Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places

by Brad Steiger

In addition to rounding up the usual suspects, including the Bell Witch, Borley Rectory, the monster of Glarris Castle, and Gef, the mongoose/poltergeist on the Isle of Man, this book includes much that is new for the dedicated ghost aficionado.

Genres: Paranormal, Nonfiction, Ghosts, Horror, Ghost Stories, Supernatural, Reference

636 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Mauoijenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a huge book of all things paranormal. It covers ghosts, orbs, haunted places and has pictures. It was an interesting read for sure.

[L.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ambitious survey book of hauntings, poltergeists, spiritualism, mediumship, spirit photography and paranormal phenomena that generally fit into a ghost or spirit-related category. It is written in the tradition of Camille Flammarion's "The Unknown" Charles Lindley's "Lord Halifax's Ghost Book", and Catherine Crowe's "Night Side of Nature", in that it employs a heady mash of personal accounts, interviews, review and summary of existing literature, apocrypha, legend, folklore, controversial or disputed cases, textbook foundational paranormal cases,and new cases from the 1950's- 1990's. I call this book ambitious because it is-- Steiger is taking on the task of not only touching on the most seminal cases constantly referred to in paranormal literature (Borley Rectory, the Cock Lane Poltergeist, The Enfield Poltergeist, and Calvados Castle just to name a few), but is adding the not-yet-textbook cases that have occurred during the decades since a book of this scope has been published.

Actually, when I was trying to hit upon a book to compare it to that is more recent than those I've already listed, I really couldn't. There are a lot of great books out there, like Carrington and Fodor's "Haunted People"(1968), Stirling's "Ghosts Vivisected"(1958), both Sacheverell Sitwell and Colin Wilson's amazing survey books on poltergeist phenomena (1959 and 1969 respectively), as well as truckloads of regionally-specialized books on hauntings and like Guiley's "Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits"(1992) which seek to give small amounts of referential information in order to exhaustively name all known examples.

Steiger's book commingles the breadth of an encyclopedia with the depth of more focal books in order to come up with something both readable and grounded in the history of its own literature-- this means that voracious readers of paranormal literature like myself will enjoy it, because they will find contemporary cases in it that have not been published anywhere else-- but it also means that newcomers to the field will get a good idea of the "classic" cases and how the study of paranormal and parapsychological phenomena has changed over the years. For those who are jumping on the bandwagon because of the currently explosive popularity of this subject, this book is a good reference for the scope of phenomena and just how long people have been trying to figure out how to measure, detect, record, catalog, control, quantify, and de-mystify experiences that are actually very common and have a long history.

One thing I think this book might be criticized for by the more scientifically minded is that it does not attempt to screen out or edit the first-hand accounts in terms of how witnesses interpret phenomena. But this book isn't offering itself as a parapsychological study-- it is offering up experiences as myriad as the people who relate them. One person may interpret the cause of poltergeist phenomena as diabolical, while a researcher will attribute it to PK-- Steiger does not make it the business of the book to sway the reader's mind one way or the other, but simply to include a range of accounts as they were given to him. I admire this choice for a book of this type, because as the book itself reflects, ghosts, hauntings, spirits, and the phenomena associated with them are still part of a emotionally charged and inexact field of study. At this point it is difficult (and may always be difficult) to separate out what is folklore or fear from what is phenomena, and frankly as long as people have religious beliefs there will always be conflicting interpretations of the same facts. In this book, judgment is withheld and left to the reader, and the emphasis remains firmly on the stories themselves.

Personally, I could do without the bits about haunted celebrities, but I think that chapter is outweighed by a quite surprising theory about the link between spirit phenomena and UFO/alien contacts that Steiger puts forward in the last chapter. I am one of those people who really doesn't link the two, in fact I think it's safe to say I'm annoyed by UFOs and the whole alien abduction branch of the paranormal because I think it's purely of a physical origin. However, Steiger draws physical and psychological parallels between the two that I hadn't considered, and definitely brings up questions about how we interpret phenomena that is essentially similar in nature. As I said in a previous paragraph, a religious person might interpret poltergeist phenomena as the work of demons, while a scientist might say it is emotion directed in the form of PK, while another person might, in slighlty different circumstances, be able to assert that the intelligence behind it is not a human one but an alien one. This is difficult for me to even consider, but if I step back and think about the basic assumption behind it-- that aliens are from "outside" this world and not from the same place spirits are from, it's possible to entertain that the argument is not so much about facts but about semantics.

