Zak Bagans shares with USA TODAY some of the nation’s most notorious haunts.
The Washoe Club Haunted Museum
Virginia City, Nev.
“Virginia City is one of my favorite haunted cities in the country,” Bagans says. Here you can visit the 1862 bar, the haunted museum and, perhaps, have your very own ghost encounter. “Heck, the ghosts at the Washoe Club call me and my fellow investigator, Nick Groff, by our full names. What can I say? The ghosts get personal.”
Bobby Mackey’s Music World
Wilder, Ky.
This haunted honky-tonk was once a slaughterhouse and, according to legend, the site of cult activity. Even creepier, “the well in the basement, known as Hell’s Gate, is claimed to be a portal to hell,” Bagans says. The warning sign posted in the entryway says it all: Management is not held liable for any attacks by its ghosts.
Moon River Brewing Co.
Savannah, Ga.
“This is by far the most haunted building in one of the most haunted towns in America,” Bagans says. “You may want to think twice before heading to the bathroom while drinking that tasty beer. An encounter with the ghost of a Civil War soldier may await you.”
The Stanley Hotel
Estes Park, Colo.
The hotel that inspired Stephen King’s novel The Shining is believed to be haunted. (In fact, The Stanley hosts regular ghost tours.) “This hotel has its dark history, but also has guests who seem to never want to check out,” Bagans says. ” The problem is the guests have long since passed on.”
Soldiers National Museum
Gettysburg, Pa.
Not only is this former orphanage near the site of one of the Civil War’s bloodiest battles, the building has its own tragic history, which makes it “the creepiest spot in Gettysburg,” Bagans says. As the story goes, a woman who worked here chained children in the basement. Apparently, this resulted in a lot of “unrested spirits.”
Eastern State Penitentiary
Philadelphia
There’s nothing like walking into a 19th-century, gothic-style castle where thousands of criminals, including gangster Al Capone and bank robber “Slick Willie” Sutton, were incarcerated to get a hint of the prison experience. “Prisoners’ agony, pain and insanity were entombed in the thick, windowless cells of this prison,” Bagans says. “That energy can be felt.”
USS Hornet Museum
Alameda, Calif.
“Just over the bridge from San Francisco, the “Grey Ghost” (a former aircraft carrier), sits eerily decommissioned,” Bagans says. “You can take your own self-guided tour through its haunted jungle gym-like maze of steel corridors. The sailors and servicemen seem to still be hanging out in their bunks and in the ship’s medical facility, where the residual energy from horrific battle scars seem to never heal.”
Bird Cage Theatre
Tombstone, Ariz.
“You don’t have to watch wild West movies to get a feel for what rowdy gunslingers used to be like,” Bagans says. “Simply come to this old gambling hall/ brothel.” The raucous gathering spot first opened in the late 1800s, and “the ghosts of Boot Hill Graveyard seem to still be hanging out at their favorite nightspot,” Bagans says. “If you want to catch a good scare, linger around for a while. I must say, from personal experience, there are definitely some touchy-feely spirits here.”
Amargosa Opera House and Hotel
Death Valley Junction, Calif.
“This peculiar hotel is located in the middle of nowhere and was once used as a Borax Mining community complex,” Bagans says. “It has a creepy carnival feeling with eerie murals of people drawn on every wall. The staff reportedly gets channeled through quite often by its resident spirits. Use caution if you want to check out its unrenovated section tagged ‘Spooky Hallow,’ where an apparent murder took place.”
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Weston, W.Va.
The asylum, one of the largest hand-cut stone masonry buildings in North America, boasts more than 150 years of haunted history. “Once inside, you can feel the presence of the mentally ill patients who lived and died there,” Bagans says. “If you want to experience a chilling encounter, go stand inside one of the isolation cells and listen very carefully for a ghostly, blood-curdling scream.”
Zack we have seen Spanish soldiers patroling the forts San Felipe El Morro and fort San Cristobal in the Old San Juan and we are not crazy like people told us.We know what we have seen.please send us a email.
