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Everywhere you go in Bristol you’ll find ghosts, spectres, poltergeists, phantoms, and all manner of creepy spirits haunting the city. There’s a small boy with a metal leg you can hear walking on the top floor of The Llandoger Trow. And what about the former manager of Bristol’s Odeon Cinema, who sits in the third row of Screen 3? No wonder Bristol has been revealed as the most haunted city in the UK.
New research from Leonardo Hotels found that Bristolians have been frantically Googling ghost sightings this year. With more searches per 100,000 residents than any other city in the UK. So either Bristol is incredibly haunted, or we’re just a bunch of scardey-cats in the South West.
Using Search terms like ‘Ghost in my house’, ‘Ghost sighting’, ‘Haunted house’, ‘Have I seen a ghost’, ‘My house is haunted’ and ‘We have a ghost’, we’ve Googled our ghost sightings a whopping 7,100 times so far in 2023. That’s 730 times per 100,000 people – the next most haunted UK city was Belfast with 601 searches per capita.
Talking to 500 Brits, the study also found that 62% of Brits believe in the supernatural, with 30% believing in the existence of ghosts. Huge numbers when you also consider that 12% believe in witches, 10% believe in werewolves, 9% in vampires, and 1% believe that zombies do in fact exist. (Seriously, five people believe in zombies…)
Looking deeper, a further 15% of Brits have also previously had a supernatural encounter. This figure only rises with age, from 10% aged 18-24 to 33% for ages 65 and over. Some might say this is down to things like a better education and a greater understanding of the modern world. But Inbaal Hinigman, a celebrity psychic, posits another theory:
“The older generations believe because, in their long lives, they’ve seen stuff that can’t be explained. From spirit presence to miracle babies, the generation of grandparents has the life experience to back up their supernatural beliefs. Younger generations turn to the paranormal because the mainstream world is sometimes quite overwhelming.”
Bristol has always, shall we say, been more in touch with its spiritual side than other parts of the UK. So this news that it is the “most haunted city in the UK” comes as a little surprise. But odds are it’s just an open window…