So, if you've made it this far through my blather, read the book... but unless you're a hardened veteran who sleeps with the lights on like me, don't read it alone at night!

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of information and excellent reading in this book. If you believe or are curious about the paranormal this is a book well worth checking out.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brad Steiger is one of the most foremost experts today on the subject of parapsychology and real ghosts.
In this volume he presents a comprehensive study of ghosts, restless spirits and haunted places, as he explores the frightening and fascinating pathway to the world of spirits and hauntings.

In the Introduction Steiger presents his own experiences with spirits and the paranormal.
The author says that he himself grew up in a house with paranormal manifestations and saw his first ghosts when he was four years old.

The positive side of the proof of spirits and the sightings are that this is evidence that there is indeed spiritual life beyond physical death.
The author covers such subjects as "Encounters with Glowing Entities and Ghost Lights", known to the Egyptians as Sun Boats and in the Jewish Bible as Merkavah (chariots).
The human spirit type may appear as orbs.

There are frightening chapters such as that on Poltergeists, "Spirit Parasites that Possesed" which includes many testimonials of spiritsd that showed malicious intent. There are other accounts of more benign spirits including some that actually helped save people's lives by warning them of danger.
I found Steiger's research into Spirit evidence to loved ones left behind, particularly fascinating. There is evidence of spirits coming to say goodbye to loved ones moments after death and spirits watching over loved ones.
There is a chapter on sightings of Jesus and Mother Mary.
One of my favourite chapters in the book is about Ghostly Encounters of Famous Men and Women".
These include the little red ghost of France that visited several French rulers including Henry IV, Louis XVI, Napoleon I, and Lois XVIII, predicting events and even advising Napoleon.
There are also accounts of the ghost that haunted the house of Joan Crawford, how the Beatles contacted their deceased manager, and how the a visit from Barbara Streisand's deceased father encouraged her to film Yentl.

There is chapter on Animal Ghosts and the evidence that pets do indeed have souls. M Jean Holmes in her book "Do Dogs Go to Heaven" argues that an examination of the original Hebrew texts for concepts such as 'soul' and 'spirit' reveals that the authors of various books of the Bible believe that animals have souls and spirits just as humans do.
This chapter provides accounts of animal haunting's and several photographs seemingly showing animal spirits.

The author provides repeated witness of the ghosts of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Katherine Howard, Jane Seymour, Elizabeth I, George III, and various other nobility in haunted palaces and castles.

But most of the seemingly real stories are those of ordinary people and their encounters with a variety of hauntings and ghostly phenomena.
This is one of the more comprehensive books on the subjects and Steiger makes a convincing case of his hypothesis.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was based on interviews, paranormal investigations, and one-to-one correspondence with the people involved in said activity. (Along with, naturally, the opinions, gossip, and heresy of others).

I did enjoy the way the book was divided into separate sections for each type of paranormal activity, from spirit possession, to glowing orbs. Some sections/stories were much more plausible than others, of course. The book included a lengthy section on the notorious Bell Witch, as well as locations that are most notable for their hauntings. I have to say that the one section that seriously disturbed me the first time I read it was "Spirit Parasites That Possessed": even if these were entirely fictitious in nature, they were deeply chilling (particularly since they usually involve young children as the victims).

Overall, an interesting book, better read in sections, as the overall tone comes off as a bit dull in some of the sections. A "clinical" look at some of the ghostly phenomenon, without anything added except for the basic "facts", and storytelling.

[Sabrina Rutter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book to own about real life paranormal activity! It has some really terrifying stories so don't read this if you sleep alone at night!

[Andrew ✝️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Friendly warning: my review, although not completely filled with it, contains religious statements. If you're not religious, this may not be your cup of tea.

As a Catholic, I couldn't believe the blasphemy on page 177 where a man named Jack recalls the author of this book telling him to pray to his guardian angel (AKA spirit protector). I'm all for paranormal stuff, but the idea of a guardian angel is not biblical. The prayer is written off as simply a "ritual" even though one of the last words you're supposed to recite is 'amen.' Just no.

