There’s only three days left until Halloween and you’ve just come to terms with the fact that no one is going to get your clever “ex-wife” costume (Mean Girls came out over a decade ago. It’s time to let go). It’s time to come up with a paranormal plan B, and fast. We’ve got you covered with Washington’s ghost tours and similar spooky strolls in Alexandria. But if you’ve got an itch to explore beyond the Demon Cat and whatever poor souls haunt the White House, get in the car and visit one of these haunted locales within a few hours’ drive of the city… if you dare.
Note: We’re too freaked out by most of these places to visit them under any circumstances, but we especially do not condone trespassing on private property, no matter how sure you are you’ll spot a ghost there. Always practice polite phantom-hunting.
The Key Bridge, as seen from a building that overlooks the exorcist stairs, choked by either fog or ghosts (probably ghosts). Time to get out of the city for once. (Photo by Rob Pongsajapan
THE “REAL” BLAIR WITCH WOODS: Any horror movie tied to a real world location will tend to attract fans of the occult to the site (this list has plenty of examples), but the purportedly “true” Blair Witch Project brought droves of true believers out to Burkitsville, Md. They were doomed to leave disappointed; not only were there (duh) no witches to be found, they couldn’t even track down any of the movie’s spooky set pieces, since the whole thing was filmed in Montgomery County, Md. instead. You can keep your road trip much closer to home and visit the site of the (now-demolished) house from the movie’s finale in Patapsco Valley State Park, or traipse about in scenic Seneca Creek State Park to visit the place where actors were driven to near insanity and the horrible shaky-cam horror trope was born. Spooky.
GETTYSBURG, Pa.: One of the most haunted towns in America is less than two hours from the Beltway. Every year around Independence Day, Gettysburg, Pa. becomes an entire town of cosplay as Civil war re-enactors descend upon the city to commemorate the infamous battle, decked in costumes with relative degrees of period accuracy. But all is not so quaint; Gettysburg—practically every inch of it—was battlefield, so wherever you go, you are probably walking on somebody’s grave. Area companies offer a full schedule of ghost tours during the Halloween season, but wander on your own and you might see or hear something you can’t explain, as I did on East Cemetery Hill one night—listen closely. — Pat Padua
A section of the abandoned highway leading to Centralia. (Photo by Navy2004, via Wikipedia)
CENTRALIA, Pa.: The so-so movie adaptation of Silent Hill set the long running horror franchise’s titular town on top of a decades-long burning coal fire that spewed toxic fumes up from cracks in the ground and turned the area into a ghost town. If anything, that sounds even more unrealistic than the game series’ haunted fog, but the filmmaker’s actually drew inspiration from Centralia, which has been sitting on top of a burning hellfire since the 1960s. The town is almost completely abandoned, but the remaining residents don’t much enjoy being disturbed by legend trippers.
Bunnyman Bridge. (Photo via Wikipedia)
BUNNYMAN BRIDGE: This legend comes in a variety of flavors, but all of them appear to be tied to a Fairfax couple who claimed to have had a close encounter with a hatchet-throwing man in a white bunny suit (or maybe just a white hooded suit) in the 1970s. Follow your (rapidly-beating) heart in choosing whatever version of the legend you like from that point, although almost all of them have been tied to the Colchester Bridge overpass in Fairfax, VA. If you choose to visit, remember to be wary first and foremost of real world dangers. Spectral hanged bunnymen or piles of ghostly victims probably won’t hurt you, but the car traffic on the road and the trains travelling above the bridge can definitely kill.
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va.: The Mothman isn’t a man dressed up like a moth, or a half-man half-moth, although if you’re interested in either of those concepts there’s probably a DeviantArt page out there for you. The actual being that supposedly terrorized a sleepy mining town in the 1960s is a huge, flying, red eyed monster… or a heron, depending on who you ask. He’s been the subject of a number of middling-to-terrible movies and documentaries, although at least the kinda-decent Richard Gere one managed to give me chills from a single word (“Chapssssssstick”).
One scene from a Nutshell Study via Katie Mingle, for the (excellent) 99 Percent Invisible Podcast
DOLLHOUSE DEATH SCENES IN BALTIMORE, Md.: File this one under real-world horrors: The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are a series of grisly crime scenes replicated in miniature, and enough to fuel a lifetime of dollhouse nightmares. They’re kept at the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore, and while you can try to arrange a private viewing, don’t expect any easy answers; each murder can be “solved” by closely examining clues, but the answers are closely guarded secrets, since the dioramas are still used to train investigators. If you want to play armchair detective from the comfort of your own armchair, Corrine Botz has a great photo series of the displays.
COTTAGE CITY, Md.: You probably know that the real Exorcist house isn’t in Georgetown. But for years, area residents believed that the case that spawned William Peter Blatty’s book and it’s big-screen adaptation originated in a Mt. Rainier house that was since torn down to make room for a playground—of Hell! But Strange Magazine author Mark Opsasnick tracked down the case to an unassuming bungalow in Cottage City. We won’t print the address—it’s out there if you look around—but if you’re driving around Prince George’s County one night and feel a demonic presence, you might just be somewhere near this house, and may want to leave in a hurry. — Pat Padua
