ghost stories tour

Ghost Stories Tour

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For the song "Ghost Story" click here. For the era "Ghost Stories Era" click here. For the album "Ghost Stories" click here.

The Ghost Stories Tour is the sixth concert tour by Coldplay , in order to promote Ghost Stories (2014)

Background [ ]

From April to July, Coldplay embarked on a six-date promotional tour in support of the album. The band has performed at E-Werk in Cologne, Germany on 25 April and performed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, New York on 5 May, prior to the release of Ghost Stories . The band continued the tour after the release of the album at the Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California on 19 May, the Casino de Paris in Paris, France on 28 May, the Tokyo Dome City Hall in Tokyo, Japan on 12 June, the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Australia on 19 June and closing the tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 2 July 2014.

Set-list [ ]

• 1 Moon Music
• 2 Green Eyes

Ghost Stories Tickets

About Ghost Stories

Embark on a spellbinding journey into the mystical and macabre at Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Interactive Tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Experience the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a unique way and get Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Interactive Tour tickets on TodayTix!

This chilling, thrilling, one-of-a-kind attraction will transport you to the realms of the supernatural, where ghostly tales come to life amidst the hallowed halls of one of the world's most renowned art institutions. With engaging activities and thought-provoking discussions, this invites you to confront your deepest fears and embark on a thrilling exploration of the macabre.

Dare to book your Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Interactive Tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tickets today. It’s a hauntingly good time you won’t want to miss!

May 19th, 2023

December 31st, 2024

Museums and Galleries , Off Broadway

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

More information about Ghost Stories

Your expert tour guide will uncover the secrets and symbolism hidden within the masterpieces of art, from hauntingly beautiful Egyptian artifacts to spine-chilling American and European works. Let your imagination wander as you view Flying Dutchmen, unnerving plaques, and depictions of mysterious forests.

Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Interactive Tour offers more than a spine-tingling experience. Your tour guide will take you into the enigmatic depths of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sharing the captivating history behind a collection of peculiar relics from all corners of the globe.

From mourning jewelry that whispers tales of sorrow to the preserved remains of mummified animals, the MET holds an unsettling yet fascinating narrative waiting to be discovered. This tour, set against the backdrop of the legendary Metropolitan Museum of Art, promises an unforgettable odyssey into the realm of the supernatural.

What to Watch For

• Did you know that the Met houses a stunning collection of over 2 million artworks spanning over 5,000 years of human history? From ancient civilizations to modern masterpieces, this vast treasure trove offers an endless journey through the evolution of art.
• In ancient Egypt, certain animals like cats were considered living manifestations of gods and were mummified upon death.
• The Egyptian Wing of the Met has its share of ghostly stories. Visitors have reported hearing disembodied voices, feeling cold drafts, and witnessing shadowy figures moving among the ancient artifacts. Some have even claimed to see mummies coming to life!

Frequently asked questions

What is the running time of ghost stories, where is ghost stories.

Ghost Stories is at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is located in New York, NY, United States, 10028.

How much are tickets for Ghost Stories?

Ghost Stories tickets start at $45.

What is the age recommendation for Ghost Stories?

How do you get tickets for ghost stories.

Check the top of this page for current availability and exclusive offers on Ghost Stories tickets on TodayTix.

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Haunted Encounters

The queen of all ghost stories.

With such a varied and intriguing past it’s not surprising that the Queen Mary has been voted one of the Top 10 Most Haunted Places in America by Time magazine.

Get a detailed overview of the Queen Mary’s most haunted areas and paranormal hotspots. Explore the ship inside and out and hear stories about the ship’s most famous reported apparitions.

Among the ghosts reportedly still hanging around is an engineer who died in the ship's engine room, a "lady in white," and various children located throughout the ship including the 1st Class Pool (the tour stops at the entrance doors to the swimming pool, but does not go inside the pool area due to ongoing restoration projects).

Haunted Encounters is offered only during the day...but when the sun goes down, the spirits aboard the Queen Mary come out to play. Explore the legendary ship with a series of twilight tours and séances that explore the haunted past and paranormal activity that the Queen Mary is known for... click here for more information on our Tours at Night - including Dining With the Spirits, Paranormal Investigation and Paranormal Ship Walk.

Ticket Information

Hours: Available daily at 11:30AM, 12:30PM, 1:30PM, 2:30PM, 3:30PM, 4:30PM, 5:30PM & 6:30PM and takes approximately 1 hour.  ( *Note: Hours may vary. ) Pricing: Available option as part of the First Class Passport or Aquarium Combo. Hotel Guests may purchase their tickets on board at the Tour Center. Groups of 15 or more may call 562-499-1718 for discounted group rates. Map:  The Queen Mary can get confusing. Download our map and bring it with you! 

Please note :  All tours are based on a first come, first served basis. Tour locations may vary daily based on availability. Hours of operation & availability are subject to change without notice.  Due to the historic nature of The Queen Mary, some areas of the ship may not be accessible to guests with mobility restrictions. Tours may require extensive use of stairs &/or standing for long periods of time. All paranormal tours take place in the dark, enclosed area and may not be suitable for all guests.

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English Heritage to host ghost story tours at five monasteries

Tours at sites in north of England aim to be academically rigorous and shed light on the ruins’ deeper histories

“It is autumnal isn’t it, you can feel the death and decay,” said the clearly delighted historian Michael Carter as he prepared to embark on a new venture at some of England’s most spectacular and atmospheric ruins.

English Heritage will this weekend begin a new series of ghost story tours at five of its northern monasteries.

A collaboration between Carter, a senior historian at English Heritage , and Dale Townshend, professor of gothic literature at Manchester Metropolitan University , the tours will use ghost stories to shine light on places that have deeper, more fascinating histories than visitors sometimes realise.

It is a joke but it is also true, said Carter, that “it is about using the dead to keep medieval monasteries alive”.

The stories include accounts of saintly visions, the walking dead, divine retribution and demonic visitations.

Carter said they were steering clear of the “ethereal grey lady” or “headless horsemen” stories that many heritage sites have in their arsenal; stories that were “modern fabulations”, he said.

Instead they were using historical sources “to get to the heart of the purpose of the monasteries”.

He hopes it will be academically rigorous but entertaining and bring in new audiences who may soon find themselves sharing Carter’s abundant passion for medieval monasteries.

The tours will be at the Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire , the first Cistercian abbey in the north of England, Furness Abbey in Barrow, Roche Abbey in South Yorkshire, Lanercost Priory in north Cumbria, and Byland Abbey in the North York Moors, once one of the greatest abbeys in England.

Byland is the place where a monk wrote one of the most important collections of ghost stories to survive from medieval Europe. They were collected and published in their original Latin by the horror writer MR James in 1922.

They are generally stories of what awful things happen if you die without confessing sins or righting a wrong, and are often about “affirming the role of the monasteries”, said Carter.

Often the terrors can be resolved but not always. One story concerns a local priest buried at Byland but whose body wanders at night. On one wandering he gouges out the eye of a woman who was his concubine.

It results in his body being dug from the grave and conveyed to the Gormire, a lake in the North York Moors . When his body was about to be thrown in the water “the oxen drawing the wagon panicked and almost drowned in fear”, the story says.

In the story, the priest is “beyond redemption”, said Carter. “He is going to hell. He has lived an evil life, he’s got a concubine and he has obviously died unrepentant. Even in death he is capable of causing harm. All the church can do in these instances is dispose of the body.”

There are no extant ghost stories linked to places such as Furness Abbey but some visitors in the late 18th and 19th centuries were inspired to write their own, including Ann Radcliffe, the greatest Gothic romancer of her day, who peopled the abbey with a train of ghostly friars .

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Carter said that in the middle ages “the monasteries were considered to be a glimpse of heaven here on earth. Passing through the gatehouse, you entered what would have been considered the heavenly Jerusalem.

“Life as a monk is thought to provide the opportunity to live the angelic life here on Earth.”

Today the monasteries are ruins because of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, which will also be explored in the tours.

Carter said there were still many things to be learned about the period, particularly around the dissolution.

There has been a wealth of new historical and fictional work but, said Carter: “It still isn’t fully explained why somewhere like Rievaulx Abbey can go from, in 1535, receiving requests from people for the singing of masses for the souls to being a pile of ruins a few years later.

“I don’t have a full explanation for it although people have put forward various theses. Monasteries have always been criticised from the time of St Benedict onwards and there was nothing about monastic life in the 1530s that was any worse than at any other point in the middle ages. In some cases their observances had been better then than they ever had been.”

The first tour is at Roche Abbey on 1 October. They are free and do not need to be pre-booked, but entrance fees for the sites apply.

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Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Interactive Tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tickets for Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Interactive Tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 🎫 Adult ticket for 1

Highlights 👹 Learn about the history of many of the museum's more unusual relics from all over the world including mourning pendants and mummified animals 👻 See objects in the Met under a different, spookier light 🏛️ Set in the iconic Metropolitan Museum

General Info 📅 Date: various dates available (select during purchase) 🕒 Times: - Fridays: 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. - Saturdays: 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. 📍 Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 👤 Age requirement: all ages welcome 🎁 The guide will have your tickets (no waiting in line to purchase tickets!), which are valid for all exhibitions in the museum after the tour ends ♿ Accessibility: the tour is wheelchair accessible Description Ghost Stories from the spooky to the scary, the macabre to the mysterious, the ghostly to the ghoulish. This Ghost Stories experience will take you on an interactive tour of all things frightful in the Metropolitan Museum and give you the thrilling details of what it is that makes them so "scary". Participants will travel across cultures and across time to see Flying Dutchmen and funerary masks, still life art and sculpture. You will learn about Egyptian, American, and European works of art, to name a few, plus discuss stories about ghostly happenings in the museum itself. All the while, we’ll look at how different cultures depict the fearsome and the gruesome, in pursuit of what scares us…and why. Get your tickets now!

