It’s the haunted attraction and haunted industry season once again! But if you read the headlines, you might think your state is the most paranormal in the nation.
That’s why headlines, my friends, can be misleading.
A new headline making the rounds tells us which states are the scariest, with Pennsylvania leading the pack. But it’s not quite what you would think. No, it’s not about paranormal encounters or real-life ghost stories, but instead a study that focused on haunted attractions, many of which are for-profit businesses, and the settings of horror movies. And it just so happens Pennsylvania has a whole bunch of them, along with plenty of scary movies associated with the state.
That’s why they lead, and that’s the general methodology behind the states that are runners-up.
The study, conducted by financial technology company SmartAsset, examined all 50 states using three categories: the number of Halloween attractions per million residents, the number of reportedly haunted locations per million residents, and the number of horror movies set in each state from Variety’s list of the 100 greatest horror films.
The researchers used information from FrightMaps, HauntedPlaces.org, Census population estimates, and Variety. You can read the actual study and methodology here. Pennsylvania came out on top, but the rankings have absolutely nothing to do with scientifically proving that one state has more ghosts, spirits, or paranormal encounters than another.
The haunted attractions are largely businesses that make money by scaring people during the Halloween season.
The reportedly haunted locations are based on stories and claims, not scientifically verified paranormal activity.. and on the movie front, just because a fictional killer or monster terrorized people in a particular state doesn’t mean the state itself is frightening.
The study also counts where movies are set, not necessarily where they were filmed. It’s an entertaining seasonal analysis, but it’s hardly scientific proof that any particular state is more haunted than another. Yet when these stories get passed around on social media, the headlines can make it sound like someone has finally figured out where all the ghosts in America are hanging out.
God bless the media and God bless their attempts to drive traffic on the socials to their pages.
But really, God bless the people who actually read past the headline and figure out what the story really is.
This Halloween season, perhaps the scariest thing you can do is only read the headline itself without the context behind it.