From the true story behind The Conjuring to the murders that inspired The Amityville Horror, these real ghost stories might make even the skeptics believe in the paranormal.
Not everybody believes that there are real ghost stories buried in the annals of history. Skeptics are confident that there’s an absolute separation between the realms of the living and the dead.
On the other hand, most people also know someone who has had an experience that they can’t fully explain. The list of these kinds of accounts across history is staggering, though there’s also little scientific proof to back them up.
But whether or not you are a believer, these 11 ghost stories will undoubtedly leave you unnerved.
YouTubeThe real ghost story that helped inspire The Conjuring 2, the Enfield haunting shocked London in the late 1970s.
From the real-life Stanley Hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining, to the apparitions of enslaved people wandering the Myrtles Plantation, these true ghost stories may even have you reconsidering what you think you know.
The Real Ghost Story Of Kate Morgan, The Beautiful Stranger
Wikimedia CommonsKate Morgan, otherwise known as the “beautiful stranger.”
It was 1892 and Kate Morgan was a grown and capable 24-year-old woman. According to California’s notorious Hotel del Coronado, she checked in to the resort on Thanksgiving Day.
Some say she never checked out.
Employees recalled that Morgan said she was waiting for a gentleman to join her. After five days as a guest, the ghost story goes, nobody showed and Morgan shot herself in the head. While nothing was found at the scene to identify her, police telegraphed her description to authorities around the country.
The media dubbed her the “beautiful stranger” for her description and it was soon discovered she had an estranged husband. Her gentleman caller, it was presumed, was a lover. Morgan was also reportedly pregnant when she killed herself.
FlickrThe Hotel del Coronado where Kate Morgan committed suicide.
Before her suicide, Morgan worked as a household caretaker in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. During her travel to the hotel, onlookers saw her verbally spar with an unidentified male. He got off mid-route and abandoned her, leaving Morgan melancholy upon her arrival.
Though unclear whether this figure was her husband or not, Morgan sorrowfully wandered into town and procured a pistol.
According to Beautiful Stranger: The Ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel del Coronado, there’s no shortage of people who’ve reported paranormal activity in the hotel.
Guests have experienced flickering lights, a rogue television, and a change in temperature that appears out of nowhere and vanishes just as inexplicably. Doors have opened and shut on their own, footsteps and voices have been heard but no people have been seen.
Because human curiosity knows no bounds, Morgan’s room has been the most requested room of them all at the hotel. Even a group of independent paranormal researchers stayed there to document the so-called hauntings.
The team employed infrared cameras, night vision goggles, radiation sensors, indicators for toxic chemicals, microwave imaging systems, and high-frequency sound detectors.
Though Morgan stayed in Room 3327 (formerly 302), her apparition has appeared elsewhere. There have been several sightings in room 3519 (formerly 3502 and intended for maids), for instance. Guests have reported objects moving independently. Stranger still, the hotel owner’s mistress also killed herself at the resort after discovering she was pregnant.
Of course, countless guests had already reported seeing her, both in the hallways and by the beach.
The hotel gift shop, too, has seen unexplained phenomena, with items flying off shelves and often landing right-side up. Ultimately, it’s unclear what exactly is going on at the hotel. An elaborate ruse by management? Buyer’s remorse on behalf of guests? Or, possibly, real paranormal activity in plain sight.
Conjuring Up Real Ghost Stories With Ed And Lorraine Warren
YouTubeThe notorious Perron house, where the Warrens investigated the family’s reports of demons.
James Wan’s 2013 horror film The Conjuring introduced mainstream audiences to the “true story” of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren and their horrifying experience with the Perron family.
The true ghost story, though, may be even scarier than the film.
According to USA Today, Lorraine Warren consulted on the movie and was adamant that it was true to what happened to her and the Perron family.
“The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening,” she said. “It still affects me to talk about it today.”
Neurologist Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society, however, investigated the couple and is convinced they fabricated the whole thing. “The Warrens are good at telling ghost stories,” he simply stated.
Getty ImagesEd and Lorraine Warren are paranormal investigators whose cases have inspired movies such as The Conjuring, The Amityville Horror, and Annabelle.
The Perron’s alleged haunting began in January 1971 when they moved into their new farmhouse, built in 1736, in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Carolyn and Roger Perron and their five daughters began to notice strange occurrences almost immediately.
Oddly enough, they continued to live there for nine years.
Andrea Perron was 12 years old at the time and claimed the film was “a beautiful tapestry” with “many elements of truth to it, and some moments of fiction.” Little did the Perron family know that the 200-acre home was said to have once been inhabited by a woman named Bathsheba Thayer and her four children, three of whom died young.
The town labeled Thayer a satanist who allegedly hanged herself from a tree in the backyard, and the Perrons were allegedly attacked by her spirit. Some of these incidents were harmless. Some claim she never lived there at all.
Other incidents on the property, however, were fairly violent.
The Perron children allegedly played and did chores with some of the spirits. Thayer’s ghost was not as friendly. She purportedly moved furniture to scare the new tenants, appeared fully at times, and as depicted in the film, haunted the family’s matriarch most of all. Carolyn Perron was allegedly pinched and forcefully slapped by Thayer’s ghost.
“Whoever the spirit was, she perceived herself to be mistress of the house and she resented the competition my mother posed for that position,” said Andrea Perron.
The Warrens were hired to help in 1974, but the Perrons eventually asked them to leave after Carolyn Perron became temporarily possessed. Her daughter allegedly witnessed this first-hand.
“I thought I was going to pass out,” she said. “My mother began to speak a language not of this world in a voice not her own. Her chair levitated and she was thrown across the room. Both my mother and I would just as soon swallow our tongue than tell a lie. People are free to believe whatever they want to believe. But I know what we experienced.”
The so-called “Conjuring House” where the Perron’s experienced the paranormal has recently been bought by two new owners. The fearless couple said they haven’t felt anything “evil” in the house, though it is certainly “busy.”
