James Thurber heard a ghost in his Columbus home in 1915.
The experience stuck with the famous humorist for the rest of his life and eventually inspired his short story “The Night the Ghost Got In.” More than a century later, Columbus still has plenty of ghost stories to tell. And apparently, Ohioans have a few questions about them, too.
A new study from Action Network found that Ohio ranks No. 1 in the country for ghost-related Google searches, with an average of 470 searches per month for every 100,000 residents. That’s just ahead of Illinois, which averages 467 searches per 100,000 residents.
I’d like to think Thurber would have been right there with us, Googling things like “how to get rid of ghosts” after a suspicious noise upstairs. He did, after all, turn his own alleged paranormal encounter into a story that still entertains readers today.
The study looked at five factors to rank all 50 states and Washington, D.C., including reported ghost sightings, cemetery counts, haunted locations, ghost towns, and ghost-related searches. Each factor was measured per 100,000 residents to account for differences in population.
Ohio’s first-place finish comes specifically from its search activity, not from having the most reported ghost sightings.
That distinction belongs to Maine, which recorded the highest rate of reported sightings in the study. West Virginia topped the overall ranking, helped by its high number of cemeteries and strong showings for ghost sightings and ghost towns.
Of course, you don’t need Google to find a good ghost story around Columbus. Thurber House remains one of the city’s best-known haunted landmarks, and local lore includes everything from eerie encounters at the Ohio Statehouse to ghost stories surrounding Ohio State’s campus.
Want to explore a few of those stories yourself? Check out our guide to some of the most haunted places in Columbus. Just maybe leave the late-night Googling until you get home.
