Ghost and paranormal trivia in one quiz, 60 free questions with answers deep. It starts with the ghost stories: banshees, will-o'-the-wisps, hungry ghosts, the Flying Dutchman, the Tower of London, Borley Rectory, Amityville, the Bell Witch and the Enfield poltergeist, plus the ghosts of fiction and film from Marley to Casper and The Sixth Sense. Then it widens to the rest of the paranormal: the Patterson–Gimlin Bigfoot film, the surgeon's photograph of Nessie, the Roswell debris and Project Mogul, Project Blue Book's 701 unexplained cases, the CIA's 2013 admission about Area 51, Zener cards and ESP, Uri Geller's disastrous Tonight Show, the Mothman, the chupacabra and the ghost-hunting TV boom. Every answer is checked against a documented source, which is more than most of the phenomena can say. Difficulty runs from easy folklore to hard history, so it works for a Halloween party or a serious skeptic.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The English word 'ghost' comes from an Old English word meaning what?
Breath or spirit
Anthropologists link the classic pale ghost to the visible white mist of breath in cold air, seen as the person's spirit leaving the body.
Q 02According to a 2005 Gallup poll, roughly what share of Americans said they believe in ghosts?
About 32 percent
A poll of Chinese office workers reported by the China Post put belief there at nearly 87 percent.
Q 03Which Roman writer recorded the haunted-house story of the philosopher Athenodorus in Athens?
Pliny the Younger
The ghost, rattling its chains, led Athenodorus to a spot where a skeleton in chains was later dug up.
Q 04Why did the sheet-draped ghost replace the armoured ghost on 19th-century stages?
Armour clanked and needed pulleys and elevators to move
The clanking suit could not deliver the spookiness the age demanded, so the shroud took over and became the Halloween cliché.
Q 05What does the German word poltergeist literally mean?
Noisy or rumbling ghost
Skeptics tend to explain poltergeist cases as juvenile pranksters fooling credulous adults.
Q 06Which 1990 film about a murdered man who returns as a spirit was the highest-grossing movie of that year?
Ghost
Patrick Swayze's Sam Wheat made $505 million on a budget of about $22 million and was the most-rented video of 1991.
Q 07Who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing the con-artist medium Oda Mae Brown?
Whoopi Goldberg
Bruce Joel Rubin also won for the screenplay; the film's love theme was the 1955 song "Unchained Melody."
Q 08A Christmas Carol was first published in London in which year?
1843
Dickens wrote it in six weeks and the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve.
Q 09In A Christmas Carol, what does Jacob Marley's ghost drag behind him?
Heavy chains and cash boxes
He warns Scrooge that three spirits will follow, and that Scrooge's own chains will be heavier still.
Q 10How many years before the story opens did Marley die?
Seven
The book opens on a bleak Christmas Eve, and its full title calls it 'A Ghost Story of Christmas.'
Q 11Which 1999 film introduced the line 'I see dead people'?
The Sixth Sense
The filmmakers worried the slow zoom on Bruce Willis's face during the line would give away the twist, but left it in.
Q 12How many Academy Award nominations did Shyamalan's 1999 ghost film receive?
Six
They included Best Picture and nods for Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette; it grossed over $672 million.
Q 13Casper the Friendly Ghost first appeared in theatrical cartoons made by which studio?
Paramount's Famous Studios
Fifty-five shorts ran from 1945 to 1959, and Harvey Comics bought the character outright in 1959.
Q 21What does the Irish banshee's name, bean sí, literally mean?
Woman of the fairy mound
She heralds a family death by wailing or keening, and is often seen combing her long hair.
Q 22What is the Latin name for the will-o'-the-wisp, the ghost light seen over bogs?
Ignis fatuus, 'foolish flame'
In Britain it is also called jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern and hinkypunk; in Thailand the Naga fireballs on the Mekong are a cousin.
Q 23What is the Chasse-galerie of Quebec folklore?
A haunted flying canoe
Q 14What distinction did Casper achieve in his 1995 live-action film?
First computer-generated character to star in a movie
His three wicked uncles are the Ghostly Trio, and the film starred Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman.
Q 15Which house in Essex did psychic researcher Harry Price call 'the most haunted house in England'?
Borley Rectory
Built in 1862 and burned in 1939, it drew national attention after a 1929 Daily Mirror story; the Society for Psychical Research later discredited most of Price's claims.
Q 16Anne Boleyn's ghost is said to walk the Tower of London carrying what?
Her head under her arm
She was beheaded in 1536 and buried in the Tower's Church of St Peter ad Vincula, which she supposedly haunts.
Q 17The Flying Dutchman legend probably grew out of which nation's 17th-century maritime golden age?
The Netherlands' East India Company era
Sightings claim the ship glows with a ghostly light, and its appearance is taken as a portent of doom.
Q 18Which future British king recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman as a young naval cadet?
George V
Prince George's 1881 log entry off Australia is one of the legend's best-known 'sightings.'
Q 19In Hamlet, who first witnesses the ghost of the dead king on the battlements?
Horatio and two sentries
They fetch the prince, and the ghost tells him he was murdered by his brother Claudius.
Q 20Henry James's ghost novella The Turn of the Screw was first serialised in which magazine in 1898?
Collier's Weekly
Critics still argue whether the governess really sees the ghosts of Quint and Miss Jessel or imagines them.
It is doomed to paddle the skies; Chile has the Caleuche, a ghost ship that sails at night around Chiloé Island.
Q 24The Bell Witch legend centres on a family in which US state?
Tennessee
From 1817 to 1821 the Bells of Robertson County were said to be tormented by an invisible, talking, shape-shifting entity.
Q 25How many days did the Lutz family last in the Amityville house before fleeing in 1975?
28
Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered six family members at 112 Ocean Avenue the year before; the 1977 book spawned films from 1979 on.
Q 26The stage illusion Pepper's ghost was popularised in 1862 in a production of a work by which author?
Charles Dickens
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain caused a sensation; the trick still powers Disney's Haunted Mansion.
Q 27Which Disneyland attraction uses Pepper's ghost for its ballroom of dancing spirits?
The Haunted Mansion
The same trick produced the Girl-to-Gorilla carnival sideshow and, more recently, concert 'holograms.'
Q 28The Ouija board was named in 1890 in which US city?
Baltimore
Medium Helen Peters Nosworthy chose the name; Elijah Bond's patent followed in 1891 and William Fuld took over production in 1901.
Q 29What is the heart-shaped pointer on a Ouija board called?
A planchette
Its movement is explained by the ideomotor effect: unconscious muscle movements by the people touching it.
Q 30What psychological phenomenon best explains how a Ouija pointer moves?
The ideomotor effect
The board was seen as an innocent parlour game until spiritualist Pearl Curran popularised it as a divining tool in World War I.