whitechapel / Spittalfields area of East London has been actively settled since Roman times. Many of the historic buildings are built on the remains of old Roman settlements. Throughout the Dark and Middle Ages, the East End was a burgeoning commerce area, mostly inhabited by Anglos and Jewish moneylenders. In Elizabethan times the East End looked and smelled like something right out of one of Shakespeare’s history plays, and, in fact, the character of Falstaff (Henry V) is said to have been based on an innkeeper from the notorious East End. It was a place of soldiers and prostitutes, brawls and bawdy houses.

The coming of high Victorian morals did nothing to dull this seedy reputation and the Whitechapel / Spittalfields area, while known to humanitarians for its extreme poverty, was also known to all as the home of thieves, prostitutes, and the most derelict of English society.

In 1888 the Whitechapel area of London was the scene of some of the most brutal murders ever recorded: the famous Jack the Ripper crimes. Yet the murders – and the identity of Jack – remain unsolved, even today. Many assert that the killer was a doctor or was somehow connected to the medical profession; others believe the killer to have been Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, though nothing substantial has ever arisen to support the theory.

A letter written by Jack the Ripper

Five women, all of them poor prostitutes, were slaughtered by the mysterious Jack in the span of just four months, known collectively as “The Autumn of Terror.” Four of the women – Mary Nicholls, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes – were found in various streets and alleys throughout Whitechapel horribly disfigured and mutilated. The fifth – Mary Kelly – was the only victim murdered in an interior location; as such she was the most horribly mutilated, the death scene like something from a slaughterhouse.

Artist's rendition of Jack's ghost

Jack the Ripper enjoyed a brief career as London’s most infamous serial murder and the fact that he was never caught still adds to the mystery surrounding him. Nevertheless, it is thought that his horrible mutilation of Mary Kelly was his last act of violence and there is no evidence that Jack, whoever he may have been, killed again after November 1888.

Today visitors to London’s East End can walk the streets that Jack prowled and visit pubs and other locations he may have haunted in life – and death. Walking tours of the area are very popular and although Jack’s legacy is certainly the most enduring, other ghosts that haunt the East End are those of Jack’s victims, in various stages of mutilation; a ghostly band of Roman soldiers; a murderous sea captain’s ghost that haunts a local pub; and a mysterious black carriage drawn by ghastly white horses that approaches without a sound and disappears right before your eyes. These and other haunts, combined with the long haunted history of the East End make it one of the must visit ghostly locations in the world.

October Haunting - The Empire of the Dead

The sign reads:
"HALT! This is the Empire of the Dead!"

Haunting places are all around us; we hear voices, see apparitions and get cold chills. These forms of a haunting are normally associated with a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere or the thousands of cemeteries where thousands of souls have come to rest. Therefore, to assume that a "house", cemetery and a middle of nowhere underground area would have unimaginable haunting, creepiness and just plain scary feelings, is putting it mildly.

Cemeteries have always been the hangout for those who seek adventure as well as those who have zero respect with desecrating the final resting place of loved ones. The thought of disturbing a grave is quite chilling as well as taboo in many cultures. In fact, it is considered a sin and a sign of future curses for many societies, which brings the question to mind, what were the builders of the catacombs in Paris thinking as they built wall after wall of human bones?

Under the city of Paris lies 300 kilometers of interweaving caves and tunnels dating back to 60 B.C.E. when the Romans begin digging up the exposed limestone. The only problem was the more the dug, the weaker the cities land became up until the eighteenth century when the weight of constructed buildings were collapsing into the hollow ground below. In 1777 it was determined the tunnels below the city were to dangerous to continue building atop them and a decision had to be made of either closing sections off or filling them in. At the same time the Parisians were also experiencing an overflow of the graveyards with over thirty generations of buried remains, the cemeteries were becoming to full for the burial of future generations.

Families were paying the priests to bury their deceased in the church cemeteries, the priests not wanting to refuse the money continued to arrange for the deceased to be buried in overflowing cemeteries. Over time, the priests opted for the construction of a house of sorts for the dead, known as Charnier or mass grave where the deceased remains continued to accumulate. Over time, the city grew, as did the cemeteries, to the point of the ground being well over ten feet above the streets. The odor was horrendous as well as the townspeople experienced many bodies falling into the streets due to broken walls from the weight of the bodies. The residents began dying from the disease of the corpses known as pestilence, which meant more bodies and nowhere to bury them.

With no relief in sight for the increased amount of human remains, the Catacombs were created in 1785. They began with the emptying of one cemetery and relocating their bones to the maze of hallowed out tunnels, which solved two problems at once, filling in the tunnels and making room in the cemeteries. Each quarry of tunnels would soon have supporting walls built of human bones; the first was called "Carnere de la Tombe Issoire.

