Page 71 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

Top 10 Most Famous Ghosts 71

Top 10 Most Famous

Ghosts

by Benjamin Radford

Ghosts are both everywhere and nowhere. They
are famously elusive when it comes to proving
they exist, yet ghosts feature prominently in our
culture. They are in television and film, from
"Medium" to "The Sixth Sense." Ghost stories
are found around campfires and on bookstore
shelves, in both fiction and nonfiction sections.
Around Halloween, pop-culture images of
ghosts haunt nearly every store, and hang as
decoration in homes across the country.

Ghosts even influence some of our everyday
customs, in ways we may not recognize (for
example, the "bless you" heard after someone tormented by a ghost that made terrifying their scared reflection in the dark mirror or lose
sneezes comes from an ancient belief that ghosts sounds, shook the house, and physically their nerve after saying the second "Bloody
can enter the body during a sneeze). Here are attacked Bell's daughter Betsy. The spectral Mary" and run screaming from the bathroom in
some of the most famous ghosts of all time. assaults continued for several years, and at one girlish giggles. An updated version of the
point Andrew Jackson is said to have dabbled in Bloody Mary legend was made into a horror
King Hamlet ghost hunting and did his own investigation. film series "Candyman."

Though ghosts appear in several of Though some authors recount the Bell Witch The Drury Lane Ghost
Shakespeare's plays (such as "MacBeth" and tale as a true account, there is little evidence that
"Julius Caesar"), King Hamlet is among the it is anything other than a ghost story. Jackson, There are many theaters in the Covent Gardens
better known of the Bard's ghosts and plays an for example, never mentioned the Bell Witch district in London's West End. Plays have been
integral part in "Hamlet." Hamlet may be the case at all; it seems that the future president's produced in that area for over 300 years, and
central character in the play named after him, role was created from thin air, possibly to lend some of the world's greatest actors have
but without his father's ghost, there would be no verisimilitude (the appearance of reality) to the appeared there. Yet one theater is better known
story. fictional tale. more for its ghost than its productions.

King Hamlet appears three times in the play, Casper There is actually more than one ghost said to
each time during the night (apparently ghosts, haunt Drury Lane's halls and wings, including
like vampires, prefer darkness). The ghost tells While Bloody Mary spends her time in the those of several actors. The most famous,
Hamlet that he was murdered by his treacherous ghostly realms waiting to be summoned to dark however, is a "Man in Grey" seen as a nobleman
brother Claudius, and asks Hamlet to avenge his bathrooms so she can scare kids, Casper (whose carrying a sword. Any theater worth its salt (and
death. legal last name is "The Friendly Ghost") is the many that aren't) reputedly have a resident ghost
white-outlined, smiling ghost who tries not to treading the boards, and the Drury Lane ghosts
The Flying Dutchman scare people. carry on their part of theater tradition.

The Flying Dutchman, the world's best-known In the Harvey comic book series, Casper was The Vanishing Hitchhiker
non-human ghost, is a seventeenth-century often joined by friends such as Wendy the Good
merchant ship said to haunt the high seas. Little Witch and Hot Stuff the Little Devil. "This didn't happen to me, but my friend, she
According to sea lore, the ship, which often While some found the idea of a dead child's heard it from her hairdresser, it happened to her
appears as a hazy image or a strange light, is said ghost hanging around with a witch and a devil a parents. It seems that they were driving along a
to be a portent of bad luck and doom. bit creepy, the characters were made benign and lonely country road one night — it was really
kid-friendly with the addition of "good," cold, maybe up in Minnesota, or Montana.

The ship and its crew became eternally cursed "friendly," and "little" to their names. Casper Anyway, it was snowing and as they turned a
when its Dutch captain refused to take safe had a revival of sorts with a self-titled 1995 film, corner they saw a barefoot young girl wearing a
harbor during a storm despite pleas from the a modest success that managed to avoid the dress and a green shawl. Of course they stopped
crew and passengers. Instead the impudent direct-to-video graveyard. to help her, and she got in the back seat. She
Dutchman challenged God to take them down. didn't say much, and when they asked her where
The "ghost ship" has been reported on the ocean Bloody Mary she lived, she pointed to a farmhouse in the
from time to time, including appearing off the distance. A few minutes later, when they pulled
coast of South Africa in 1923. Though never "Bloody Mary...Bloody Mary...Bloody Mary..." into the driveway, she was gone!
seen on land, The Flying Dutchman most With those words, many schoolchildren had
recently appeared in movie theaters across the their first experience with a ghost. According to The couple were puzzled but got out of the car
country in the"Pirates of the Caribbean" films. folklore, Bloody Mary is a ghost of a woman and knocked on the farmhouse door. A somber,
who murdered her children long ago. If you grey-haired woman answered, and the couple
The Bell Witch want to see her, go into a bathroom (usually at explained that their mysterious passenger had
school), turn the lights off, stand in front of a said this was her house. 'That's impossible,' the
The events that allegedly happened at John mirror, and repeat her name three times. woman replied. 'My daughter died near here
Bell's Tennessee farm between 1817 and 1821 twenty years ago, on this very night.' Just inside
are said to be one of the classic American ghost While countless children (and surely more than the door, on an old wooden peg, hung her
tales. Bell shot at a strange animal on his farm, a few adults) have tried to summon Bloody daughter's green shawl!"
but the creature disappeared before it could be Mary using the prescribed method, to date few if
harmed. Several weeks later, the Bell family was any have actually succeeded. Most either stare at (Continued on Page 72)