Ghosts span the globe, haunting every corner. You can't travel anywhere and not find a tale about a misty spectral that died tragically. Here are 13 ghosts from around the globe to keep you up at night.

1 Slit-Mouthed Woman
Usually seen wearing a mask over her lower jaw, this famous Japanese ghost targets children. Upon meeting a child, she removes the mask and reveals a sliced-up mouth. She then asks the child if they think she is beautiful. Say no, and she stabs the child. Say yes, and she slits their mouth just like hers. It’s a no win situation!

2 Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn was one of Henry VIII’s many wives. The king divorced and beheaded her for not giving him a male heir. A bit of an overreaction in my opinion! Anne’s ghost is said to haunt the Tower of London. She does have her head. She is said to frighten passersby as she wanders the halls. On occasion she is seen in other historic buildings. Seeking justice perhaps?

3 La Llorona
La Llorona (Spanish for The Crying Woman) is always crying when you see her. Her tears are because she killed her children by drowning in a fit of rage because the man she loved would not have her. When he spurned her again, she realized the horrible thing she had done, so she subjected herself to the same fate as her children and drowned herself. Condemned to wander the world in perpetual grief, she is seen soaking wet, in all white, and crying. Some say she snatches young children as she walks, mistaking them for her own.

4 Kate Batts, the Bell Witch
The year was 1817 and a man named John Bell and his family began experiences ghostly happenings in their Tennessee home. The terrifying activity was thought to be the cause of a witch named Kate Batts, but in reality, the daughter, Betsy, was the one most likely causing the activity. Despite that, the Bell Witch lives on and has been inspiration in many stories, including The Blair Witch Project.

5 Dolley Madison
There have been many stories of ghosts in the White House. One such tale is that of First Lady Dolley Madison. She was known for her grace and charm, and she played a role in making the White House a social epicenter. After her death, it is said another First Lady attempted to dig up her beloved rose gardens. Dolley was having none of that and her ghost showed up to frighten the gardeners away. To this day, the roses are still there and blooming.

6 The Gray Man
The Gray Man is a ghost of Pawleys Island in South Carolina. Sometimes he is described as having no legs along with no face. Whenever a hurricane or other sever is storm is about to hit and you see him, you will be protected from the storm. The story of his death is he was a guy traveling from Charleston to see a young lady. His horse got sucked into the mud of South Carolina’s marshes. Since then, he’s seen roaming the coastline, looking for love, and helping people avoid weather disasters.

7 Cottage City Poltergeist
You may not know the name Cottage City Poltergeist, but you are familiar with it as it was the inspiration behind William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. A real-life case from 1949, it centered around a 13-year-old-boy from Cottage City, Maryland. Shaking beds, weird noises, and sheets pulled off the mattress were just a few of the weird occurrences that happened after the boy played with an Ouija board. The boy was moved to a hospital in Saint Louis, where an exorcism was performed, and curing the boy.

8 Abraham Lincoln
Since Lincoln’s death in 1865, his ghost has popped up in many different locations. He is most commonly spotted in the White House, including the Lincoln Bedroom. Numerous heads of states has be shocked by Abe, including the queen of the Netherlands. She opened a door to find Honest Abe standing there. It gave her such a scare she fainted!

9 The Buruburu Ghost
A Japanese ghost that feeds on fear, the Buruburu gets its name from the sound you make when you shiver. It is created whenever someone acts like a coward, who it clings to by the collar of their shirt and lightly tickling the back of their neck. This causes a shiver to roll down the spine and goosebumps. The Buruburu feeds on the fear.

10 The Greenbrier Ghost 
Zona Heaster married a drifter in the late 1800s who killed her. At first, her death was attributed to natural causes after her husband, Shue, scared the doctor away. An autopsy was preformed and the truth reveal because Zona’s mother, Mary Jane claimed to have seen the ghost of her daughter. She said Zona’s ghost told her Shue had broken her neck and proved it by turning her ghostly head completely around! During the trial, the prosecutor tried to keep Zona’s ghost a secret but the defense asked about it in an attempt to undermine Mary Jane’s credibility. This strategy backfired and Shue went to jail. Zona’s ghost was never seen again.

