The truth just flew out the window on a broomstick

What is the truth behind the Brisbane 'most haunted' claims?

 

It is a straightforward enough task to find out which city has the tallest building, the longest bridge, the biggest population or the most theatres. These are all measurable facts and easily proved.But what about when people talk about a place being the 'most haunted'? This is a claim thrown around a lot about different cities these days, and many dubious websites will each present their own dubious 'top ten' lists, but what criteria are these lists based on?

These lists actually depend on who has been ‘voting’ or putting the stats together. There are a few major problems with these highly subjective ‘most haunted’ poll claims:

1. Is there a quality control check on the stories? Which stories are nonsensical or outright falsities spread via social media, and which ones are harder to explain away?

2. Who votes or compiles the figures? Is the system is open to manipulation by pranksters, local bias, or 'paranormal' businesses with a vested interest in their own town ranking high?

3. The sheer variety of different lists and results allows for some very selective reading of the polls.

This selective reading has, in recent years, produced some strange claims about Brisbane being the ‘most haunted city in the southern hemisphere’, and even 'the world’s second most haunted town' according to none other than National Geographic. The latter claim even appeared on TV last week, but as the presenters later said:

"At this stage, 7PM’s Interweb correspondent has been unable to track down the original list. In the meantime we'll take his word for it, like we took that Charlie Chaplin time traveller video dude’s."

Their obvious skepticism is well founded. BRGHS members own search for the elusive poll also proved fruitless, so we contacted the National Geographic Society and asked them to provide more information on this 'most haunted' poll, but they told us no such poll exists.

So, if nobody we know can find this poll, and National Geographic denies its very existence, one is left to think that the ghost tours business that originally made the claim might just be telling porky pies. As historians, it is out duty to debunk urban myths and outright falsehoods. We could be wrong of course, and if anybody can provide us with a link to the mystery poll then we will stand humbly corrected.

(This subject and more will be discussed in my upcoming book The Haunting Question: Boggo Road Ghosts).