Some of the stories were believable, some were a little hard to believe, and some where so out there that I was already adamant within a first paragraph that it was completely made up. Like when on pages 191-192, there's a story about an allegedly good spirit briefly possessing a young girl. The father wanted proof from this "good spirit" of its existence, so he asked repeatedly for that proof and there were suddenly large amounts of water falling from the ceiling, leaving him soaked. This inexplicably-appearing water, dozens of pounds worth, somehow did not make the floor cave in on the apartment beneath it. This "good spirit" also caused the ceiling to be permanently painted with a stars and planets design without first making a trip to Menards. It "reportedly" resisted several coats of paint which some priest randomly had at the ready. Hmm.

I have a hard time believing what I read on pg 197.

"After the spirit had adjusted to existence in the afterlife, however, religious concepts evolve into matters of little or no importance."

Yeah, no. That's not Heaven. Heaven (in the Jewish perspective) is a completely religious place since G-d only there. It is His dwelling place. There are some other (as I would call them) non-Biblical ideas therein, but I didn't make a list of them. Instead, I'll just say that what's described on the page mentioned in this paragraph is something completely different and therefore I cannot personally support it, but to each their own.

There were also some confusing parts. Like a little girl named Daisy apparently said the "other side" is much like "this side," but when asked to explain further, she said that it's "too different to explain." Hmm... My fiancé said it perfectly: what it says about sound is completely false. This book purports that spirits talk with their minds and never with their mouth.

One story in this book comes from Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Lodge surrounding a photograph that 2 separate mediums allegedly told them about. Apparently, the Mr. published a book in 1933 about theories of ether even though they were disproved by Einstein's work of relativity in 1905. The description of Oliver's book, "My Philosophy: My Views on the Many Functions of the Ether of Space" is the following:

•"In his study of optics, Newton postulated that light, like sound, must be carried through a medium, and that this medium must exist even in a vacuum. By the late nineteenth century, this theoretical substance was known as the luminiferous ether; but the ether theory faced several problems. If the earth moved through Ether, there would be ether wind, and light traveling against the flow would move more slowly than light traveling with it. That was soon disproven. Nor could the ether be stationary; by 1905, Einstein's work on relativity had disproven absolute motion. In this fascinating advocacy of ether, first published in 1933, Sir Oliver Lodge (1851 – 1940) fiercely defends ether against the new physics, arguing for solid models over mathematical abstractions, and urging new ether experiments. With in-depth references to Einstein, Jeans, and Eddington, this book is still relevant to students in the history of science."

I am not sure what I personally think of Mr. and Mrs. Lodge's picture story, but I am hesitant, partly because of it being included in a book with a number of hard-to-believe stories. Like a ghost girl who allegedly becomes a touchable entity. This is impossible even if you believe in the paranormal. The only way she could have achieved physicality is if she received resurrection. Also, if Oliver's theory about ether is "disproven," how much validity can his story have?

Page 242 includes an idea that at the time of death, the experience of the afterlife is merely psychological, not actually happening, and brings forth experiences involving one's inner most desires. I'm afraid not. Being religious, I obviously do not, have not, and will never buy that. Some people have impeccable libidos even if they're NOT teenagers or in their early to mid 20s, and therefore if this idea were true, their "experience" would probably involve sexual intercourse. I'm just gonna leave that here....

For some reason, the pictures placed sporadically throughout this are sometimes random and not relevant to the story with which it appears. Sometimes, I was surprised to see that one was fitting to the chapter or story at hand. Unfortunately, the first picture in the chapter on Mediums (ch 11) claims to be proof of a medium being in a trance because of the blood that "did exude from the mouth." It looks somewhat like food coloring from a fake pill. A lot of the pictures are not clear enough to discern whether or not they're real. Paranormal tampering... or merely convenient? One picture where the caption alleges that ectoplasm was issuing from the lady's mouth almost looks like it's been badly edited with Microsoft Paint. Another one claims to be a photo of a spirit materializing with the help of the medium. It looks like a badly created life-size doll, unfortunately. Also: there were pictures mentioned that never appear within 578 pages that would've been so helpful and interesting to see.