11 The Madonna of Bachelor's Grove
If you want to ensure you have a ghostly encounter then the place to visit is Bachelor’s Grove. Many report seeing featureless orbs, blogs of ectoplasm, as well as a spectral farmer and his horse. Other notable ghosts are a black dog and a ghost with two heads! The most famous ghost is call Madonna. On nights of the full moon, she can be seen wandering the graveyard and carrying a baby. On occasion, she is seen in full daylight.

12 & 13: The Girls In The Bathroom
I don’t know what it is about Japan and bathrooms, but their ghosts seem to love them. In one tale, if you go into the girls bathroom on the third floor and walk to the third stall you will find a little girl with a bob haircut. Her name is Hanako-san and she wants to play. Or drag you to Hell. We’re not sure. Depending on what part of Japan you live in, she may have a bloody hand to grab you with or be a lizard that devours you.

Hanako-san has become a fixture of Japanese urban folklore for over 70 years, but she is not the only schoolgirl haunting Japan’s bathrooms. Another young girl named Kashima Reiki was said to be cut in half by a train. Now, her disfigured spirit inhabits bathrooms, asking any who enter the stall where her legs are. If she doesn’t like your answer, she will rip your legs off! Answer wisely.

(Source, Source, Source, Source)

Which ghost was your favorite? Will you think twice about going to the bathroom in Japan?

May 26th is Dracula Day, and seeing how I love anything with vampires, this is the perfect excuse for me to look up thirteen facts about bloodsuckers to share with you. (source and source)

1. The word “vampire” did not appear in English until 1734, when it was used in an Anglo-Saxon poem titled “The Vampyre of the Fens”.
2. A rare disease called porphyria (also called the "vampire" or "Dracula" disease) causes vampire-like symptoms, such as an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and sometimes hairiness.
3. Documented medical disorders that people accused of being a vampire may have suffered from include haematodipsia, which is a sexual thirst for blood, and hemeralopia or day blindness.
   
4. Anemia (“bloodlessness”) was often mistaken for a symptom of a vampire attack.
5. One of the most famous “true vampires” was Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) who was accused of biting the flesh of girls while torturing them and bathing in their blood to retain her youthful beauty.
6. The first full work of fiction about a vampire in English was John Polidori’s influential The Vampyre, which was published incorrectly under Lord Byron’s name.
7. Female vampires were also often blamed for spreading the bubonic plague throughout Europe.
8. According to several legends, if someone was bitten by a suspected vampire, he or she should drink the ashes of a burned vampire.
9. By the end of the twentieth century, over 300 motion pictures were made about vampires, and over 100 of them featured Dracula. Over 1,000 vampire novels were published, most within the past 25 years.
10. Folklore vampires can become vampires not only through a bite, but also if they were once a werewolf, practiced sorcery, were an illegitimate child of parents who were illegitimate, died before baptism, anyone who has eaten the flesh of a sheep killed by a wolf, was the child of a pregnant woman who was looked upon by a vampire, was a nun who stepped over an unburied body, had teeth when they were born, or had a cat jump on their corpse before being buried (England and Japan), a baby born with teeth; a stillborn; a bat flying over a corpse (Romania); being excommunicated by the Orthodox Church (Greece); being the seventh son of the seventh son; a dead body that has been reflected in a mirror; red heads (Greece); people who die by suicide or sudden, violent deaths; people who were improperly buried; renouncing the Eastern Orthodox religion.
11. In folklore, the vampire’s first victim would often be his wife. This is why, in some cultures, when a husband died, the wife would change her appearance, i.e. she would cut her hair and would wear black for the entire period of mourning.
12. To destroy a vampire: burn it; bury the corpse facedown; drive a wooden stake through its heart; pile stones on the grave; put poppy seeds or wild roses on the grave; boil the head in vinegar; place a coin in the mouth and decapitate with an axe; put a lemon in the mouth; bury at a crossroads; remove the heart and cut it in two; put garlic in the mouth and drive a nail through the temple; cut off the toes and drive a nail through the neck; pour boiling oil on the body and drive a nail through the navel.
13. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) remains an enduring influence on vampire mythology and has never gone out of print. 

I hope you enjoyed these facts and are now more prepared to ward off vampires and ensure loved ones don't turn after they have passed. 😉

PS: I made a video to go with this post if you want to check that out.

