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Press · methodology

The archive, in numbers

Everything here counts filings — dossiers, claims, legends, sources — not ghosts. A dossier records that a story exists and is documented; it does not certify that anything supernatural occurred.

3,516
place dossiers
every one researched and written, none scraped as prose
4,009
paranormal claims filed
claims as reported — filed, not endorsed
2,526
legends logged
variant tales preserved, not flattened to one
4,411
documented history facts
the part of each file that can be checked
1,514
alleged entities named
who the stories say is there
3,050
sources cited
books, newspapers, registers, interviews
56
jurisdictions covered
states, DC and US territories
3,222
places with coordinates
414 exact, the rest approximate and labeled so
2,394
open to the public
the rest are restricted, private, or unknown — and labeled
169
dossiers in New York
the heaviest single jurisdiction

Published studies

Reading the numbers honestly

Counts measure coverage, not haunting density. A state with more dossiers is better documented, not more haunted — coverage follows sources, history societies, and our own research order.

Every dossier separates fact from filing. Documented history, sourced legend, and reported experience are labeled separately on every page; conflicting accounts are preserved rather than resolved.

Access labels are conservative. 270 dossiers are restricted or private, and hundreds more are unconfirmed — none are presented as visit destinations.

Coordinates are honest about precision. Only 414 of 3,222 coordinates are exact; the rest are city- or county-level approximations, labeled as such.

Record last amended October 2, 2026 · figures refresh with the archive