The final chapter on aliens was bizarre and I don't buy the idea that some of our actions are basically inter-dimensional beings pulling strings... However, I will say that the idea that UFOs are piloted by inter-dimensional beings makes much more sense to me than the idea floating around on the internet that aliens are our human descendants from the future (insert that meme of God at a council meeting and picture God introducing another species of human that looks like the aliens in Whitley Streiber's "Communion" and someone saying "modern humans were better" before being thrown out of a building, right here )...

I found the book to be misleading about external works only once. It mentions that Diane Kennedy Pike wrote a book called "The Other Side" and Steiger claims its strictly about the paranormal as it relates to her son. Steiger admitted only that her husband, Bishop James A. Pike helped her write it, but omitted that it is simultaneously an account of them trying to save their son from psychedelic drugs. I'm not sure why the compiler only gave a partial description aside from it contributing to this compilation's overall narrative, but the other part of that book brings into question the "truth" of the version of the Pike's story. Just being honest.

My final critiques are in this paragraph. This book has quite a few grammatical errors. To be fair, sometimes it was Steiger inserting complete quotes from other people, and therefore their grammar is not his responsibility. This is something of a non-fic, so it doesn't really matter. It doesn't affect my rating. It can just sometimes get in the way of the story-telling. Make no mistake. I'm a believer in the paranormal. I just have a hard time believing most of this book.

Not everything I have to say about this book is critical commentary, though. I literally laughed out loud when I read that when Maurice Barnabell asked a spirit through a medium for someone's location, the spirit was nice enough to provide a full address. At another time, a ghost is said to have slapped a woman across the face and left 3 red welts. I sadly laughed out loud.

The end of Chapter 10 brought to my attention the past existence of a priest named Father Frederick William Faber. He allegedly appeared to a woman who went to school with one of his descendants. I was interested to learn that he wrote three hymns; "The Shadow of the Rock," The Eternal Father," and "Sweet Savior, Bless Us Ere We Go." Sadly, I only found the last one on YouTube, but it sounds nice. This book is also loaded with internet links and sadly, only a couple of them have survived the last 15 years. Most of the still-active websites, I bookmarked

I am going to give this entire book 3 stars. It finally joins my 'read' folder after being yet another victim of my reader's fatigue. Despite every paragraph of critical commentary, I have to admit that the picture of a ghost in a car on pg 506 gives me the chills and is one of the most convincing photos of paranormal activity I've ever seen. It leads me to believe that some of the stories in this book might actually be true...

[Dianna (SavingsInSeconds blog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a huge book -- tremendously full of paranormal stories. I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book. The final sections were too bizarre to take seriously. Many of the stories in this book could easily be found on the internet, especially the last list of briefly described phenomenon organized by city/state. Still, it was entertaining! I liked the first-hand accounts most of all.

[Dena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is a really fun read. I just really enjoy ghost stories, and this one is fun because the stories are alledgedly "real". It is obvious that a lot of the stories are hoaxes and such, however, I really love to convince myself that there is a bit of mystery left in the world, and so I don't really spend time worrying what is real and what is not. It is just fun to get a little bit freaked out.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been drawn to the paranormal, this book was very enjoyable. Ever since I can remember,The "Borley Rectory" has been my favourite haunted spot - the accounts are recorded so well in this book along with many others.

I recommend this book most definitely to anyone interested in the "other worlds"

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fun! A great read! Amazing stories!

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book about the supernatural!

[Fionnuala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this randomly in a massive second-hand bookshop and from the cover I knew this would be the kind of thing I'm always searching for. Growing up, I was obsessed with all things paranormal (still am!) and I loved the massive collections of true hauntings I could find at my local library. I'd check out one in particular over and over again, the title of which is unfortunately lost to me now, but it was jam-packed with famous hauntings and it had loads of illustrations and photographs. It scared the hell out of me and I loved it. This book had the exact same vibes, just for adults rather than children.