March 2nd was Dr. Seuss' birthday and given how influential he has been in pretty much everyone's life, I decided to share 13 facts about him and his books. (source one, source two, source three.)

1. Geisel's first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 times.
   
2. He based the Grinch character on himself to try to rediscover something about Christmas that he felt he had obviously lost.
3. He wrote and illustrated 44 books in his lifetime.
4. He purchased an old observation tower in La Jolla, CA where he'd write.
5. He coined the term “nerd.” The word first appeared in print in 1950 in Seuss’ book “If I Ran the Zoo.”
6. His final book was “Oh, The Places You’ll Go,” published in 1990, before he passed away. The book sells several hundred thousand copies each year in large part because it is a perennially popular graduation gift.
7. He used just 50 words to write “Green Eggs and Ham” on a $50 bet with his editor, Bennett Cerf.
8. Cerf never paid up.
9. His books have been translated into 17 languages and have sold more than 650 million copies in 95 countries, according to The Washington Post.
10. He worked on “Design for Death,” a documentary that won the Oscar in 1947.
11. He thought the beginning readers Dick and Jane” were hopelessly boring. He wrote “The Cat in the Hat” with the intention of providing a more interesting alternative.
12. In 2013, a new book by Dr. Seuss was found by his wife and secretary. It was published in 2015.
13. When he wrote and illustrated a book, he used the name “Dr. Seuss.” When he only wrote it but did not illustrate it, he used Theo LeSieg. LeSieg is Geisel (his real last name) backward.

I hope you enjoyed these facts about Dr. Seuss. Did you have a favorite book by him? I recall having a few, and every Christmas we sat down as a family to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. If you liked this post and want to get early access to it and exclusive flash fiction, join me over at Patreon.

The history of the Ouija board is interesting. It started as an innocent toy. Now, people use it seriously, trying to contact spirits. There are tons of tales of hauntings from people using the board. Are they true? I have no clue, but I love to read about them and get a nice shiver down my spine.

Here are 13 facts that may make you rethink playing with an Ouija Board.

1. The first ever Ouija board was invented by a toy shop in 1891: According to various sources, it was a Pittsburgh toy and novelty shop called Danziger's & Company.
2. During World War I, Ouija boards could be found in almost every household in the U.S. (Kind of makes you wonder. Were people trying to contact soldiers who died in battle?)
3. In 1922, Ouija board sales outsold Monopoly: Three million Ouija boards were sold in the year 1920. Over the next two years, they jumped over the sales of Monopoly.
4. Ouija board got its patent without proper paperwork: Elijah Bond carried an Ouija board to the patent office and asked it to spell out the name of the officer. Which it did and the officer was so spooked he approved the patent without finishing the paperwork.
5. The Ouija board named itself when asked for it: They had no idea what to call it and decided to ask the board and that's what it spelled.
6. The word Ouija means "good luck": Apparently the word is Egyptian.
7. Emily Grant Hutchings said that the book "Jap Herron" was dictated by Mark Twain's ghost through an Ouija board.
8. People who take fatal decisions based on the boards are often related in one way or another: A mother-daughter duo played with an Ouija board after taking a lot of hallucinogenic pills and later burned their own house. Investigators found out they were related to a person who attempted to kill his dog after playing the same game.
9. The most demonic spirit in an Ouija world is called Zozo. Crazy fact here: I followed a Youtuber for a while who got an Ouija board. She got rid of it after the name Zozo was spelled out.
10. Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholic Anonymous wrote the famous 12-step recovery program using an Ouija board: Bill had a spook room in his house and he used to contact spirits in order to seek their guidance for his own research. He was also found to be on LSD sooo.....
11. Six intelligence officers with top-secret security clearances were arrested for messing with supernatural forces through Ouija board: The officials claimed the souls predicted the Gulf War and an earthquake in 1990. Later, they went AWOL on orders from the board. They were found and arrested for their misbehavior.
12. The 1973 film The exorcist abruptly stopped the Ouija obsession with a mass fear of spirit infestation.
13. The scientific concept on which Ouija boards are based is called Ideomotor Effect: The ideomotor phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. (source)

So, anyone want to play? Have you played with an Ouija board? Had an unexplained experience with one? Or is it all in our heads and done with unconscious movements that tell us what we want to hear? (If you liked this post, you can get early access to it and exclusive flash fiction over on my Patreon.)