User reviews

• Judi G. Nov 2022 Fantastic informative and fun tour of the Met with an excellent guide!
• Michelle T. Oct 2022 The tour guide was phenomenal, very informative, interesting and spooky. Highly recommend!
• Danny F. Oct 2022 Awesome tour by Evan. Highly recommend!
• Cassell B. Jan 2023 Great tour and an even better guide
• Lynn B. Aug 2022 it was awesome...
• Stive J. Feb 2023 It was engaging. No regrets. I learned a lot
• Luis D. Feb 2023 Knowledgeable and gracious guide
• Judi L. Mar 2023 It was I interesting and fun thank you !
• Jacqueline M. Jul 2022 Good your- more like a class- no ghosts in the met but interesting
• Isabel Cristina R. Apr 2023 Great Family Experience.
• John D. Mar 2023 Loved it! Highly recommended!
• Caitlin W. Nov 2023 Had a fun time. Great tour guide
• Dvwzfwnngy Oct 2023 Great tour
• Lisa M. Oct 2023 Very enjoyable experience for me and my family.
• Mary D. May 2023 Such a great storyteller! Learned a lot!

Getting there

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 5th Avenue, New York, 10028

Select date and session

No booking fees

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Ghost Stories: A Mysterious, Macabre Tour in the Metropolitan Museum

• Tickets are good in the museum after the tour ends
• Guaranteed to skip the lines
• Wheelchair accessible
• Stroller accessible
• Service animals allowed
• Near public transportation
• Transportation is wheelchair accessible
• Surfaces are wheelchair accessible
• Confirmation will be received at time of booking
• Most travelers can participate
• This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. If it’s canceled because the minimum isn’t met, you’ll be offered a different date/experience or a full refund
• For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours in advance of the start date of the experience.
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• Start See departure details
• 1 The Metropolitan Museum of Art Stop: 2 hours Ghost Stories tour: From the spooky to the scary, the macabre to the mysterious, the ghostly to the ghoulish, the interactive “Ghost Stories” will take visitors on a tour of things frightful in the Metropolitan Museum. Participants will travel across cultures and across time to see Flying Dutchmen and funerary masks, still lifes and sculpture. We’ll look at Egyptian, American, and European works of art, to name a few, plus do fun and spooky activities. All the while, we’ll look at how different cultures depict the fearsome and the gruesome, in pursuit of what scares us…and why. Read more
• You'll return to the starting point

• A1158VAkathyt 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Book Group tour of the Met According to National Geographic, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere. That said, it can be a little overwhelming. Enter Fable & Lark: Storied Adventures. Our tour started at the first piece acquired by the museum, which is near the statue of Hercules. There Evan cited The Tales of Gilgamesh as one of the first known stories of the “hero’s quest” and how later works such as The Odyssey and The Labours of Hercules were influenced by it. From there Evan took us through the centuries and interwove art pieces with literature. Evan has extensive knowledge of the Met as she worked there for a number of years. I tend to get information overload but not so with Evan. I wish the tour was longer. I’m not sure which tour our group of seven book lovers did with Evan, it felt like she tailored it to us. But I think that’s the hallmark of a great guide! Read more Written April 14, 2024
• I8733RAjulieb 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Highly Recommend ‘Heavenly’ Tours with Evan! Evan is the crème de la crème of guides, a quintessential New Yorker, one you hope to meet. An exceptional conversationalist, she’s knowledgeable about all my favorite subjects and beyond. Her tours are just enough interaction with engaging context that makes the ancient or obscure relevant and digestible in that massive museum. Without interpretation, the Met can be an exhausting, overwhelming place. We first joined the Ghost Stories Tour and were so delighted we returned for Staged and are excited for the next! Read more Written April 10, 2024
• hansondk 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Highly recommend: “Staged” tour I thoroughly enjoyed “Staged: The Museum Tour for People Who Love Broadway.” Evan is an outstanding tour guide, and she led an informative and delightful adventure through the Met! Weaving together her vast knowledge of both the museum and the world of theater, this was a refreshing, creative way to experience the Met: uniquely breathing life into the exhibits and placing them into the greater context of theater and its history. I highly recommend this tour to any Met visitor; whether it’s your first time or you have wandered the halls many times before, you will be pleasantly surprised by what you have gained from the experience. Read more Written February 21, 2024
• tarab725 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Quest Control—Greek Gods still alive and well at the MET. Evan was such an excellent tour guide! We did “Quest Control”‘with my 12-year-old niece who is obsessed with greek mythology and Percy Jackson. We had so much fun creating our own Demigod persona, going on quests, and even creating our own quest at the end. We learned a ton and it was a fun way to make the museum come alive for my niece. She was even excited to stick around after and check out a few more exhibits. Read more Written February 21, 2024
• Dreamer08482284755 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Educational and entertaining, for all ages We had a great time with Evan during a "Staged!" tour on the history of theater. Very educational and entertaining at the same time. We had a mixed group including my husband who is indifferent to theater and my 9-year old daughter, and Evan managed to keep everybody interested and engaged. Definitely something to remember and to do again! Read more Written February 5, 2024
• melissapO8625SR 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Staged: The Museum Tour for People Who Love Theater Excellent tour - so informative and fun. Evan was a great guide. Have been to the Met many times but this is the first guided tour I’ve taken. Zeroing in on a selection of art related to the history of theatre was wonderful, and I saw pieces I had never seen before. Read more Written January 21, 2024
• 84dianen 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles A different Met experience On the "Staged" tour, I've probably walked past most of the artworks we looked at a hundred times without noticing them or thinking about their connection to theater. It was really special to have them brought to my attention by someone so knowledgeable and well versed in the Met. Read more Written December 11, 2023
• gracez885 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles highly recommend! This tour was FANTASTIC! Evan's extensive knowledge of myth and the museum is surpassed only by her warm and inviting attitude towards all things magical. I was so impressed by Evan's ability to connect the fantasies I love with the histories available in the museum - it was such a rare and fun experience to see my favorite 'fake' worlds come to life in this very real one. Would highly suggest - appropriate for all ages, and fun with friends!! Read more Written August 15, 2023
• I8593CEanns 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Drama at the Met Thanks, Evan, for a delightful tour of Staged—a tour that focuses on theater stories/history related to art at the Met. I loved your shared knowledge and the curated experience. Thanks! Read more Written August 9, 2023
• L9293BJgails 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Spectacular day at the Metropolitan combining theatre and art through the ages Fable and Lark’s Evan Levy led Staged: The Museum Tour for People Who Love Theater at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a great tour of theatre from the earliest records to current times and how it’s been depicted throughout the ages. It is a fascinating trip through the ages filled with new information about productions I thought I knew. I highly recommend taking this museum tour which deepened my appreciation for the Metropolitan as well as the theatre. Thank you Evan Read more Written July 12, 2023
• Daydream195937 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Theater tour fun ^_^ Evan was fun, knowledgeable, engaging, and kind. She had stories on top of stories, wonderfully blended together to make a seamless, cohesive tour. I really enjoyed what I learned and experienced. Thank you very much! Read more Written April 18, 2023
• KayKB23 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great way to indulge your inner scholar! My friend and I did the Crown and Prophet tour and it was great! Evan was wonderful and ended up giving us a private tour when there ended up being a mistake with the dates on the website. The tour was fun and interactive and she was very knowledgeable about the fantasy genre and it's origins. Tour was very kid friendly but Evan was able to tailor it for an adult audience too. My friend is an archivist and I was history major so we were able to have some great in depth conversations about mythology, art and the popular tropes in both that create the backbone of a lot of fantasy storytelling. This was an awesome way to see the Met in a new light and a well spent Sunday afternoon. Would 100% recommend this to people who are fans of any fantasy series old or new ( I bet Evan has read them all or at least know about it!). I would definitely take one of her other tours based on my experience with this one. We had a blast!!! Read more Written March 5, 2023
• rommelle C 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Amazing and educational Evan was our tour guide and she was AMAZING! Her attention to detail and knowledge in mythology and all things magical made experience so special. Evan is witty, very smart and easily related to my moody teenager. I loved the interactive activities for kids and adults. I highly recommend a visit to The Met with Evan! Read more Written January 29, 2023
• I3045ATjillg 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great way to explore the Met! We loved it! My family of 6, kids aged 10-15, thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter themed tour. It was interactive and we explored several different parts of the museum. For us, it was a very approachable introduction to all the Met has to offer. We saw the Harry Potter Broadway play later in the week and immediately noticed elements in the play that we saw on the museum tour. I would highly recommend! Read more Written December 28, 2022
• ronyrose 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Wonderful activity for family and friends of all ages Evan is a terrific story creator and teller. We loved the fairy tale detective theme for our son and for ourselves. Evan was patient and understanding when we had to keep changing our reservation due to delayed flights. Read more Written November 23, 2022

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Ghost Stories Tickets

About Ghost Stories

From the spooky to the scary, the macabre to the mysterious, the ghostly to the ghoulish, “Ghost Stories” will take visitors on an interactive tour of all things frightful in the Metropolitan Museum. Participants will travel across cultures and across time to see Flying Dutchmen and fearsome plaques, puzzling paintings, and fearful forests. We’ll look at Egyptian, American, and European works of art, to name a few, plus embark on activities and discussions. All the while, we’ll look at how different cultures depict the fearsome and the gruesome, in pursuit of what scares us…and why.

For the spooky season, we've added new tricks and new treats, from works of art we only visit during Halloween season, to new activities and giveaways

May 19th, 2023

Museums and Galleries , Off Broadway

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Frequently asked questions, what is the length of ghost stories, which venue is ghost stories at.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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The price for tickets to Ghost Stories starts at $45.

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Ghost Stories at The Met

Time Out says

Known for creating fascinating storied adventures, Fable and Lark has put together a Halloween-themed edition of its tour through The Met. On this Ghost Stories exploration of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, expect an interactive tour of all things frightful. 

From the spooky to the scary, the macabre to the mysterious, the ghostly to the ghoulish, "Ghost Stories" will unveil Egyptian, American, and European works of art, to name a few, all with a Halloween twist. Participants will travel across cultures and across time to see Flying Dutchmen and funerary brooches, sculpture and sarcophagi.

Tours are held on Saturdays September 30, October 14, October 28 at 11am and on Fridays, October 6, October 13, October 20, October 27 at 6pm. 

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16 very real ghost stories that'll chill you to the bone

Do you check under the bed for monsters before you go to sleep? Double check the closet to ensure the boogeyman isn't hiding inside? Are you afraid of...ghosts?

Then perhaps you should stop right now, because we're about to delve into the world of the paranormal — and these tales are not for the faint of heart.

