Indiana's False Hauntings: Stories of Pranks, Fakes and Supernatural Mistakes

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, newspapers were a major source of ghost stories. Paranormal experiences, no matter how mundane, were newsworthy and entertaining—even when they turned out not to be ghosts after all. A coffin holding a “talking corpse” on a train turned out to be a box of bullfrogs. An overturned automobile carrying white paint resulted in a paint-covered “ghost” wandering the streets, and a spiritualist tackled a phantom haunting a cemetery only to find that it was a fraternity pledge all along. Revealing that the truth can sometimes be as amusing as the legend, author Ashley M. Watson gathers newspaper clippings about Indiana ghost stories that were not ghosts at all.

About the author
Ashley M. Watson received her doctorate in rhetoric from Purdue University, her master’s degree from Miami University of Ohio and bachelor’s degree from Purdue. She writes about haunted history, commonplace books and spooky folklore on her blog NotebookofGhosts.com. In addition, she maintains a newspaper archive of ghost stories proven to be false (sometimes humorously so) at ItWasNotaGhost.com. Ashley shares her passion of photographing cemeteries, making ’zines, collecting ghosts and Halloween decorations and reading spooky short stories on her popular Instagram account @notebookofghosts.

Pages: 144
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Publication Date: 30th September 2025
ISBN: 9781467158480
Format: Paperback