Mackinac Island -- a popular vacation spot in Michigan best known for its fudge and The Grand Hotel -- now has another accolade to add to its name. Though it may only appeal to fans of the paranormal.
The otherwise idyllic location was just named the "America’s Most Haunted Town" by Porch.com, which used data from the Shadowlands Haunted Places Index to discover the scariest sites and states in the U.S.
“Topping the torrid table of the most haunted towns is Mackinac Island, MI,” the website wrote. “Its excruciatingly high ratio of 16 haunted sites per 478 people makes it the most haunted small town in America…”
But it’s not just Mackinac Island that’s going bump in the night for Michiganders. Of the 11,418 haunted locations that were identified in the study, 510 of them were located in Michigan, making it the fourth most haunted state in America.
The top three spookiest states were California, Texas, and Pennsylvania. While the spookiest larger cities were Savannah, Georgia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Laredo, Texas.
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Todd Bonner with Detroit Paranormal Expeditions says Michigan has a rich history surrounding the undead, making Michigan’s ranking no surprise.
“The Grand Hotel is known to be very haunted,” Bonner told WWJ's Erin Vee. “There’s so much history there that can bring those types of hauntings out, and people think ‘haunted’ means a bad thing. A lot of time, hauntings are not bad at all.”
The study also found that 20% of all haunted sites in America are educational establishments, while 11% are schools, an 9% are made up of colleges and universities.
Haunted sites are said to be equally visited by men and women spirits -- both making up 14% of sightings. Meanwhile, about 8% of locations with ghost activity mention the sightings of children, with 11% referring to a girl, and 5% mentioning a boy.
Check out the complete study from Porch.com here.
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