Whether you believe ghosts are rea l or just made up for the movies , these ghost stories, as told by real people who experienced things they simply can't explain , are sure to give you pause — if not proof — that there's more than meets the eye when it comes to supernatural happenings.

To help curate our collection of spooky yarns, TODAY.com spoke to Derek Hayes, host of " Monsters Among Us ," a podcast in which callers share details of mysterious encounters.

According to Hayes, he receives hundreds of calls each week and submissions from across the globe. "But every once in a while, somebody will call in one of those personal stories. It's that personal connection for me that really brings it home," Hayes tells TODAY.com.

"And some of those are just terrifying ."

We've collected a sampling of those 'terrifying' stories right here, along with a handful of other scary ghost stories from a ghost hunter, as well as unexplained incidents told by a variety of ordinary people who claim they've experienced something extraordinary.

Whether you believe them or not is, of course, entirely up to you. But if you end up sleeping with the lights on tonight, don't say we didn't warn you.

The ‘grandmas’ in the cemetery

Jeff, a resident of Dayton, Ohio, was driving with his 3-year-old son, Miles, in the back seat, when they passed by a cemetery. It was a modest cemetery with only flowers and small plaques.

“It basically looks like a giant garden,” Jeff explains on “Monsters Among Us.”

According to Jeff, as they drove by, his toddler, who’d been happily singing, abruptly stopped, pointed to the cemetery and exclaimed, “Look at all those people!”

Jeff turned to look, but didn’t see a soul. Confused, he asked Miles what he was talking about. “All those people over there,” his son replied. “There sure are a lot of grandmas.”

As Jeff tells it, chills ran down his spine as he asked his son what the people were doing. “They’re all standing there, looking down at the grass,” Miles said.

Completely unsettled by the conversation, Jeff sped up and drove home. Later that same day, he says his young son was watching TV when he turned to Jeff and said, “You know … they weren’t alive.”

Thinking Miles was referring to the cartoon, Jeff asked what he meant. “Those people we saw ... they were all paused,” his son replied.

“I don’t know if my kid has the sixth sense,” Jeff says. “Or if he just has a wild imagination.”

The ghost of The Stanley Hotel

The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, has been around for more than 100 years and was built as a posh getaway for the wealthy seeking solitude in the mountains.

As the years passed, however, occupancy declined and by the 1970s, the grand hotel had fallen into disrepair. It was around that time that famed author Stephen King spent the night there and was inspired to write the book “The Shining.”

The book and blockbuster film helped return the Stanley to its former glory. Now, guests come in droves to see the hotel that inspired one of the scariest horror movies of all time.

Given its history, it should come as no surprise that many visitors report strange happenings. Aware of the ghostly rumors, Texas resident Henry Yau booked a last-minute getaway in April of 2016 to “check it out.”

After arriving, Yau had dinner, then wandered around the Stanley to take photos. Stopping at the staircase, he waited for people to clear the area, then took a picture, thinking nothing of it.

Later that night, however, Yau fell seriously ill. “I felt really sick, I had the shivers, I was like, something’s really wrong,” he tells TODAY.com. His companion suggested he go to the emergency room, but Yau refused.

On the trip home, Yau began swiping through the photos he’d taken when he discovered what he said was a “really, really strange image” of someone standing on the stairs.

Except no one had been there.

The next day, he posted the photo on Instagram, half-joking that he’d captured a ghost — and the world took notice. Almost overnight, Yau found himself in the limelight with his ghost picture warranting attention from global media outlets and paranormal experts who wanted to examine the photo.

“Some experts say that there’s two ghosts, and other people said that the reason I got sick is because the ghost was trying to materialize, taking energy out of me,” he said. “There’s so many theories about this.”

And what does Yau think? “I have no idea,” he says with a laugh.

The ghost truck stop

On his way to get married, a military man and his best man set off on an 800-mile road trip from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to Lafayette, Indiana.

It's 1 a.m. on a cold January night in 2014 and the man tells "Monsters Among Us" that the weather is bad and temperatures are in "the negative double digits."

As the pair close in on Indianapolis, they discover they have no money to pay for gas to refuel the car and are about to run out.

"Growing up in the trucking industry with my dad, I decided to stop at a truck stop," the man explains. But because the main interstates were shut down due to the weather, they had get off the highway and search for a truckstop along the back roads instead.

"(We) found a smaller truck stop. It had one truck and it was just kind of strange. It was just a blacked out truck with a blacked out trailer. There was no real markings on it, nothing distinguishable," he says.

They went in, hoping a clerk or waitress would spot them a few dollars for gas enough to make it to Indianapolis, at which time they'd go to the bank, take out cash and pay back the loan.

Inside they found a tidy diner, occupied by a waitress, cook and a lone truck driver.

"I went inside, talked to this driver and he bought us a cup of coffee. We sat there and talked for about 30 minutes about what was going on and why we were headed, where we were and what we were doing. And he gave us 20 bucks for gas. I went outside, pumped our gas, came back in and I told him, 'Hey, I really appreciate it. I'll be back.'"

Making good on his word, the man got cash from the bank upon arriving in Indianapolis and returned to the diner.

"When we arrive at about 10 o’clock in the morning, it's boarded up," he says. "It looks like it’s been abandoned for years and the truck’s gone. But we had just been in there."

They pull in anyway and find a police officer parked in the lot. They explain what happened just hours before to which the cop chuckles and replies, "Oh, you met the ghost of three."

"So, two military members converse, had a cup of coffee with, interacted with, three people at a diner that had a fuel pump. I got $20 worth of gas," says the man. "When I came back, it been boarded up for, if I remember correctly, the cop said it had been boarded up for the last 25 years."

The hauntings at the Lizzie Borden House

On August 4, 1892, Andrew and his wife, Abby Borden, were found brutally murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home. Though murder wasn’t uncommon in the late 1800s, the fact that they were bludgeoned to death with an ax and the main suspect was their 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie Borden, certainly was.

The crime and trial that followed made headlines around the world. Lizzie was ultimately acquitted of murder, but she remains forever linked to the heinous killings, as does the home where the crime was committed.

Now a bed-and-breakfast and museum, the Borden home attracts history buffs and thrill-seekers who come to see for themselves if rumors that the house is haunted are, indeed, true.

“When I started working here, it was more of the history. I really didn’t care about the paranormal,” Suzanne St. John, a realtor and tour guide at the Lizzie Borden House, tells TODAY.com.

However, that all changed after St. John says she experienced a few unusual happenings of her own.

“Guests tell us they hear laughing and playing in the middle of the night, things get moved around,” she says. And St. John has experienced a few unusual things herself, saying that once she discovered toys scattered across a room that no one had been in.

St. John also talks of a picture that fell over and slid two feet across the floor without any plausible explanation, as well as a closet door that once opened on its own volition.

On the eve of the anniversary of Andrew and Abby’s murder, St. John says that she and two other tour guides at the house felt a sudden sharp, piercing pain in their left eyes — the same exact location of Andrew Borden’s fatal injuries.

Perhaps the most unsettling, however, is the story St. John tells of a tour guide at the Lizzie Borden house who asked her group to silence their cell phones before beginning the tour. Moments later, a guest’s cell phone rang. She looked up and said, “It’s my mom.”

The tour guide asked if she wanted to leave and take the call, to which the woman replied: “She died two years ago.”

The ghost of Captain Joseph White

Though Salem, Massachusetts is best known for its infamous witch trials, there have been plenty of other chilling stories throughout its 400-year history.

One of them is the tale of Captain Joseph White, a wealthy merchant who was found bludgeoned to death in his bed.

It was a crime motivated by money, according to Giovanni Alabiso, owner and tour guide at Salem Historical Tours, who says the 82-year-old merchant was allegedly targeted by greedy brothers hoping to get their hands on his will.

Brothers Joseph and Francis Knapp enlisted the help of Richard Crowninshield to help get the job done. “Late in the evening, when Captain White is asleep, Dick Crowninshield comes in, he goes upstairs to the second floor and takes a club and bashes the captain over the head and crushes his skull,” Alabiso tells TODAY.com.

The murder resulted in a scandalous trial and is said to be the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” as well as the game “Clue.”

Whether it’s the brutal nature of the crime or revenge for the attempt to steal his money, the spirit of Captain Joseph White is said to still wander the halls of his former home. “People believe Captain White is roaming around that house, protecting whatever treasure he reportedly has,” Alabiso said.

Tourists take photos of the house, and despite being empty, many pictures reveal shadowy figures (both male and female) in the windows and on the landing of the Gardner-Pingree House.

Who are they? No one knows.

“It’s definitely, absolutely active,” Alabiso says.

The haunted ventriloquist doll

When Marty was a child back in the '90s, she tells "Monsters Among Us" that she was a fan of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy sidekick, Charlie McCarthy.

She says that when her father came across a ventriloquist doll as he wandered through a small magic shop located outside of Santa Rosa, California, he decided to buy it for her birthday.

While ringing up the sale, Marty says the cashier gave her father "weird vibes" and said to him: "You know when you put your hand inside the doll, he's going to come alive."

Laughing off the comment, he brought the dummy home to his daughter.

According to Marty, she was over the moon when he dad gave her the doll, saying: "I was so happy when I got that doll, I was obsessed."

But before long, strange things began happening. Though impossible because the doll's head was made of hard plastic, she says its expression would change, including his smile.

Worried something would happen to her precious dummy, Marty's family shut it away in a cupboard most nights. One night, she and her family were awakened by the "pitter patter" of steps in their living room. Thinking it was the dog or another family member, they went to look.

No one was there. Except for the doll, who was sitting on the couch.

"We remember specifically we always put it away because I loved that doll so much that I took care of it," Marty says on the podcast.

Other strange occurrences began happening. While Marty and her dad were away, her uncle was alone in the house. The uncle says he heard Marty's father calling his name from the living room, even though he wasn't home.

When he went to look? He found the doll, once again, sitting on the couch. And no one else.

"All of our family was pretty much scared of the doll," Marty says. "People would start hearing their names being called, and we would hear walking at night. So, we just decided we needed to get rid of it."

Being Mexican and religious, Marty says her parents wanted to burn the doll in case it was demonic. They put it on the grill and, according to Marty, it wouldn't burn. "This doll would not go up in flames, at all, whatsoever."

