Spookiest States in America: Massachusetts Makes the Top 10

A new list of the spookiest states in America has been released. It should surprise no one that Massachusetts made the Top 10.

I mean, the Commonwealth should land on the high end of the list for Salem alone, right? I was just recently extoling the virtues of visiting the Witch City at any time of the year EXCEPT OCTOBER. I was chided for doing this and reminded that even with the insane amount of tourist traffic in October, Salem businesses still need your support. So here I am telling you to visit year-round.

Massachusetts is also chock-full of haunted places: haunted houses, haunted inns, haunted graveyards, haunted forests. Four hundred-plus years of colonists living on indigenous land will create some serious haunted vibes. Check out this list of the 12 most haunted places in Massachusetts, then pay a visit to the most haunted houses in New England. They make for good road trip options.

Bringing the focus back to Mass., we've made yet another scary list. On their blog, Vivint shared this: The Spookiest Cities in America. In the piece, they crunched numbers using the following criteria: spiritual shops, haunted house attractions, supernatural readings, and funeral services (all per 1ooK), as well as ghost sightings and haunted places. You know, all the spooky stuff you'd expect.

Two New England cities made the Top 10: Stowe, VT at 10 and Salem, MA at 6. Those rankings were then used to generate a ranking of spookiest states, with the focus on ghost sightings and haunted places. That's where Massachusetts shined. Personally, I'm surprised that the Commonwealth didn't place higher in the Top 10, but hey, I didn't conduct the study. I'm just here to report and make pithy comments. See the full study along with the complete rankings and scores here.

Ranked 16th for ghost sightings and 10th for haunted places. I honestly thought it would be No. 1 in both!

Florida doesn't need ghosts and hauntings. Their Governor is the scariest thing going right now.

I think Indiana, I think corn fields. Which makes me thing Children of the Corn. Which is scary, but also funny.

They were in the Top 5 for ghost sightings. Must be the spirits of all those Chicago gangsters and their victims.

New York's haunted, all right. After the 2004 ALCS, they had to blow up the old stadium and build a brand new one on account of the horrors visited upon the Yankees by the Red Sox.

Turns out there's an entire book titled Haunted Ohio. So this tracks, I guess.

It's all 4's in Michigan: No. 4 for ghost sightings and also No. 4 for haunted places. Also: Sam Rami was born there.

Another state, like Massachusetts, that has a rich colonial history. Which means lots and lots of ghosts.

Texas came in second? Really? It must be the basement in The Alamo.

It's California atop the list. They have the most haunted houses in all the land and placed second in ghost sightings. Keep an eye out for the Black Dahlia.