Behind the entrance sign that reads "Here begins the Empire of the Dead" there are bones of approximately more than six million humans stored, stacked and "walled" in various sections of the catacombs. Walls expand from six to eight feet in height with human skulls and bones designed with ornate and elaborate designs of crosses, hearts and other unique designs.

The sections of the tunnels vary greatly in the shape of the sections as well as the intricate designs made of bones. Some areas have the bones stacked on the floors in piles requiring anyone who enters to walk and/or crawl on the remains of thousands upon thousands of those discarded to the tunnels. The remains were "dumped" through a 20-meter hole as workers moved, stacked and rearranged in an attempt to provide somewhat dignity to those who were sent to the afterlife of tunnels. One would have to imagine the designs and gentle stacking in various parts were the workers way to pay respect to the bones owners by creating beautiful works of art out of their remains.

Throughout the Catacombs are markers to signify the cemetery in which the bones were transported from as well as the date in which they were moved. The earliest placed marker was dated 1785 and the latest dated 1859. This is the last marking and it is not known if there were later "deposits" making the underground area of Paris streets stocked with a minimum of seven decades of human remains.

There are only a few sections that are open to the public for tours, however, there are numerous passageways and "secret" entrances into the areas outside of the usual tourist tours. Though many have come through the tunnels and said a silent prayer for the unknown owners of the bones used in historical architecture, there have also been those who among the secret passages, floors of bones and walls of skulls were areas for cults to gather and societies to speak to the dead. There were many nighttime torch lit fantasy parties organized by the Count of Artois where he created hell on earth. The tunnels were also a well-hid hiding spot for members of the resistance during WWII to avoid detection of the Nazis.

There are no names given to the deceased, no recognition of status and no birth or death date. There are murderers from during the French revolution and German soldiers combined in one chamber. While another may have the wealthy with the poor, a killer with victims or the old with young. One would be hard pressed not have a haunting encounter while in the tunnels. The Catacombs are most definitely for the faint of heart as many visitors have reported to hear voices, be touched and on occasion feel as though they were being strangled. It would actually be surprising to not hear of cold spots, whispers and touching from an area where millions of souls were left unnamed and called upon by those delving into the unknown. There have been instances where tourists unaware of what were ahead of them entered only briefly and left quickly swearing to never return. For those seeking an unforgettable journey into one of the most haunted places in the world, be prepared to trek through puddles of mud, water and crawl upon the bones of unknown souls.

Ocotober Haunting - Rookwood Cemetery

Victorian Rookwood necropolis in Sydney, but it is the grave of the notorious Davenport Brothers, famous spiritualists. Rookwood Cemetery (officially named The Necropolis and named when it opened as The Necropolis, Haslams Creek.) is the largest multicultural necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, close to Lidcombe Station in Sydney, Australia. It is also thought to be home to one of the lost or hidden gates to hell.


Located in this huge cemetery is also one of the many Devil's chairs. a supposed seat where the Devil is said to appear sitting on when someone wishes to make a deal with him. the actual cemetery is said to have several Devil Chairs and one special wishing bench.


The wishing bench of Rookwood is said to be very special and if you sit and pray on it your prayers will be heard in heaven and answered immediately. There is also an old tale that tells that between midnight to 3am An angel appears and sits on it. They say this is to ward off and guard it against the devils from hell that would come to destroy it.

The name Rookwood came some 20 years after the establishment of the actual great necropolis, it was a means to differentiate the local village of Haslams Creek from the association of the burial ground, the village changed its name to Rookwood, and naturally the cemetery was soon known as Rookwood, the village changed its name again in the early 20th Century to "Lidcombe" (a combination of two Mayors names, Lidbury and Larcombe - Larcombe was also a Monumental Stone Mason). The actual haunted cemetery retained the name Rookwood.

Approximately one million people have their final resting place within the boundaries of its almost 3 km². The "Friends of Rookwood Inc" raise public awareness of the cultural and historical value of the cemetery and also the need to ensure its preservation.

Some older sections of Rookwood are overgrown with a riot of plants, early horticultural plants, some now large trees or groves, as well as an interesting array of remnant indigenous flora. This results in quite an eclectic mix of flora to be found within the necropolis. Many say that since so many are interred here it can't just help being one of the most haunted places where the dead are buried.

Many ghost photos, EVP's and actual documenting of what many call the most real encounters of actual paranormal activity in the world occur here daily. Many say that the ghost are more restless here in this down under haunted city of the dead then any other location documented.