They tried cutting it up with a knife, but were unsuccessful. Finally, they threw it in the trash can. After the garbage was collected, Marty's dad went to retrieve the bin.

In it? The doll.

To rid themselves of the dummy, they dug a hole in the backyard, then filled it with cement.

Marty and family have long-since moved away, but she says they still think about the doll and the possibility that eventually "it finds one of us."

The imaginary 'friend'

Jacqueline from Oklahoma says that while her memories have faded over the years, she recalls having an imaginary friend when she was young.

Her grandparents, "Granny Junie" and "Pa Hank," lived in a small home with a quiet backyard. Jacqueline recalls visiting them as a child.

"I have very good memories of my Pa Hank," Jacqueline says on the podcast "Monsters Among Us."

"He would sit under the tree with me and tell me stories." The stories were often about his life and memories of prohibition, she says. "He was actually a very interesting character."

The only problem? Her grandfather died in 1981 — and Jacqueline was born in 1982.

"I don't think I ever realized that I was getting stories from a ghost," she says, adding that the rest of her family knew of his presence in the house. "My Granny Junie would never stay in the house on the anniversary of his death," she says. "He did die in the house."

Jacqueline also recalls hearing Pa Hank get up in the middle of the night when she was staying at the house. "It never occurred to me that these were memories of an entity," she said.

In hindsight, Jacqueline says that even though her childhood "imaginary friend" was actually her dead grandfather, it casts a different light because it was a relative and not a stranger.

"It never felt like ghosts, it felt like talking to my Pa Hank."

The kidnapping ghost

On "Monsters Among Us," a caller named Joe tells of moving to Georgia from California in the late 1990s. Soon after, he says his brother followed him to the Peach State and rented an old house built in the 1800s.

"It looked nice from the outside ... it did not feel good from the inside," Joe says during the podcast.

According to Joe, things seemed off from the moment he helped his brother move into the home. "I walked into the house and went, 'Oh, man.' The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I just felt ill-at-ease, like this place isn't cool at all," he says.

Moments later, while carrying items into the bedroom, Joe says he heard whispering.

"A heated whispering, almost an argument, between two people that seemed to be hovering in the top of the ceiling area of the room," he adds.

Joe ran out of the room and asked his brother if he'd felt something off about the house, too. His brother had picked up on the vibe, but assured Joe that things would be alright.

"As long as you're good," Joe says he told his brother. "I'm not good, but I'm going to help you. I'm going home and I probably won't come back here."

And, sure enough, Joe's brother began experiencing unusual occurrences in the house.

The most alarming, however, was when Joe says his young niece was found wandering alone on a busy road with her hand up in the air.

Police and other agencies were called to investigate the incident and when asked, his brother's 4-year-old explained that she'd gone for a stroll with the "old lady that lives here."

"She just wanted to go for a walk, so we went for a walk."

Given that the front door was too heavy for a 4-year-old to open by herself, no one could understand how she was able to leave the house.

According to Joe, his niece said, "The old lady opened the door, then we petted the dog for a little bit, then went for a walk."

"She was so genuine and honest at 4 years old, that he couldn't call her liar," Joe says during the podcast.

Soon after, his brother moved and never returned.

The ghosts of Stone’s Public House

Considered one of the most haunted restaurants in America, Stone’s Public House in Ashland, Massachusetts, doesn’t have a ghost problem — it has a ghosts problem.

Janet Morazzini, a longtime resident of Ashland, is the bartender and manager of Stone's Public House, which was built by John Stone back in 1832.

According to Morazzini, even before she began working at the inn, she heard stories of the ghost of a young boy roaming the halls of the restaurant, which once served as an ad hoc hospital during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.

It makes sense, Morazzini tells TODAY.com. “That’s where they would quarantine all the sick people,” she explains. “Apparently, quite a few souls have passed just due to that.”

The inn is also the site for other untimely deaths, including that of a young girl who was struck and killed by a train while she played near the railroad tracks bordering the property.

According to Morazzini, a father and son visiting the inn stepped outside the restaurant to watch the trains. After coming back inside, Morazzini overheard the father reassuring his young son that there wasn't anyone else outside — despite the son insisting he'd seen a little girl sitting beside them.

“He’s like, ‘She was sitting right next to me. She was crying. You didn’t see the little girl?’ And the dad said, ‘There was nobody there, it was just me and you, buddy,'" Morazzini recalls.

Other ghosts are said to haunt the old inn, including that of proprietor, John Stone, who Morazzini says didn’t actually die there, but is believed to be “watching over” the place.

One night when Morazzini was alone at the inn, she says she heard footsteps walking directly above her on the second floor. “I was just like, there is no explanation for that whatsoever. I’m leaving," she tells TODAY.com.

Still, she doesn’t believe that the spirits have bad intentions. “I’ve never had that scary, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-gotta-get-out-of-the-building feeling there."

The unexpected passenger

In the 1990s, Julie, a resident of Portland, Oregon, was driving out the city to meet with friends when she found herself in traffic. The 18-year-old soon discovered that the cause of the slowdown was due to a dreadful car crash and to her horror, as she passed the scene, she realized that someone had died.

A moment later, “there was a woman sitting in my passenger seat.” Julie says on “Monsters Among Us.”

Though she admits it sounds crazy, Julie reports seeing a woman dressed in work clothes seated next to her. And despite being in complete shock, the woman in the passenger seat was even more freaked out. “She looked like somebody who just suddenly ended up in somebody else’s car,” Julie says of the incident.

Panicked, the woman demanded to know how she got there and who Julie was. It was then that Julie noticed the woman had an unearthly quality about her and realized that whoever she’d passed on the side of the road was somehow in the car with her.

“'Ma’am, you need to calm down, my name is Julie and I’m here to help,’” she says she told the stranger. Julie later went on to explain to the woman that she’d been in a car accident and somehow ended up in her passenger seat. The woman was stricken.

At that exact minute, they passed a clearing in the trees. With some encouragement from Julie, the woman peacefully walked toward the sun, then disappeared.

In completely disbelief, Julie pulled over and convinced herself she’d imagined the whole thing. Several days later, however, a story came on the news about a trucker injured in a car accident.

“Before they finished, they threw a picture up of the woman that was in my car and explained that she had passed away in the accident,” Julie says during the podcast. “It was unbelievable, it was too much.”

The ghost in the choir loft

Alicia Diozzi, teacher, tour guide and owner of Salem Kids Tours , typically sticks to talking about Salem, Massachusetts' long and diverse history.

However, there’s one story she likes to share about a ghost that haunts First Church in Salem. The plot twist? Only children can see it.

“The little ones, maybe age 4 or 5, will ask about a ghostly presence that they see up in the choir loft in the main sanctuary of our church,” she tells TODAY.com.

According to Diozzi, kids often point to the same spot in the church and claim they see a woman there.

“The kids will say she’s in a long dress, long-sleeves, and that she sometimes can be heard singing with the choir," Diozzi says.

Tales of the choir ghost have been circulating since the 1960s, says Diozzi. And she might have dismissed them had her own son not pointed to loft 15 years ago and asked about "the lady who sings with the choir."

Was she chilled?

“Yes, definitely,” Diozzi says. “I feel like the main sanctuary at First Church has that feeling, you do kind of feel the presence of the past.”

It’s not a bad feeling she says, but rather a history or energy that’s comforting in a way.

The ghosts of 'Shawshank' penitentiary

The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio is widely known for being the location of the classic movie, "The Shawshank Redemption."

But the old penitentiary, which was shut down in 1990, also has a reputation for being haunted.

Home to some of the most hardened criminals, the maximum-security prison was once the site of murders, suicides and other violent encounters, according to Theresa Argie, author and paranormal investigator known as “ The Haunted Housewife ."

“(The reformatory) had this incredible vein of violence that ran through it almost from the beginning," Argie tells TODAY.com.

“You can imagine why a place like that would be haunted,” she says. “There’s something negative there, you can just feel it in your bones.”

And there are, in fact, plenty of ghost stories from the old prison.

“We ran into female spirits there, which I thought was incredibly interesting,” Argie said. One of them, she says, is likely the wife of a former warden who was accidentally shot and killed while pulling a box down from a closet shelf.

According to Argie, they've captured recordings of a woman crying and, on occasion, smelled rose perfume in the bedroom.

Another spirit that’s said to haunt the reformatory is a woman who sits in the prison chapel and cries. “When you approach this woman sitting in the pew, she disappears. Other people have seen her walking," Argie says.

Then there's the malevolent presence there, according to Argie. And with the help of a medium, she says she communicated with it.

“He would literally be cussing at me,” she recalled.

While their sessions with the angry ghost were unnerving, it wasn’t until he followed Argie’s partner home that they were truly terrified.

“One day, she saw him, through a reflection of her window, she saw this thing in the back, this shadow figure, and she knew it was him," Argie tells TODAY.com.

After seeking the help of a paranormal expert, Argie says that "we haven't seen him since."

The phantom ambulance lights

In the mid 1990s, Robert worked as paramedic in a small Texas town and tells the story of a "strange happening" that he and his partner experienced on a call one night.

After receiving a call for a female having chest pains, he and his partner climbed in the ambulance to make their way to the address.

"We took off Code 3, which means using our emergency lights and sirens," Robert recalls.

In the absence of GPS back then, Robert says that they relied on maps and mailbox numbers to guide them to the rural location.

"The address we were going to was a very rural one," says Robert. "So, there was no street lights and it was a very dark night, so it was very difficult to read the mailboxes."

As they searched for the correct driveway, Robert says he turned off the sirens. After determining they'd found it, they pulled in only to discover they were mistaken.

"So, we turned off the emergency lights as we backed up to the road and went up the correct driveway," he explains.

Upon arriving at the scene, the paramedics realized that they'd been at the exact same address the month prior for a male suffering from cardiac arrest.

"In typical medical black-humor fashion, we mentioned to each other that this was probably the wife who was now having a heart attack and was now going to go join her husband."

They jumped from the ambulance, bags in tow, and began treating the woman, who, fortunately, ended up being alright. Robert says he sent his partner to get the stretcher from the ambulance so they could take her to hospital for evaluation.