I enjoyed the tone of this book; it wasn't sensationalist or cheesy, as some books about true hauntings can be. You know, dramatic comments and trailing of with stuff like or is it...? Does my head in, so I appreciated the academic tone of this book. Even so, there's still great storytelling in here, and while it's an academic look at the hauntings and focuses just as heavily on theories and investigation, it's still compellingly readable. Stories are retold in a clear, compelling manner, and there's definitely the feel of a good ghost story in all of them. Other stories are reprinted from first-hand accounts, and all of these have the same feel: confident, interesting, balanced. These are truly unexplained events, where other options have been considered and found wanting. I'm a firm believer that paranormal events are manifestations of something we don't quite understand yet; our science hasn't quite got that far, in the same way as we used to puzzle over everything from thunderstorms to tides to the Earth's orbit. I think, when assessing something potentially paranormal, it's important to look at all known science first. Even then, I myself have dozens upon dozens of things that I just cannot explain with the collective knowledge humans have at this time. It's refreshing to see a book that approaches the paranormal with this same idea, and the stories contained in this book all have that one thing in common: they cannot be explained yet.

I had only a couple of gripes. The first is that there are many stories that are vague on dates or locations, which stands out in an otherwise well-sourced book. Related to this, there are many stories that recount photographs being taken of the event in question, some of which Steiger has witnessed himself, yet these photographs are not included within the book. This also struck me as strange. And while there are many excellent photographs in this book, more often than not they have no relation to the story whose page they share, which is jarring. They are usually not elaborated on or mentioned at any other point in the book, which is also an odd choice.

The second gripe is to do with scope and outlook. There's a deep Christian-centric attitude that runs through this book that goes past simply using "demonic" and related terms as shorthand. I don't mean in terms of people telling their stories -- if prayer was what got a person through the night or protected them from an entity, that's part of the story. But all the talk in the actual theory and research parts of the book also very often came back to Christian (or at least Abhrahamic) views of the world. While the book speaks of the paranormal as a whole, it is focused entirely on Western cultures -- the US, with some from the UK and northern Europe. Combined with the emphasis on Christian interpretations, its scope is much narrower than it seems to believe itself to be. While spirituality is very important in regards to the paranormal, and religion and culture will frame our interaction with it, I don't think this book can be truly balanced if it takes into account absolutely nothing aside from white Western culture -- especially as it presents these spiritual interpretations about angels, demons, etc as fairly definitive. There are countless other angles out there that aren't being taken into account at all, and the exclusion of the majority of the rest of the world is pretty obvious throughout.

While its outlook is therefore narrower than it seems to realise, what is there is good. Going into this book with the idea that it's an account of a small slice of potentials and one specific examination will still lead to an enjoyable and informative reading experience. Not to mention that even outside of the academic aspect, the accounts in here are good -- as I said, proper ghost story vibes.

[Laura Ruetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive collection of paranormal experiences and hauntings of various types and in a variety of places. A lot of historical hauntings that are gone into in depth. For anybody interested in the paranormal, this is a good read. I would have liked more detail on some of it, but it's already a fairly hefty book but it was an excellent read.

[L8blmr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational, interesting, and entertaining. Do I buy all of it? No - but quite a bit of it is believable. The testimonials of people who experienced paranormal goings-on were convincing in their details. Good vs. evil is not just a plot device; so much of life boils down to just that, so who am I to say what forces people have witnessed/experienced?

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was an entertaining read and it was certainly well researched and had probably hundreds of stories about different types of hauntings. I find some of the stories are a bit out there and seem a lot like they had been embellished a lot to make them more exciting. Overall not a bad read though. Not sure it was all true but still not bad.

[SHS/EC Learning Commons · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect read for fall!

[Demetra Gerontakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book well worth my money. easy reading, to the point, great pictures and detailed stories. I recommend it too those interested in the paranormal.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book filled with lots of information and true experiences.

[Sophie Cimon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it a chapter at the time and I really enjoyed the short story format. Very diverse, covering all topics.

[Helen Pugsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great if you want to be scared. Not great when you're trying to learn with that brand new and exciting noise your house keeps making.

[George Nave · Rating 5 out of 5]

My perfect kind of spooky

[LuAnn · Rating 2 out of 5]

1968 version (of a now much longer book) from the days before instruments were used to measure ghostly phenomena. Intriguing though I remain skeptical.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you know me, besides true crime, you will know I love ghost stories. Especially true accounts of them. That made this the perfect book for me. I found this at a used book store in the city of Orange, California when I was visiting my friends and it was so cheap, I couldn't pass it up. With so many first person true accounts as well as descriptions of famous haunted places around the world, it was indeed an interesting read. I loved how it was broken up into sections of similar stories, so that will make it easier to go back to if I find it necessary (which I most definitely will at some point)! Brad Steiger, great job compiling this book!

