Before the rise of television and popular paranormal shows, newspapers served as a primary source for ghost stories, captivating readers with accounts of supernatural encounters. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, numerous tales of ghosts, spirits, and unexplained phenomena were featured in The New York Times, reflecting the media landscape of the era when print was a central form of entertainment.
According to Paulette D. Kilmer, a culture historian and professor at the University of Toledo, newspapers in the 19th century fulfilled many of the public's media needs, as readers did not have access to television or digital platforms. As a result, stories of the paranormal populated the pages alongside more conventional news.
Some notable examples included haunting reports from across the Northeast, such as a headless apparition in a Long Island cemetery and reports of mysterious noises and broken crockery in a Hartford residence. A particularly striking Brooklyn boardinghouse was said to be disturbed by “demons” that startled guests during the night.
One prominent early 20th-century event was a séance held in New York City in 1909 by the famed Italian medium Eusapia Palladino, often spelled “Paladino” in contemporary reports. The Times devoted front-page coverage to a first-person account of the event, where Palladino allegedly levitated a table multiple times despite being physically restrained. While some reporters left convinced of a mysterious force at work, subsequent attempts to replicate the phenomena under controlled conditions led to increased skepticism, and Palladino ultimately declined a séance conducted at the newspaper’s offices.
In 1912, a peculiar story from the New York Zoological Park—now the Bronx Zoo—drew attention to what was described as a haunted wolf cage. Two wolves reportedly became aggressive after being moved to a new enclosure, thought to be influenced by a strange presence. The zoo’s wolf keeper, Alex Ferguson, investigated and attributed the disturbances to an adjacent wolf producing unnerving scratching and breathing sounds that disrupted the animals.
The allure of haunted real estate persisted into the late 20th century. In 1990, a New York judge ruled against a buyer seeking to back out of a deal to purchase a Victorian home in Nyack, New York, citing the presence of ghosts as insufficient grounds to void the contract. The seller, Helen V. Ackley, had publicly acknowledged spirits in her home, describing one ghost as a “cheerful apple-cheeked man.” Despite the supernatural reputation, the court determined that ghostly activity did not constitute a material defect requiring disclosure.
More recently, a 2014 story examined claims of a ghost at a Brooklyn bar once operated by Anna Smith, who passed away in 2003. Staff members reported flickering lights, unexplained music, and frequent breakage of glasses, coinciding with construction that uncovered a burial site beneath the floor. While some employees suggested the disturbances were linked to unsettled spirits, the bar’s owner expressed skepticism, attributing the incidents to physical causes such as vibrations from drilling and staff superstition.
Over the decades, The New York Times’s coverage of supernatural stories evolved from credulous accounts to a more investigative, often skeptical approach, reflecting changing public attitudes toward the paranormal. Yet the fascination with ghost stories remains a persistent thread, especially during seasonal moments like Halloween.