"When he returned, he had this strange questioning look on his face," according to Robert. The pair wheeled the patient out to the emergency vehicle and that's when Robert saw that the ambulance "had nearly every light it was equipped with turned on."

"Strobe lights, flood lights, some interior lights ... everything on."

After taking the patient to the hospital, Robert asked his partner why he'd turned on all the lights.

In fact, he reminded Robert that they'd shut them all off after going to the wrong address.

"Neither of us recall activating the emergency lights, strobes or flood lights when we arrived at the house. There was no real reason to do so, we'd already gotten there.

"In the end, we wrote it off as her dead husband letting her know that he was still there."

The ghost dog

Sarah, from Lancaster, Ohio, tells "Monsters Among Us" the story of her childhood dog, Cricket, who according to Sarah was a "pretty unhappy dog."

"She was super cranky, she only liked my grandma," Sarah says. "She didn't seem like she felt well."

Still, the family loved their dog and was devastated when the pup ran out into the road and was struck and killed by a passing car as they were preparing to leave on a family vacation.

"It was very sad, very upsetting, especially with me being a child. My grandmother was there, she loved Cricket and Cricket loved her. They had this special relationship that none of us had."

Despite the loss, the family had prepaid for their vacation, and not having a lot of money, decided to still go, leaving Cricket with an aunt who offered to take of the necessary details.

Upon arriving at the hotel where they were staying, Sarah says the family was "melancholy and sad" over the tragedy.

"We go to bed, and in the middle of the night, I'm not sure why I woke up, but I startled, woke up, sat up in bed, and looked down, and on the floor was Cricket, a full-body apparition, of her," says Sarah.

"She looked so happy, she looked like a different dog. She was jumping around. All that crankiness, all that unhappiness she had, was gone. It was like she was coming to tell me that she was OK. It was the clearest apparition. I've never seen an apparition again. It was the first and only time."

Sarah says she told her mother in the morning what she'd seen and her mom dismissed it as her middle-school brain just trying to make sense of the loss.

"I guess that's possible," says Sarah, "but to this day, I can still envision Cricket in that moment. I've never forgotten that image and it helped me feel better about what had happened because she seemed so happy and I do think she was visiting me that night."

  The ghosts of Willoughby Coal

Built in the late 1800s, the Willoughby Coal building in Willoughby, Ohio, housed a variety of businesses in it's time, including a train depot, cheese factory and flour mill.

In 1912, it became the very prosperous Willoughby Coal, supplying coal to local residents before it was sold to Henry Windus and William “Don” Norris in the 1930s.

Over time, the relationship between the two owners grew contentious, according to Theresa Argie. “Henry Windus wanted to buy the business from Don Norris, but Don was unwilling to sell," the paranormal investigator tells TODAY.com

One morning, Norris allegedly told his wife he was going out for bread and to check on repairs being done on the Willoughby building.

He never returned.

Several hours later, his body was discovered in front of the door. “He was laying in a bloody heap,” Argie says.

Even though his death was ultimately ruled accidental, Argie says that Norris' family believed he'd been murdered. Though no one knows what really happened that morning, Argie believes his spirit still haunts the building.

“We have come in contact with him on many, many occasions,” she says and claims that others have reported seeing faces in the window and heard unexplained footsteps and other unusual occurrences at the building.

But Norris isn't alone.“We’ve probably got five or six resident spirits in the building."

The ghost nanny

Kip, a caller from New York state, talks of an old home that he and his wife purchased. Upon moving in, his wife invited her sister and newborn baby to come for a visit.

“The stayed in the downstairs bedroom and my wife was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom,” Kip explains on "Monsters Among Us," and says the first night their guests stayed, his wife overheard her sister talking to someone in the middle of the night.

The next morning, Kip’s wife asked who she’d been talking to and her sister replied, “I woke up in the middle of the night and there was an old lady standing over my baby and I had to tell her to get away.”

According to Kip, there were more unexplained incidents in the house including mysteriously moving lamps and a creepy occurrence with a fire alarm that went off while his wife was outside working in their garden.

“She immediately runs back into the house, figures out that it’s the smoke alarm in that same downstairs bedroom going off,” Kip says on the podcast. “When she opened the door, she said for a split second all she could see in the room was this white fog.”

Within moments, however, the white fog disappeared and the alarm shut off.

Convinced the house was haunted, Kip’s wife reached out to a neighbor to learn more about the property and discovered that the previous owner was a 90-year-old woman who tragically died in a house fire.

“Needless to say, we fixed up the house and got out of there as fast as we could and moved someplace else," says Kip.

Read on for more scares!

• Are witches real? What to know on fact or fiction
• Are werewolves real? The truth might surprise you
• Scary books to read, from classics to modern fiction

Sarah is a lifestyle and entertainment reporter for TODAY who covers holidays, celebrities and everything in between.

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Honolulu Ghost & Mystery Tours

Home of authentic historic tours and vintage films of Hawaii

A loha, and welcome to the website of Steven Fredrick's Honolulu Tours and Vintage Films.

A Special Message from Steven

2024 is our 18th year of hosting the most respected historical tours on Oahu.

A two-day holiday special: Wednesday , December 25 and Thursday, December 26th, Hawaii Wartime History Tour.  Reduced Price: $75.00 per person.  Reservations are required.

As every effort is made to provide our tour members with a happy and memorable experience, we will ensure that safety guidelines are followed at all times.

As we have done in the past, liability forms are required for all guests taking our tours.  Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.

Please take care of yourself and your family during this holiday season.   Stay safe in 2024.

THE 2024 CALENDAR OF TOURS

January: THE HAWAII WARTIME HISTORY TOUR.

See Tours page for tour details.

February : All tours are open and available.

March : All tours are open and available.

April : "The Black Camel" Movie Tour.

May: All tours are open and available.

June : All tours are open and available.

July: THE DUKE KAHANAMOKU WAIKIKI TOUR.

To celebrate the life and legacy of Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, Steven hosts the special walking tour in Waikiki.

August: THE CHARLIE CHAN MYSTERY TOUR

A salute to Chang Apana and Earl Derr Biggers. See Tours page for tour details.

August: THE DUKE KAHANAMOKU WALKING TOUR.

The two-hour walking tour visits several sites related to the Olympic swimmer. Stops include points of interest along Kalakaua Avenue, famous Waikiki hotels, and the popular Duke's Canoe Club.

September: All tours are open and available.

October: THE 'WALK WITH THE DEAD' GHOST TOUR.

This one-and-a-half mile walking tour visits sites of murder, death, and suicide in the downtown Honolulu/Chinatown area. A one-of-a-kind Halloween tour begins on October 1st and continues every night until the 31st.

November: All tours are open and available:

October may be over, but the ghost tours continue in November.

Throughout November, we offer Make-Up Ghost Tours.

December: THE CHANG APANA CHINATOWN TOUR.

In honor of the birth of Honolulu Police Detective Chang Apana, Steven takes guests on a special Chinatown tour. Serving longer than anyone else on the local police force, Det. Apana was one of the most colorful and best known characters in the city. His achievements reached the attention of Earl Derr Biggers before the novelist visited the islands and some of them were worked into "The House Without a Key." Later, when Mr. Biggers came to Oahu for a visit, he and Det. Apana became friends and the writer created the character of detective Charlie Chan as a result.

December 25th: THE GHOSTS OF HONOLULU'S PAST

A holiday ghost tour. One night only. CHRISTMAS NIGHT ONLY.

This t0ur, scheduled for Christmas night (December 25th), is a tour for those looking for something different, but still within the yuletide spectrum. The cost is $90 per person ($50 with military I.D.). For reservations and information, contact Steven Fredrick.

See you in 2024. Thank you so much.

Steven Fredrick

Steven Fredrick's Tours and Films

Researching Hawaii's rich history has been a part of Steven's life since his relocation to the islands in 1994. While living on Maui, he stumbled upon hundreds of 16mm films that a local library had thrown away.

A s a collector of South Seas movies, Steven researches films that were shot in the Hawaiian Islands. In July 1995, he launched "Classic Film Programs," a series of film-lectures focusing on the Hawaiian image in Hollywood movies.

While presenting a series of vintage film programs in Waikiki, Steven met entertainers who performed with Lena Machado and members of the Harry Owens orchestra.

A mong Steven's heroes was Glen Grant, the creator of the Honolulu Ghost Walks. "Glen was a special man," said Fredrick. "A very unique storyteller. I took one of Glen's ghost tours and just loved it." Shortly after their meeting, Glen and Steven discussed the possibility of combining their interests for a haunted movie tour of Oahu. Unfortunately, this never came to be due to Grant's death.

Since April 2007, Steven has been taking guests on ghostly walking tours to haunted sights in downtown Honolulu. The Honolulu Ghost Tour, which combines Hawaiian history with local ghost stories, is popular with both locals and tourists alike.

In December 2007, Steven hosted a special movie and tour program "Hawaii During World War II: The Movies and The Music of the 1940s." This two-part program was highly successful. It sold out. Since then, Steven has offered the Hawaii Wartime History Tours on a regular basis.

In May 2009, after several years of research, Steven hosted his first Charlie Chan Mystery Tour in Honolulu. This tour is dedicated to the three founding fathers of the fictional Chinese-Hawaiian detective. On the Chan Tour, we visits sites related to author Earl Derr Biggers, actor Warner Oland, and Honolulu police detective Chang Apana.

In November 2013, Steven consulted with the producers of the hit CBS-TV series "Hawaii Five-O". For episode #4.10: "Ho'oani Makuakane" ("Honor Thy Fathers"), Steven provided guidance regarding the historic footage used to recreate a vintage movie newsreel, circa 1941. As of this date, Five-O fans consider this episode to be the best of the series.

Steven holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, in Speech-Communications, from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is the only State of Hawaii licensed ghost tour guide in Honolulu.

Photo Courtesy: Molly Hayden

WALKING THEMED TOURS IN HONOLULU, HAWAII

Oahu's Most Exciting and Popular Tours.