[Kitap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Halloween 2014 book #4

I have enjoyed books about ghosts and the supernatural since I was a young child, but the older I get the less I tend to believe that these stories describe real events. Usually. This book is unique among all the ghost story books I have read in that it doesn't simply relate ghostly accounts with a shrug and a "judge for yourself" attitude. Instead, Steiger asserts that, based on his half-century of experience as a paranormal researcher, not only are ghosts, poltergeists and malevolent disembodied entities real, but that they also offer substantial evidence for the existence of life after death and also for the existence of an entire ecology of non-embodied intelligences. I shouldn't have been surprised, given that the book's title begins with the phrase "real ghosts", but sometimes those sorts of things are lost on me, at least initially.

While I personally prefer the suggestive ambiguity of Will Storr's ghost book, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Steiger's accounts. I was also very moved (and honestly somewhat taken aback by being so moved) at the accounts of ghosts visiting and looking after loved ones. (I thought a lot about my own family, and what I would do if I "stuck around" after shuffling off the mortal coil.) The accounts of mediums and channeling were pretty tedious and the messages of the channeled entities boiled down to vanilla and New Agey platitudes; as Terence McKenna said, "Just because they're dead doesn't mean they're smart." The majority of the other stories, though, even retellings of classic accounts such as the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, were pretty fun and occasionally creepy. Particularly in light of their possible, if improbable, implications...

[Steve Asher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a while back, I liked it so much that I keep in om my desk as I write my own now. This covers a litany of ghosts stories from all over the world. I like Steiger's no-nonsense approach. He includes many photos and always includes all the references about his works. I suggest checking out this book, best keep a light on.

[ElphaReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing about this book is that it's a collection of 'true' accounts of ghosts, hauntings, and other encounters as put together by the author, Brad Steiger. So I didn't feel too bad hopping from story to story in the sections that interested me and skipping over the sections that didn't. And unfortunately, there were a lot of sections that didn't.

I recognize that it's very hard to please me when it comes to collections of stories such as these. The books that I consider the best in this genre are SAVANNAH SHADOWS by Tobias McGriff and WEIRD HAUNTINGS by the editors of the WEIRD AMERICA series. Not to mention THE COMPLETE IDIOTS GUIDE TO GHOSTS. But I don't know what it was about this book that rubbed me the wrong way. Or at least didn't keep me intrigued.

Part of it may have been that this book still seemed to give some credibility to Amityville, and I personally feel that Amityville is a terribly overused example, especially seeing as almost all signs point to an attention whoring hoax. I also think that all the examples of hauntings from the 1600s-1800s was a bit frustrating, since records back then are, I feel, going to be a little skewed more towards the supernatural side of things. I think it was also the pacing, and the way that things were separated into lots of different sections that seemed to be unnecessarily chopped up.

That being said, there were some fascinating stories in this book that I did enjoy. So skipping around did work to my benefit.

[Big H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally, books that are compilations of "true ghost stories" are haphazardly bundled together, with no rhyme or reason, so that it gets tiresome to read the entire book. This book, happily, had sections of stories that related to one another, instead of just random story after story. It also got weirder as I went along--it started with the stereotypical haunted houses, poltergiets, ghostly hitchhikers...then it moved on to pet ghosts, automobile ghosts, alien ghosts...I sincerely enjoyed this book, and greatly encourage any fans of ghosts to read it, due to its wide variety of stories and its ease-of-reading in comparison to other true-ghost-based-books.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

some really interesting stories in this book, even though it was published in 1968 and was very dated. The authors know it all attitude was a little offputting. He seemed to think he had everything supernatural figured out.

One thing that was interesting about this book was in fact the ads for other books by the same publishing company in the back. One dealt with sex on college campuses in the new freelove era, and how scandalous it was – it's interesting to see how society has changed since 1968.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite month out of the year is Halloween and it is never a wrong time to read ghosts stories. Although it is not October yet, I still love to occasionally soak up a good tale. This book is a an accumulation of different stories that all sorts of people have experienced throughout the world. It is quite thick so it will take some time to read, but it is worth it. I highly recommend this book and think it brings something fun to the table for those that are avid lovers of the paranormal.