\n With Halloween 2026 upon us, data has been compiled from the Paranormal Database by travel specialists Ski Vertigo including reports of ghosts and hauntings.\n<\/p>\n
\n The research excluded sightings of UFOs, big cats, fairies, and other paranormal creatures.\n<\/p>\n
\n The study saw Essex top the list as the county with the most ghost reports with 422 on record since the database was set up in 2002.\n<\/p>\n
\n Colchester recorded the highest number of sightings in Essex – with 30 reports, followed by Clacton-on-Sea with 15, and Brentwood and Southend-on-Sea with 13 each.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ski Vertigo picked out Colchester Castle as a potentially haunted location and said it is believed to be inhabited by the spirit of James Parnell, a Quaker who died after being imprisoned there in the 1650s, and by a headless nun.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ahead of Halloween this year, co-founder of Paranormal Research Investigators UK (PRIUK) Nick Howe spoke about three stand-out investigations he undertook in Essex.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nick picked out Tilbury Fort, Thaxted Mill and The Essex Regiment Museum as three locations that he felt had particularly strange activity during his visits.\n<\/p>\n
\n He recalled recording a voice which may have said “f*** you” in response to Nick saying “make a noise” at Tilbury Fort as well as a potential child’s voice saying “mummy” in Thaxted Mill.\n<\/p>\n
\n In The Essex Regiment Museum, Nick recounted hearing a “very, very loud thump” which left “the floor vibrating”.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite explaining his experiences, Nick said: \u201cOur findings are what we\u2019ve discovered ourselves, but we look for rational explanations, we\u2019re not sensationalists and I\u2019m not even sure I\u2019d say I believe in ghosts anyway.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been to a place and said that place is haunted because ultimately there could always been an explanation.”\n<\/p>\n
\n London was not ranked as a county by Sky Vertigo, but if all its postcode areas were combined it would total 810 ghost reports, according to the study.\n<\/p>\n
\n The UK\u2019s 10 most haunted counties, according to Sky Vertigo is as follows:\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Essex – 422 reports<\/p>\n
Sussex – 404 reports<\/p>\n
Kent – 374 reports<\/p>\n
Suffolk – 350 reports<\/p>\n
Devon – 340 reports<\/p>\n
Dorset – 323 reports<\/p>\n
Somerset and Bristol – 320 reports<\/p>\n
Lancashire – 307 reports<\/p>\n
Wiltshire – 302 reports<\/p>\n
Norfolk – 293 reports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Halloween 2026 upon us, data has been compiled from the Paranormal Database by travel specialists Ski Vertigo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-820552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}