"The Honolulu Ghost Tour"

"The Duke Kahanamoku Waikiki Tour"

"The Charlie Chan Mystery Tour"

"The Hawaii Wartime History Tour"

"Spooky Waikiki, The Dark Side of Paradise"

READ ABOUT STEVE'S TOURS AND FILMS

https://www.army.mil/article/13574/military_ohana_enjoy_ghostly_experience

Reservations

Please make your reservations 48 hours prior to the tour date. No same-day reservations are accepted. Email is the best way to contact Steven. Mahalo for your interest.

Mr. Steven Fredrick

Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Telephone: (808) 395-0674

Email: filmguy54(at)hotmail.com

Copyright (c) 2007-2024 by Steven A. Fredrick. All right reserved.

Select Your City

Welcome to baltimore's #1 rated ghost tour.

War, mystery, and the unexplained shroud Baltimore’s past and poison its present. Uncover why Baltimore dreads the ghosts who never left the harbor.  

Steeped in maritime history, tragedy, and death, Baltimore was a city where pirates and cut-throats feared to sail. Take a Baltimore ghost tour to explore this dreaded outpost, and discover a history drenched in black deeds, dark waters, and vengeful ghosts.  

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Choose Your Unique Baltimore Experience

Tours are held daily, rain or shine, and year-round. Please see a list of available tours below to book your tour today, or for more information.

Baltimore Ghosts

Explore this dreaded outpost, and discover a history drenched in black deeds, dark waters, and vengeful ghosts.

Meeting Location All tours meet at the corner of Lancaster St and S Broadway

Tour Duration Tours are 1 hour across a 1-mile walking distance. Ask about the bonus extended tour!

Availability Press "Book Now" for availability

Baltimore Ghosts Boos and Booze Haunted Pub Crawl

Join us for an evening of thrills and chills, and belly up to the historic bars, where you just may be socializing with the apparition of a patron from centuries ago.

Meeting Location Outside Max's Taphouse

Tour Duration Approximately 2 hours

Hell and Highwater in Harborland: Forging an American City

Join us on a walk down four hundred years of President's Street, and one of the oldest ethnic neighborhoods in the city.

Meeting Location Katyn Memorial at 600 S President St, Baltimore, MD 21202

Tour Duration Approximately 90 minutes

THE EXPERIENCES YOU'VE HEARD ABOUT

Read All Reviews

Preview The Most Haunted Locations In Baltimore

Max's taphouse.

As a rowdy seaport town, local pubs once held a special place in the city’s culture. The building known as Max’s Taphouse, in the harbor-side neighborhood of Fell’s Point, dates back to the city’s early days when it operated as a slaughterhouse and brothel. 

Aside from an impressive selection of beer, Max’s is a must-see for the stories and fables about the haunted history of the old building.

The Horse You Came in on Saloon

This saloon, established in 1775, The Horse You Came in on Saloon is the oldest continually operating in the United States. As if that title isn’t impressive enough, it’s also the only bar in Maryland to have survived the prohibition era of the 1920s. 

All this is to say that the building can tell a tale or two. As can the famed American gothic writer, Edgar Allen Poe, who is said to have stopped in here as his last-known destination before succumbing to a mysterious death.

As another Fell’s Point institution, Rye brings Baltimore’s history to light with its innovative craft cocktail menu. The Prohibition-era drinks and repurposed industrial decor take Rye’s visitors back to when Baltimore got its name as “Charm City.”

Its reputation from nautical misadventure makes it the perfect spot to hear a local ghost story or two.

Welcome to Baltimore Ghosts

Uncover a history of murder and the macabre.

In the sunshine, Baltimore seems quaint, unassuming, and idyllic… yet it hides a gruesome and bloody past that is all but distant.   Mired in ambition, black deeds, and devilish deals, men willing to sell their innocence for pennies built a foundation steeped in corruption. The colonial port became a rowdy shipbuilding center where death seemed to always lurk in the shadows of the docks, from the days of the colonies to the time of Edgar Allan Poe.

Mobtown has always been a violent city. Founded as a busy port and shipbuilding yard, Baltimore rapidly became a rowdy and seedy pirate’s nest.   With a history full of sad stories and tragic deaths dating back to the 1600’s, residents have always preferred settling fights with their fists and covering the streets with the blood of riots and angry mobs. Their victims tragically still haunt Baltimore today, victims of murder and uneding war sagas.. Investigate chilling tales of their desperate last moments and hear their ghostly pleas for justice echoing in the wind.

Join Baltimore Ghosts as we walk through the haunted waterfront and hear spine-tingling tales of ruthless pirates, unsolved deaths, and the bloodthirsty knaves that have used Baltimore’s bars, brothels and boarding houses as hunting and haunted grounds for the last 200 years.

What Will I see?

Discover districts that have inspired some of America’s most terrifying gothic tales and the bars haunted by their strange energy — bars full of ghosts and wraiths.

Experience Baltimore’s Deadly History Come Alive

Adventure tonight on a chilling tour of Baltimore’s dark side and see the most haunted sites in the city where the souls of those long dead serve as cautionary tales of murder, desperation, and betrayal. Cross paths with little Molly at the historic Lord Baltimore Hotel. Encounter the ghosts of the Stock Market Crash suicides on the steps of the Admiral Fell Inn. Investigate these ghost stories and more as you walk with us on the streets that inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s most twisted tales and visit the last place the author was ever seen alive.

Meet your guide across from Max’s Taphouse to embark on our hair-raising tour of the violent side of one of the most haunted ports on the east coast. Expert local guides will captivate you with stories of scallywags and wartime crimes, and of the men and women of Mobtown’s past who never left their final resting place.

Why is Baltimore so Haunted?

In Charm City, if you feel like you’re being watched, you most certainly are. The peering, restless eyes of little Molly on her window pouncing her red ball to the beat of a fevered heart will not feel the least bit charming when it sends chills shooting up your spine.   No less terrifying is an encounter with the diseased nurse of the harbor who, in search of Warton sailors to entrap, left in her wake a trail of misery and death.  

The Baltimore ghost tour takes you deep into the darker side of this city’s already sordid underbelly. On an adventure through streets still haunted by the ghosts of bloodthirsty cutthroats, murderous working girls, and half-dead sailors — fiends waiting to shanghai the nearest unwary soul.

From the scored pirates that used the city as their playing ground to devastating bouts of plagues to the inferno that became the infamous Baltimore Fire of 1904, you’ll hear firsthand accounts and experience every tale with expert guides chillingly describing each story’s most ghastly details. Listen to tales of ghosts that continually stalk the city streets each night, sad and tragic victims who burned alive or suffered the torments of war and disease.  

Embark on a ghost tour through the city’s darkest depths to hear the terrifying tales of these poor souls and encounter the apparitions of the ones who refused to leave.  

What’s so special about the Baltimore Ghosts Tour? 

See a different side of a beautiful destination.

When in Baltimore it’s tradition to indulge in crab dinners, sit in the stands at a Ravens game, and go shopping at Inner Harbor. When you’re done taking in the seaside sights, enjoying Mid-Atlantic cuisine for lunch and taking in the art scene, it’s time to change the beat — and visit the darker side of the city, one waiting for you just around the corner. Spend a chilling evening in the shadows of Baltimore’s old waterfront neighborhoods on our ghost adventure tour. Visit old brothels and bars where the specters of rowdy sailors and saloon girls make their presence known decades after their burial. Spend a gruesome evening with us and collect a few sinister stories to share when you get home.

Be Part of A Growing Community  

Ghost hunters are the curious lot, they dare to look deep into history’s haunted sites –swipe the mask away and stare into some of its secrets. Experience the thrill and chill of dread crawling down your spine as you swap ghostly yarns under the cover of darkness. Unearth foreboding mysteries and ancient secrets. When you’re out on a ghost adventure with us, you’ll share an unforgettable and terrifying evening with others who love the adrenaline rush of haunted history. Be a part of the tribe of terror.

Experience the adrenaline rush of exploring haunted locations

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of something watching you from a dark corner or the idea that someone could be lurking just behind your shoulder. A wave of curiosity mixes with a tinge of fear when you pull up a chair at a bar rumored to be haunted, wondering if you’ll see nefarious evidence while you’re enjoying a drink. With a historical ghost tour, you can hear stories that get your blood rushing while wondering if you’ll meet a ghostly apparition along the way.  

The Baltimore ghost tour is the ultimate thrill experience that casts tourism into a much darker light and creates unforgettable memories.  

If you plan to explore Fell’s Point or any of Baltimore’s other popular destinations and see a darker side to Maryland’s prime port, book a tour with US Ghost Adventures today.  

Many of our guests experience the unexplained and bear witness to the unknown. Become one of them tonight.  

* This is a walking tour and we do not enter privately-owned buildings or private property *

6 Reasons to book your Baltimore Ghosts tour right now!   

1) you want to immerse yourself in the frightful history of baltimore.

A myriad of sinister secrets lurks in the windows of the former brothels, bars, and boarding houses that line the streets of Baltimore’s harbor. Many of these buildings were rudimentary hospitals where traumatized soldiers spent their last days in pain and terror. Others were slaughterhouses and sites of brutal murders. Discover places that are still haunted by the ghosts of these tragic victims from Baltimore’s past. Investigate deeper into these tragic stories and encounter vengeful ghosts from the city’s bloody past.

2) You’re obsessed with ghosts and horror

A good scare is like a strong cup of coffee. The blacker the better. Good scares are like an adrenaline punch to the guts. They are thrilling. They renew you. They make life a little bit brighter. Embark on a tour of haunted sites, where a ghost encounter could happen at any time, and dare the impossible to take place. Some of us simply need a bit more in our lives. Some of us like the rollercoaster that breaks the sound barrier. Or the base jump of the old bridge. Or tales of the Aztec temple and its many blood sacrifices. The beach just doesn’t do it for us. And staring at mountains or the Grand Canyon bores us to death. We need morbid tales and possibly encounter an ancient pirate or two when you join us on our ghost adventure tour.

3) Boo!! Book a Date night you’ll remember till your dying day

You’ve already walked through the sun-saturated streets of Baltimore, holding hands, and making kissy faces — night has set in. Want to impress? Give the bars a rest. Cling closer to your sweetheart as you feel the hot breath of an invisible on the sidewalk. Feel the flood of hormones bringing you closer. Your heart beats melting together. Your sweat glands coming into syncopation. There’s a reason why horror movies have become stables of date night — GO ONE STEP FURTHER. Embark on a chilling ghost adventure tour and investigate the city’s haunted past together.  

