With Halloween around the corner, it’s a great time to discuss my theories on ghosts—and whether I believe in ghosts or not. I’ve found that generally people fall into one of three categories when it comes to the subject of ghosts:
- The Skeptics. Because of course ghosts only exist in our imaginations so we can enjoy scary stories around the campfire and our horror movie franchises. Ghost skeptics demand logic and hard evidence. A ghost story that happened to my sister’s cousin’s yoga instructor doesn’t cut it.
- The Hardcore Believers. These people have had supernatural encounters themselves, seek out accounts from others, or are just generally fascinated with ghosts. Not only do they believe, they find peak enjoyment in the mystery of the supernatural and jump at any opportunity to chat with other believers.
- The Open Yet Unsure. These people fall somewhere in the middle. The ones who aren’t jumping to believe but also aren’t ready to dismiss ghosts altogether. Folks in this category like a good thrill and would love to believe that wandering souls could exist. But do ghosts exist actually? The jury’s still out.
I definitely know which of these three categories I fall into. But to explain whether I believe in ghosts, I have to walk you through my personal encounters with the supernatural.
I’ve Visited Three Different Haunted Locations
Each place had a super interesting history behind it. Two of these haunted locales were in the United States, and one was overseas, though I didn’t seek out any of these visits on my own. One of them happened because of an old roommate. The other two happened purely by accident, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Encounter #1: Venice, Italy
If you’re aching for an incredible European experience, I can’t stress how much you need to visit Italy. The architecture, the food, and the photo ops are to die for, and I was lucky enough to visit with my world-traveler aunt after I graduated college. This was a dream come true after learning to speak Italian for two years, and it was my first time outside the U.S.
After enjoying warm, fast-paced Rome and romantic, scenic Florence, Venice was SO different. Dark and kind of dingy. Unapologetically old and labyrinthine. A tourist trap island filled with surprises and mystery while also being home to 55,000 Italian residents who hang their laundry over the canals like it ain’t no thing.
I was in love with Venice the second I saw it, and even more so when I saw the fifteenth century palazzo my aunt picked out for us to stay in, right on the canal: the Ca’Segredo Hotel. The palace was built by a noble family, and its elegant pink façade and arching windows just ooze elegance. But the second we stepped into the lobby we couldn’t help noticing how . . . ominous the place looked on the inside. My aunt commented about how dark it was in here, and this was when the front desk guy cheerfully informed us that the hotel was haunted.
Who Doesn’t Want to Sleep in Venice with the Ghosts?
For the record, my aunt had no idea about this when she booked the hotel because there’s hardly a mention of it online. But yes, guests at the Ca’Segredo have reported hearing footsteps during the night and have seen a female spirit wandering the hallways of the hotel. The clerk reassured us that sightings happen only during the winter. We were there in the spring and therefore had nothing to worry about.
Still, I admit that sleeping there was somewhat eerie. The room was gorgeous and well maintained, but I remember waking up in the dead of night and hearing all the creaking as the ancient building settled in the cool night air. I wasn’t sure then if I believe in ghosts, but it also wasn’t hard to imagine seeing wandering spirits in those halls.
Since staying in Italy, I’ve learned that haunted buildings are actually quite plentiful in Venice. It’s not particularly surprising with how old the architecture is or how spooky the atmosphere can be when you get lost in narrow alleyways full of algae and mist. It’s a pretty ghosty city, but haunted landmarks are not always in places you’d expect.
Encounter #2: Phoenix, Arizona
If you’re thinking that a sunshiny city like Phoenix is the last place you’d expect to find ghosts, I’m right there with you. The only reason I went to Phoenix was to attend a software conference for the agency I worked for at the time. My two bosses decided to bring along me and my female coworker at the last minute, and our admin quickly booked us at the only hotel in town that still had available rooms. Lucky find, right?
Well . . . we felt less lucky when we arrived at Hotel San Carlos and realized that our admin had put us in a total dive. The place looked ready to collapse at any second, and the room was musty and dark with a ridiculously narrow bathroom that we had to take turns using to get ready.
We also learned pretty quick by wandering the halls of the hotel and reading the historical placards that this place was haunted. Apparently the San Carlos was built during the Golden Age of Hollywood and had served illustrious guests like Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. But just weeks after its grand opening, a young woman jumped from the hotel roof and perished in the street below. The San Carlos has been haunted ever since.
This One Wasn’t Particularly Exciting Though
Maybe my coworker and I were just too hung up on how much our room sucked, but this hotel was way more gross than spooky. The establishment has certainly embraced its haunted history, and guests have reported seeing a woman dressed in white who stands at the foot of their beds before walking away and disappearing through their doors.
Others have reported seeing child ghosts and hearing the giggling or crying of children in various rooms of the hotel, on the roof, and in the basement. But honestly? I wonder if the hotel owners are milking the ghost stories because it’s the only way they can get anyone to stay there without a multi-million-dollar renovation. I could not get over the weird smell of this hotel. No thanks.
