Spooky Media

Note that the ".gov" in the url indicates this is an official government site. It provides a listing of NPS sites that include "ghost towns" and other abandoned sites.

via the White House Historical Association. According to the website's "About" page, "The White House Historical Association is a private, nonprofit, educational organization with a mission to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the Executive Mansion."

A blog post from the National Conservation Association. This organization is described in its Wikipedia entry as: an "independent, nonpartisan membership organization devoted exclusively to advocacy on behalf of the National Parks System."

On behalf of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (sponsored content provided via Smithsonian Magazine), a description of various patents that begins: "History shows that taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive, has some degree of merit, albeit a small one."

No. 371,626. Patented Oct. 18, l887. by C. REDL, Available via Google Patents (click "download pdf" to load and via a digital rendition of the original document, also known as a primary source).

Wagner, Erica. “Stephen King and Maurice Sendak’s Hansel and Gretel Is a Horror for All Ages.” The Observer (London). 2025.

Dirda, Michael. “Let’s Talk about Our Favorite Ghost Stories.” The Washington Post (Washington, D.C. 1974. Online). 2023.

Gregory, Deborah. “TALES FROM THE OTHER SIDE: Here, Just in Time for Halloween, Are Some ‘True’ Ghost Stories.” Essence. New York: Essence Communications, etc, 1992.

Bedford, Michael. “A Halloween Tale.” The American Organist. New York: American Guild of Organists, 2015.

Owens, Phoebe, and Ali Wilkinson. “Sounds Spooky: These Podcasts Bring Fun and (a Little) Fright.” School Library Journal. New York: Library Journals, LLC, 2022.

"In Episode 76 of Call Number with American Libraries, we examine what it is about the horror genre that fascinates us, sometimes repulses us, and yet keeps us coming back for more."

Catalog Description: "
When asked to tell a ghost story as a bedtime story for the collector's son, Williamson chose this one. It is not a ghost story; rather, it is a humorous account of how a wandering Traveller once came across three skeletons fighting in a graveyard, and how he then joined the fight in aid of the neediest one. The story was recorded by John Niles in the course of a house party outside Ithaca, New York, with members of the Cornell Folksong Club and other guests in attendance."

From UW Digital Collections, November, 1947: "Robert E. Gard shares the story of murder and a haunting by Wisconsin's Ridgeway Ghost."

From the catalog: "Stanley Robertson tells a Jack tale, “Jack and the Sheulichs," set "about 12 hundred years ago, up in the Highlands." The story tells of a man who is very poor, living with his family in hard times up in the hills, but who has one cow. Then his wife dies, leaving Jack with three children to bring up on his own. But when the cow then sickens and seems about to die, Jack has recourse to the sheulichs -- "strange departed spirits" -- in search of help. This is a desperate recourse to black magic on his part, and things threaten to turn out badly. The recording was made in 1986 in the sitting room of a house in St. Andrews that John Niles and his research team were renting at the time."

From the catalog: "Stanley Robertson tells a scary story of the kind that Travellers of his parents' generation would tell around the campfire when camped out by an old drove road near the village of Lumphanan. This was about 22 miles west of the city of Aberdeen, in a rural area between the rivers Dee and Don that he referred to as "Little Mesopotamia," with Biblical echoes. It was a place that easily lent itself to stories about otherworldly encounters. Robertson dates the events on which this story is based to the summer of 1941-42 or thereabouts. The recording was made at a rented house in St. Andrews, Fife, in the summer of 1988. Another voice heard on the recording is that of Stanley's daughter Gabrielle."