4) The History Channel is always on in your living room.

Uncover a harrowing side to American history on our ghost adventure tour through haunted Baltimore. Get educated on the ghosts that still linger in historic buildings and soldiers that still man their posts at decommissioned Navy ships. Investigate stories of the colonists who lived and died in Baltimore and of the specters they left behind. Join us on our ghost adventure tour for tales that challenge your perception, that tax your nerves, and bedevil your optics some the dreams that turned to nightmares in thai port city.  

5) You did the sightseeing, you shopped till you dropped, and now you want more!

Invest in a bloodchilling souvenir after you’ve bought all those gifts and trinkets. A doodad, a bauble, a truly unique knick-knack you can take back home and show around. Regale your friends with and maybe command the conversation during one of your evenings out. Take home terrifying stories and maybe something else. Something with a bit more bite to it. Don’t be surprised when you feel a presence join the room during a macabre story of Baltimore’s past.

6) You’re tired of traditional tours and conventional tour guides

Why settle for a checked-out tour guide when you can hear the haunted history of Baltimore from someone who is engaged, passionate and knowledgeable? We’ve all been there, on a tour guided by someone by a buffon, an ill-informed miscreant in it just for the shekels. A guide unable to answer questions and disconnected from the subject at hand. Ditch the boring tours and book something more inspiring – and chilling – with a ghost tour of Baltimore. Something captivating. Something that riles you to your very bones. With us, you’ll discover secret stories and unearth a more sinister side of the Charm City and have one heck of a time while doing it.  

Further Reading

We're halfway to Halloween — celebrate with a free stay at Lizzie Borden House. Here's how.

FALL RIVER — Who says it's too early to get in the spirit?

Spooky season may still be six months away, but you don't have to wait until fall to get in on some Halloween fun.

Spirit Halloween and US Ghost Adventures , which operates the Lizzie Borden House , are teaming up on an ax-citing collaboration.

The nation's largest Halloween retailer, with pop-up locations across the SouthCoast, has announced it's getting a head start on spooky season with "Halfway to Halloween" events that include some frightening fun in Fall River.

Lizzie Borden's legend: Here's why Fall River's most infamous story will never die

What is 'Halfway to Halloween'?

Part of their "Halfway to Halloween" weeklong celebration brings true crime enthusiasts and horror fans to the Spindle City to explore its infamous landmark — the Lizzie Borden House.

On Aug. 4, 1892, Lizzie Borden's father Andrew Borden, and stepmother, Abby Borden, were slain inside the 230 Second St. house as a result of multiple hatchet blows to the head what is still an unsolved case.

For years, the property has served as a bed and breakfast and museum, and in recent years under new ownership has also held guided ghost tours.

Now, one lucky winner will get a free trip and overnight stay at the historic home by entering their Lizzie Borden House giveaway.

"We are delighted to work with Spirit Halloween to roll out the red carpet and offer the public a chance to win a one-of-a-kind experience at the infamous Lizzie Borden House, which also includes additional haunted experiences and merchandise," said Lance Zaal, president and founder of US Ghost Adventures, in a press release from Spirit Halloween.

What will winners get?

Winners will have the Second Street site of the grisly Borden murders all to themselves during their eerie overnight stay.

This haunted holiday includes a guided house tour, a late-night ghost tour during which participants are equipped with "professional ghost-hunting gear," a private breakfast in the Borden family dining room, a ghost hunting starter kit and a lesson for two at US Ghost Adventures Ghost Hunting Course, and a Lizzie Borden gift shop package.

Lizzie in pop culture: 11 ways that TV, movies and books took a whack at the legend of Fall River's Lizzie Borden

And the spooky fun doesn't end in Fall River. Winners also get their choice of a Ghost Tour experience in Salem or a True Crime experience in Boston.

Can I bring friends?

According to Spirit Halloween, the lucky winner will get to take up to 12 members of their "coven" along for the "horror-filled" ride.  

Haunted hotels list: The Lizzie Borden House was named one of the world's best. How scary is it?

What is the deadline and how do I enter?

Interested in throwing your hatchet in the ring for the Borden giveaway? There are only a few days left, so don't miss out.

To enter, you must follow Spirit Halloween ( @spirithalloween ) and US Ghost Adventures ( @USGhostAdv ) on Instagram, like Spirit Halloween's Instagram post about the contest , and leave a comment on the post tagging the friends you’d bring with you if you win.

The deadline to do so is Sunday, April 28. The contest is open to those 18 years and older.

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3xSKjEy .

From Night Safaris to Ghost Tours, the Best After-Dark Adventures for Your Next Vacation

W hen traveling, you needn’t squelch your appetite for adventure just because the daylight runs out. These five nighttime excursions prove that some of the most rewarding experiences happen after dark.

Ride by Bike-Light

In Arizona, night brings a respite from the desert sun and, for cyclists, that means ideal riding conditions. At the Boulders Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Ariz., guests can join a guided, moonlit ride along smooth trails, illuminated by the high-power LED lights on their handlebars. Over the course of a couple of hours, riders might spot mule deer, bobcats and night-blooming cactuses. “The desert is a  different place at night,”  said cycling guide Rico Riley. “You can really hear the coyotes howl.”

Experience Things That Go ‘Cheers’ in the Night

During the day, Ashford Castle in County Mayo, Ireland, attracts golfers, falconers and archers. But as dusk falls, the nearly 800-year-old castle shows its eerier side. Charismatic restaurant manager, Robert Bowe leads an after-hours tour through shadowy passageways once used to cart coal around the premises. Along the way, Bowe shares tales of the castle’s resident ghosts, like the “Girl in the White Dress” thought to be a former resident. Post-chills, you’ll be treated to wines from the castle’s historic cellar. It’s a bit like a dinner party if your host was centuries-old and partially transparent.

Wake Up With the Jungle

Many resorts on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast equip you to see monkeys, sloths and jaguars by day, but at the eco-resort Botánika Osa Peninsula, the dark hours invest the phrase “a wild night out” with new meaning. On a Jungle Night Walk, guests follow a guide into the rainforest around Crocodile Bay, where red-eyed tree frogs and stealthy ocelots roam.

Swim With Giants

With its Whale Shark Night Snorkeling excursions from November to April, private island resort COMO Maalifushi in the Maldives cranks up the thrill (or terror, if dark water freaks you out). A comprehensive briefing on how to interact with the wild giants respectfully kicks off the evening. Once in the water, you’ll snorkel—flashlight clutched tightly—alongside the world’s largest fish. Each photo taken (no flash allowed) aids conservation efforts, helping to track the animals. Plus, it makes for pretty impressive bragging rights.

Acquire Star Power

You’ve seen the photos on Instagram: eerily in-focus seas of stars. It’s not Photoshop, it’s practice. At Alila Ventana Big Sur hotel in California, night-sky tours are about observing the expanse—and gaining the skills to capture it. With expert instruction from “campground experience leader” Manuel Salas, you and a small group of students will learn how to take photos of the Milky Way with clarity, creativity and confidence.

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New augmented reality walking tour reveals what Third Ward ghost signs used to look like

Mike Roe, the executive creative director for Milwaukee marketing agency Hoffman York , got interested in ghost signs when he noticed one outside his office window in the Third Ward, and then started noticing them everywhere in the neighborhood.

Ghost signs are faded advertisements that were painted on the outside of buildings decades ago, the remnants of which can still be seen.

"These signs were like the original out-of-home advertisements before TV, before social media, when you'd paint a big message on the side of your building to say, 'These are things we sell,'" Roe said. "And now it's like this art form of a part of history."

As his interest in the ghost signs grew, Roe started talking to people at the Historic Third Ward Association and learned about some of the factors that make the old, faded signs so prevalent in the Third Ward — including the fact that the area is a federally protected historic district and that it has a concentration of brick buildings built after a fire in 1892 destroyed hundreds of wooden buildings .

Roe wondered if there was a noninvasive way to preserve the signs before they completely fade away so people can see what they looked like in their glory days. With the help of augmented reality technology, he and some coworkers created a ghost sign tour of 13 signs on 10 buildings in the Third Ward. Now people can scan a QR code on a paper map or a mobile link, hold up their phone to a building, and see what the ghost sign used to look like.

Here's what Roe had to say about the tour and his fascination with ghost signs.

How did you learn what the ghost signs used to look like?

Most of the signs are now illegible so I had to find old photographs, some of them century-old. And when you look for those photos, they're usually of other things. So you're sifting through all these old photographs to try to catch these buildings in the background.

I found all these photos at the Milwaukee Public Library and the Milwaukee County Historical Society and the Wisconsin Historical Society . I've never had an excuse to really explore those places before, but whenever I would tell the staff there what I was looking to do, everyone was so friendly and excited and happy to help.

Once we found enough photos for reference, our designers and art directors re-created the signs. The augmented reality work was challenging because that type of technology works really well for closer stuff, like when you go to a furniture store website and they show you what your furniture would look like in your living room. But we were trying to use the technology on a much bigger scale, to show what something would look like on the side of a whole building. The developers used geolocation and got it worked out so when you use your phone to look at the side of the building, the sign will sit there and when you move, it stays anchored and doesn't float around.

What can people expect when they go on the tour?

People can go to the Historic Third Ward Association, 525 E. Chicago St., to get a copy of the map. We're also hoping to partner with other places in the Third Ward, like the Milwaukee Public Market, 400 N. Water St., so people spending time in the Third Ward can pick up a map to either take a walking tour of the signs or use the mobile link ( augmentedhistory.org ) when they come across the buildings.

Then, as you come up to one of the buildings on the map, you use your phone to scan the QR code for that building, and hold up your phone to the ghost sign, and it will overlay the image of what the sign used to look like.

Will there be more ghost sign tours in the future?

What's great about having this tour in the Third Ward is, in addition to so many ghost signs, people can get something to eat, go to the shops and the galleries, spend some time walking around and have a fun adventure.

We've had kind of tunnel vision on creating this experience and making it live, and now, after doing a soft launch, we're realizing how many people are really enthusiastic about this. A lot of people have told me about their passion for this art form, so we'd love to feed that passion as much as we can. And I've noticed there are a lot of ghost signs in the Fifth Ward as well. A part of me would love to expand the tour, and I do love the idea of finding other ghost signs in Milwaukee.