After Phoenix, it was Quite a While Before My Next Encounter
I did hear some interesting ghost stories during this period. An old coworker from another job claimed that he’d lived in a haunted condo for five years in Provo, Utah. Many neighbors in the complex had experienced strange occurrences, and they collectively found out that the condos were built on Native American burial grounds.
My male coworker wasn’t a believer in ghosts until things started moving around his condo. He recalled going into the kitchen for a glass of water in the middle of the night and hearing strange sounds coming from the glass jar of jelly beans on the counter. When he looked closer, he saw beans flicking themselves up to hit the glass lid. Plink . . . plink . . . Being the skeptic he was, he shrugged and went back to bed. When his fiancée eventually moved in and the haunting escalated, she was so disturbed by all the weirdness that they eventually moved.
Another coworker at that same job claimed to have encountered something supernatural out in the Nevada desert. He and a close friend attended a music festival in Las Vegas and drove home in a camper. They stopped to sleep in the middle of nowhere, and inside the locked camper my coworker saw a ghostly face look in through multiple windows. The experience was so terrifying that he didn’t ask his travel companion about it until years later. His friend saw the same thing and wondered if the face belonged to a ghost or a skin-walker. Yikes.
Then I Heard an Account from Someone I Know Well
A few years later, a close friend in my writing group moved into an old house with a set of roommates. She told me that she’d started seeing a dark figure in her room at night accompanied with pressure on her chest that made it hard to breathe. When all four roommates started having these visitations and walking down the hall to use the bathroom at night no longer felt possible, my friend made plans to move. Of all the accounts I’d heard, this one was from someone that I’d personally vouch for.
Hearing these firsthand accounts of ghosts, though deeply interesting to me, still left me feeling skeptical of whether I believe in ghosts. People always seem to experience ghost encounters at night when they’re the most likely to be groggy and disoriented. I didn’t think these people were making up their experiences, but I had to wonder if these encounters were more dream than reality. Still. I found myself both curious and open to the idea of seeing evidence of ghosts for myself.
Encounter #3: Tooele, Utah
This is my only ghost experience where I knew what I was getting into beforehand. At the time, I was living with a super fun roommate who liked to invite me on various adventures. We went western horseback riding in the Utah mountains. We attended a falconry event to watch real falconers fly their birds across a snowy field. Cool stuff like that.
On one occasion, my adventure roommate decided to go ghost hunting. There are several locations in Utah that are actively haunted, and one of them is the Benson Grist Mill in Tooele. Ghost hunters, historians, and curious people have been visiting this site for years, and people report seeing two different spirits. One is an old angry millworker. The other is a little girl named Alice who drowned on the property.
My roommate was jumping out of her skin to visit this mill with a professional ghost hunter and a group of hopefuls, and I decided to tag along. Why not find out once and for all if I believe in ghosts?
The Mill was Actually Pretty Cool
We arrived at twilight to meet our group of fifteen tourists and our ghost hunter guide. Haunted or not, the property was super historical. The mill was built in 1854 and processed wheat and corn for almost a century before shutting down. Our guide took us through each of the buildings and used a hand-held EMF sensor to pick up any ghost activity and ask the spirits yes or no questions. It was a little hokey, I admit, but the nervous energy of the group made it fun nonetheless.
Later in the tour, our guide had us disperse into smaller groups to explore. My roommate and I took an EMF sensor into the basement, which didn’t yield anything. Then we visited the mail cart at the edge of the property. This was a little trailer on wheels that once delivered mail to the mill. The two of us, the ghost guide, and another couple all sat inside to chat and see if our energy attracted any ghosts.
Then Things Got Interesting . . .
Right in the middle of our conversation, we felt the temperature in the mail cart drop. My roommate and I shared a look, and our ghost guide used his EMF sensor to ask our visitor some questions. He figured out that the spirit knew someone in the cart, and the lady sitting across from us went white as a sheet and gripped her husband’s arm. Her husband explained that his wife’s brother had died a year earlier. When our guide asked if the spirit was him, the electrical currents said yes.
The couple didn’t stay long after that since the lady was pretty freaked out, but my roommate was absolutely alight with excitement and showered our guide with questions. I didn’t know what to think about it. I couldn’t help but be skeptical about these buzzing EMF boxes, but I definitely felt the mail cart get colder. That happened for sure.
So. Do I Believe in Ghosts?
I’m gonna go with a solid maybe. I do think that spirits exist generally. I’m a religious person, so I’m open to things that can’t be explained. And I certainly believe that souls exist beyond death. Whether these souls walk the halls of old hotels or chat with nosy ghost hunters is debatable, but hey. It could happen.
I’m also enough of a skeptic to believe that most ghost encounters you hear about are greatly embellished. Probably at least half of them are made up, but ghosts are a fun and thrilling thing. I do want to believe in them. Since my visit to Benson Mill, I’ve toured the haunted vaults underneath Edinburgh, Scotland, and loved every minute of it. I hope to visit more haunted landmarks in the future.
I guess I’d put myself in the third category of whether or not I believe. I’m neither a true believer nor a hardened skeptic. Just an optimistic maybe. Because who doesn’t love to think about ghosts and hauntings at Halloween? ❧