Zak, I keep hearing voices saying they will me and apparations and orbs all around my house. I always feel like people are following me. Just the other day, I had a friend over and we were getting a drink and it was 3:00 a.m. and we stopped halfway to the kitchen and in front of us was a man in an all-black suit with a bloody sword poiinting at my neck with a black dog growling at us. Once it went away, I asked my friend if she had seen it and she said that she had seen it. Please help me help, Zak! It does that every night I get up to get a drink or something. Please send me an email. Thank you.
Zak, luckily everything has stopped and I was wondering, if you feel like somebody’s passing by your back and nobody’s in the room besides you or the doors opening and the door is sealed shut, is that house considered to be haunted? Please send me an email.
Hear is my story hopefully someone can help me. My experience started when I was 13 and living with my parents. I delt with demons living there. I’d wake up with scratches on my body, I delt with incubous, and I have taken a partial possession. It didnt stick to me cause I do have I guess a women guadian angel who is always with me. I am very much a empath. Alot has happened threw the years. When I was 18 at my ex’s garage I’ve had a cup thrown at me a door flew off the hinge. I was never hurt so I know there trying to get my attention. Another place I lived was considered a haunted town I do believe there was more then just spirits there. I constantly seen black shadows but when I looked they would be gone. I mostly seen them when I was on the treadmill. I decided to shut the lights when I went on there. So I was running on it and somehow my shoe laces came untied and I flew off of it. There was one room in the house when my daughter was just born she refused to sleep in. I’d put her in there and she would just freak out. Every night she would wake at 315 just crying. They recently got more active now. At my job I would here my name being called, stuff falling on me silent alarms going on. Finally my manager actually started hearing the things falling over. Alot of times I can hear a phone ring then someones phone will go off. My dog and cat both got out of the house(not at the sametime) I heard whimpering from the dog and crying from the cat when I went to the door they came running off the hill. It was like I knew they wanted in. Now where I’m at now my daughters toys are constantly going off. Ill walk down the hall and you can hear them stomping down the hall right behind me. Once in a while my daughte4r still wakes at 3 saying ghost. I hear them walking all day or playing in the kitchen or bathroom. I can smell food like there cooking in the kitchen, or sometimes in the bathroom it smells like someone went number 2 but it was none of us. Night time now for me is so bad. There constantly making noises, I start to fall asleep Ill see like a bright light and wake up or I see darkness walking and I wake up. I sleep maybe 3 or 4 hours a night and it’s not a good night sleep. There poking me in the butt when I’m sleeping. I can physically feel them on top of me. I’ve tried getting hunters around here they were no help. I have so much going on and I don’t no where to turn.
Zack, I have a crazy photo that I took at el morro, didnt notice it untill we got home from our trip, but this is a definate ghost of a spanish soldier, its taken in the day. we had no idea the place was even haunted when we visited it but when we got home and saw the picture and did some research it all makes sense now. Id like to show you the picture and get your take on it.
Zak, when I would spend the night at my grandma’s house I could hear like an evil moan. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night to wake up my sister and tell her if she heard the strange noise. I went back to sleep. The next day I went to my aunt’s room and I had put a foam cup inside of a glass one so that it won’t tip over. When I turned around to look at the cup it automatically flew off and fell on the floor. I was so scared I couldn’t even move. When I slept in my aunt’s room I heard her pill bottle shake I woke up and nothing was in the room it was just me and my aunt. Could it have been a ghost or something evil trying to scare me. Or could it be an unrested spirit trying to warn me about something. Please tell me what i should do.
You guys really missed the mark here in my hometown of Bisbee, az. I couldn’t believe the places you chose to do the show-WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!!! We are at least TEN TIMES more haunted than Tombstone will ever be. Those places were obviously chosen for you by the Chamber of Commerce, not the locals who have lived and worked here since the late seventies to save this town once the mine closed. We know the real places to go. It’s a real shame. Did you even look at Evergreen Cemetery? OMG. There were, at it’s peak, 50,000 people living in this town. The Stock Exchange, where the original Stock Exchange board is still on the wall intact, is where millions of dollars were made and lost when that mine was running. Try that for a haunting. So sad.