How do you explain your fascination with ghost signs?

I would never have called myself a history buff, but there's something about these signs. I look at them and then when I see what they used to look like, I think about that company and what they used to sell and what it used to be like.

Like one of the buildings had these two Rex Chocolates signs, which was this big chocolate manufacturer. When I was researching them, I found magazine and newspaper articles about them, then on eBay, I found some of their old candy tins. I love to see that there was this whole experience, this whole brand that few people know about now that used to be this giant of Milwaukee industry.

I've got to watch out. It's definitely a rabbit hole.

Almost time for lightning bugs: Here's how to see rare blue ghost fireflies in Western NC

An annual event tied to one of Western North Carolina's natural wonders is coming back for the season. The Blue Ghost Firefly Twilight Tour will return May 14.

The tour's website describes the appearance of blue ghost fireflies as resembling "a tribe of fairies carrying blue candles through the forest." These unique, rare insects only live in a few areas, one of which is WNC's "Land of Waterfalls," Transylvania County.

Ghost fireflies are known for having a distinctive blue-green glow, unlike the yellow light you may be used to. The White Squirrel Institute says that blue ghosts are the only firefly species in North America that emits blue light, and are one of the smallest species in the world, measuring about a quarter of an inch long.

Here's what to know about the upcoming tours, and the fireflies they celebrate.

More: Great Smoky Mountains National Park synchronous firefly viewing; How to enter lottery

Blue Ghost Firefly Tour 2024

The Twilight Tour takes place at the Cradle of Forestry in America, 11250 Pisgah Highway (U.S. 276) in Pisgah Forest. The program begins at 9 p.m. and runs until 10:30 p.m. General admission is $50, and youth tickets (ages 4-12) are $25.

Each program begins with a 9 p.m. educational presentation at the Cradle of Forestry outdoor amphitheater. After the presentation concludes, guests use the cover of darkness to explore paved trails through the forest in search of blue ghost fireflies .

The tours are self-guided, but team members are stationed at locations throughout the trails to provide further information. Advance ticket purchase is required to attend the tours, so make sure you book online.

When can you see blue ghost fireflies?

Blue ghost firefly mating season is shorter than seasons for more common fireflies. They are generally active in late May to early June, meaning that they are active for only a few short weeks of every year. Like other fireflies, they begin their dance after dark.

The White Squirrel Institute says that every night, males fly low over the forest floor, glowing with a steady blue light. The females, who do not fly, will glow with a fainter blue light from the ground. When a male sees a female, he lands near her and flashes his light in a specific pattern. If the female is interested, she will flash her light back. Once they have matched patterns, they will mate.

Another unique and stunning feature of the insects is that their blue-green glow remains lit for up to a minute.

More: Word from the Smokies: Photographer and parks shine a light on the magic of fireflies

How rare are blue ghost fireflies?

There isn't much data on population numbers, but we know that ghost fireflies are a rare breed and unfortunately, they are only becoming rarer due to habitat loss and light pollution, which can disrupt the mating process. They are currently not on any endangered or protected species lists.

To help conserve these special insects, try reducing your use of artificial light and supporting conservation organizations. When searching for blue ghost fireflies, use a red light if you must use a flashlight. The Cradle of Forestry limits each night of their firefly events to 125 participants to keep their impact on the fireflies' natural habitat minimal.

How can I see blue ghost fireflies for free?

Tours like the one offered by the Cradle of Forestry are your best bet at spotting these rare bugs in their natural environment. However, blue ghost fireflies are found in various areas of the mountains in WNC. Here are some suggestions from the White Squirrel Institute on other areas you might be able to find some of these unique bugs:

• DuPont State Recreational Forest  – One of the most popular spots for viewing blue ghost fireflies. The forest offers several hiking trails that lead to streams and waterfalls where the fireflies live.
• Pisgah National Forest  – This large forest has many trails and camping areas, making it ideal for seeing fireflies.
• Cataloochee Valley   – This remote valley in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is another location for viewing.
• Chimney Rock State Park  – This park is located about an hour’s drive from Brevard and is known for its scenic views and hiking trails. The blue ghost fireflies live along the trails in the park.

Make sure to check whether the area you're hoping to visit has a closing time that you'll need to observe before visiting.

Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected].

'The vibes around here are through the roof': The Ghost Inside returns to an old haunt

Members of The Ghost Inside may not feel as young as they once were. But, with a brand new album, a brand new tour, including a May 3 return to the Palladium , they’re ready to let that feeling wash away as they usher in the next chapter of their career. And they're as locked in as they’ve ever been.

While their “Wash It Away” tour makes its way coast-to-coast to support their new album, "Searching For Solace," the California-based metal quintet is excited to share new songs with their devoted fanbase.

However, even with the excitement leading up to another cross-country trek with fresh batch of heavy-hitting bangers, the band has had a number of benchmark memories at the Palladium over the years, including the band's emotional post-pandemic return celebration in 2021. Drummer Andrew Tkaczyk and guitarist Jim Riley see the band's return to Worcester as a true highlight along the road map.

'It's exciting to be back'

“It’s exciting to be coming back again, especially where the album will have just come out, and then we play a show where we get to play songs off that record. That’s something we haven’t done in 10 years, which is a crazy thing to think of," Riley said. “The vibes around here are through the roof, because we’re so proud of this record, and we’re just so excited to play some of the songs on this tour.”

The new music has the band in a different headspace altogether, so naturally, the setlist they’ve curated for the 20-city run is largely their most anticipated aspect of the tour as a collective.

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With a generous dose of long-standing fan favorites, a number of new tracks, and even a handful of surprising deep cuts, Riley is pumped to unleash a little bit of everything for their audience. The song that lends its name to the name of the tour in “Wash It Away” is on the band’s radar as what they’re looking forward to playing the most. The song shows a palpable creative growth in the band’s approach to songwriting and composition.

“People who have been following the band for a long time know that the band has always been primarily Jonathan screaming, and a bit more basic on the guitar riff side of things, but (“Wash It Away”) is a more technical song across the board,” says Riley.

True to their roots

“Jonathan (Vigil) has been taking tons of time on the side to workshop and get his voice to a place where he’s doing the majority of the singing in the song, and he really sounds great. It’s also a song that really expands what The Ghost Inside is, and what we’re able to do," Riley said.

"We certainly haven’t lost our ‘heavy band’ roots," said Riley, "seeing as two of the songs we put out before the record are two of the heaviest songs we’ve ever played. But ‘Wash It Away’ is just a special one because it is different, it has a different vibe, and there aren’t many TGI songs that you can sing along to like ‘Wash It Away.’”

Sure, that song has them particularly psyched. But, that's not to say they’re not focused on what the rest of the album and the writing process for it represents for them as a unit, including what frontman Jonathan Vigil has done to prepare and expand his vocal range. 

“Even before we started writing this record, we all had thoughts about how we were ready to write a record with no limits and just go in without any expectations, and see what comes out naturally. We didn’t want to cater to anyone or anything. We only wanted to write music that we enjoyed writing and playing,” said Riley.

Riley observed, “We had a lot of help doing that with a lot of new people that we co-wrote with, and different producers that brought out some elements in ourselves that we didn’t fully realize we had. It was really interesting to see how the record turned out with all those factors considered, and it’s by far my favorite record we’ve ever done. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted this band to become over the years, and I couldn’t be prouder of it.”

'Young and hungry' openers

Coming along for the full ride are Switzerland’s Paleface, Scottish heavy metal quintet Bleed From Within and Massachusetts’ own Great American Ghost.

Members of the Ghost Inside praise the three bands' musical abilities. They also see a lot of themselves in the drive and determination these bands have displayed over the course of their respective careers. It's similar in many wways to how The Ghost Inside operated earlier in their own career opening for bands such as Parkway Drive and As I Lay Dying.

“We have three young and hungry bands coming out with us, and we remember what it was like being that young and hungry band ourselves, and we remember how much we wanted to go out, do a good job and impress the people you’re out there playing for," said Tkaczyk. "So that sets a high bar for us to have to go out there and close the show."

Tkaczyk said, “Paleface are freaking awesome. Bleed From Within are phenomenal musicians, and Great American Ghost are hungry to get out there on what I think is one of the biggest tours they’ve ever done. I feel like it’s going to be an escalator all night with each band trying to out-do the band before them. And when you’re the last band, you really have to bring it, so it’s refreshing, and things like that keep us young and hungry, as well, trying to keep up with these young bucks.”

'A hot spot for this band'

Tkaczyk is quick to acknowledge just how lucky he and his battle-tested bandmates feel to able to still make music and tour, especially considering all they’ve endured over the course of the last decade.

Addition to that, returning to Worcester to play a stage such as the Palladium more than a few times is beyond anything the band could’ve imagined. As with every other time before, they’re thankful for the opportunity.

“Worcester has always been a hot spot for this band. We have so many friends and a lot of family there, as well, so we always know Worcester is going to be a giant celebration in a way. We love playing that stage,” says Tkaczyk. “We grew up watching the Killswitch (Engage) DVD and the New England Metal and Hardcore Fest shows, and it’s always fun being able to come back to that stage and live out our own little fantasy again. It’s always been a good time playing the Palladium, and this time is no different.”

The Ghost Inside with Paleface, Bleed From Within and Great American Ghost

When : 6 p.m. May 3

Where : The Palladium, 261 Main St., Worcester

How much : $35 to $59.50. thepalladium.net .

NC group offering tours allowing people to see Blue Ghost Fireflies

PISGAH FOREST, N.C. (FOX Carolina) - FIND Outdoors, and the Cradle of Forestry announced they are hosting tours over the next few months to allow people to see a unique creature that calls the Blue Ridge Mountains home.

According to organizers, through the tour, people will see the Blue Ghost Firefly, which they say resembles a “tribe of fairies carrying blue candles through the forest.”

Organizers explained that the fireflies only come out briefly once a year and hover over the forest floor with a bluish glow.

Organizers said the tours for the 2024 season will take place May 14-18, May 28-31 and June 1-7. The Cradle of Forestry is located at 11250 Pisgah Highway, Pisgah Forest, NC. Those interested can find more information about the tours here .

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