31 Haunted Places for October

1. The Tonic Room in Chicago, IL

The building, now home to The Tonic Room, has a history of unusual paranormal activity dating all the way back to the 1920’s. Previously a favorite hangout for the city’s Irish mob as well as a notorious brothel

The new, current owners discovered a painted pentagram on the basement floor & Egyptian symbols on the ceiling. There was also a dagger found & when upon removing it, a bouncer felt paralyzed & couldn’t move or speak.

These presences have led people to believe the basement was a secret meeting place for the Golden Dawn’s American Chapter. A woman has also made claims that she witnessed a ritual murder in the 1930s.

Over the years there have been many ghost sightings, specifically in the bar area & basement. To this day the owners won’t move the dagger from where it was found & you can ask to see it for yourself.

Day 2: Hill of Crosses, Lithuania

People have been placing crosses since the 14th century for various reasons: During the midieval period, it was to express a desire for Lithuanian independence. Then after a peasant uprising in 1831 (cont)

People began adding crossing in remembrance of dead rebels, & the hill a place of defiance again during Soviet occupation from 1944-1991. The hill was bulldozed by Soviets 3 separate times, yet locals kept rebuilding it. There are now more than 100k crosses!

"As the wind blows across the fields of rural Siauliai County, ornate rosaries clink against metal and wooden crucifixes, filling the air with eerie chimes," Egle Gerulaityte

Day 3: Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA

Sarah Winchester commissioned the building of her mystery house in 1886, after her husband, gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, died of tuberculosis and her infant daughter died shortly after.

She was told by a medium that she would forever be haunted by the ghosts of those killed with Winchester rifles, unless she started building nonstop. Sarah used the money she inherited from her husband's death to employ 16 carpenters who worked 24 hours a day

until her death in 1922, resulting in a bizarre house, that at its peak had a total of 200 rooms, 10,000 windows and 2,000 trap doors, regular doors, and spy holes. With staircases leading to ceilings, windows leading to secret passageways, and doors opening into walls,

the house was built to be haunted, and Sarah lived in it completely alone. Today, you can visit the house & see it for yourself.

Day 4: Catacombs of Paris, France

After a prolonged bout of heavy rains flooded and unearthed the overcrowded Les Innocents cemetery in the spring of 1780, a wave of rotting corpses tumbled onto the property next door.

According to Smithsonian Mag, this horrifying event started a 12-year project to move bodies from Paris's cemeteries down into the city's former limestone quarries, eventually packing the underground tunnels with some 6 million bodies.

Today, about a mile of the subterranean labyrinth is open to visitors, who can take tours of the tunnels and artfully arranged displays of bones.

Day 5: Pine Barrens, New Jersey

There's not one single landmark in Pine Barrens, New Jersey, that hosts spirits and mysterious creatures — the forest spans seven counties and contains ghost towns galore.

It's said to be home to the infamous Jersey Devil, a beast that the Pinelands Preservation Alliance describes as "a kangaroo-like creature with the face of a horse, the head of a dog, bat-like wings, horns and a tail."

According to folklore, it was the 13th child of a woman named Deborah Leeds, who offered it to the devil while pregnant with it in 1735. Upon its birth, the newborn sprouted talons, hooves, and wings, and killed its mother, siblings, and the midwife before disappearing.

Day 6: Leap Castle, Coolderry, Ireland

Built some time between the 13th and late 15th century, this Irish castle has seen more gruesome deaths than a Game of Thrones wedding.

As legend has it, during a struggle for power within the O'Carroll clan (which had a fondness for poisoning dinner guests), one member plunged a sword into his brother—a priest—as he was holding mass in the castle's chapel.

The room is now called "The Bloody Chapel," and the priest is said to haunt the church at night. The horror doesn't end there—at least not according to the macabre history outlined on Leap Castle's website.

During renovations in the early 1900s, workmen found a secret dungeon in the Bloody Chapel with so many human skeletons, they filled three cartloads when hauled away.

The dungeon was designed so that prisoners would fall through a trap door, have their lungs punctured by wooden spikes on the ground, and die a slow, horrific death within earshot of the sinister clan members above.