I’m not much into things supernatural, but found it hard to go passed a story about the “Greenbrier Ghost”, an apparent apparition, whose “testimony” succeeded in securing a murder conviction in the US in 1897.

On the night before her body had been discovered, her husband had come home and fell into a rage when he saw that she hadn’t cooked any meat to go with supper. The specter went on to tell her mother that her husband, in a blind rage overpowered her and closed his fingers around her throat. Such was his fury that Trout hadn’t merely choked his wife to death. Instead, his iron strong grip had mashed her windpipe, ruptured and tearing ligaments before finally breaking her neck, snapping it between the first and second vertebrae. After relating this tale, as the seemingly reanimated corpse of her murdered daughter made her way towards the door and away from her mother for the last time, Zona turned her head towards Mary Jane, completely around on her body, to show her that indeed her neck had been shattered.

It is, I believe, the first and last time something like this has ever happened.

A Polish ghost hunter thinks the spirit population is declining and would like to conduct a census to ascertain phantom numbers.

Piotr Shalkevitz, 40, from Chrzanow, Poland, who has spent tens of thousands of pounds on the best paranormal detection equipment from the US, believes it might be because they have given up trying to warn people to prepare for the afterlife. He said: “Maybe they think we aren’t worth saving, and they have given up trying to tell us whatever it was they wanted us to know.

Vampire hunting kits used to be available to nineteenth century travellers who were journeying to regions of Eastern Europe, just in case they ran into the likes of Dracula along the way… I wouldn’t leave home without one.

US psychologist Jesse Bering, writer of The Belief Instinct, questions what really drives our belief in ghosts, the supernatural, and religion.

[As a child], my first career obsession was to become a parapsychologist, when I was less critical-minded. I read books about ghosts that completely convinced me that these things were real. As I got older, I was more skeptical but maintained an interest in the supernatural, trying to figure out why I was so easily seduced by things like ghosts and God for that matter.

Rookwood Cemetery, in Sydney’s west, is apparently one of the world’s most haunted places…

There have been many different sightings of ghosts and apparitions in Rookwood Cemetery, by both people who work there and members of the public and it has been at the centre of much paranormal speculation for decades.

In addition to its paranormal reputation, Rookwood also hosts Hidden, an annual exhibition of installation art, which is curated by Sydney artist David Capra.

While plenty of thought has gone into why some people believe in a deity, there has been very little research into why the non-religious or atheists do not.

What we need now is a scientific study not of the theistic, but the atheistic mind. We need to discover why some people do not “get” the supernatural agency many cognitive scientists argue comes automatically to our brains. Is this capacity non-existent in the non-religious, or is it rerouted, undermined or overwritten – and under what conditions?

Paranormal Activity director and writer Oren Peli says the film has stopped viewers from sleeping, and has compared his low-budget horror flick with the likes of Jaws – people were frightened of swimming in the ocean – and the Blair Witch Project, which put people off camping.

Fans speak proudly of not being able to sleep for a week after seeing it. Some go back for more just to see if they can handle freaking themselves out all over again. Peli looks serious when he says that if Jaws stopped people swimming in the sea and Blair Witch stopped people camping in the woods, then he is pleased that Paranormal Activity is stopping us from sleeping. He shrugs: “It means it’s been effective.”