ALL SPOOKED OUT

Fewer ghost sightings in Coventry than anywhere else in the country...

YOU’RE less likely to see a ghost in Coventry than almost anywhere else in the country. But if you do, chances are it will be a spook riding a phantom horse, or even a mythical creature such as a fairy or hellhound.

Psychicworld.com collated a list of 11,700 paranormal sightings across the UK to find the nation’s spookiest places. They found almost 150 sightings of ghosts and other supernatural apparitions in Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country.

That included 146 sightings in the West Midlands Metropolitan County area - which covers Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, and Walsall. That equates to around five supernatural encounters (4.99) for every 100,000 people living in our area.

But that means that the people of Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country have less chance of seeing a ghost than people living almost anywhere else in the UK.

Of 59 counties where paranormal sightings were reported, only people living in Londonderry in Northern Ireland had less chance of a supernatural encounter (4.86 per 100,000 residents).

In contrast, the people of Argyll in Scotland had the best chance of seeing a ghost, with around 122 sightings (121.74) for every 100,000 residents. In Warwickshire, 131 sightings were recorded, which equates to around two supernatural encounters for every 10,000 people living in the area.

The figures, collated from paranormal databases tracking sightings across the UK, show that ghosts riding on phantom horses are the most common apparition. Psychicworld.com tracked 526 examples of people witnessing this type of ghostly phenomenon.

That includes the spirit of the killer Michael Morey - executed in 1736 for the shocking murder of his grandson - who is reputed to ride a phantom horse around a barrow in the Isle of Wight at midnight. There is also a headless coachman said to haunt Abington in Northamptonshire, who returned from the grave wracked with guilt after deliberately driving his horses over his daughter’s lover in the 18th century.

One celebrity phantom horseman is Sir Thomas Boleyn, father of Ann, Henry VIII’S unfortunate second wife. He is said to be cursed to drive a coach pulled by headless horses over bridges in Norfolk although witnesses to this phenomenon are likely to be extremely scarce. According to legend, anyone who sees Sir Thomas and his headless horses is dragged to hell.

The second most common paranormal phenomena are sightings of mythical creatures (451), followed by fairies (380 sightings), and shucks and hellhounds (374). Headless ghosts remain popular with 380 reports, while the classic image of a spectral “white lady” has also endured with 349 sightings to date.

Among the most bizarre paranormal reports are the 15 instances of “hell gates” - supposedly an entryway on Earth, into hell. While shows like Stranger Things and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have kept them in the public consciousness reports of hell gates are extremely rare, with only 15 in the UK, including one said to lie at the bottom of a garden pond near a church in Albury, Hertfordshire, and another within the aptly named Hell Hole Wood in Yorkshire.

Of 59 counties across the UK where paranormal sightings were reported, the people of Yorkshire had the highest number of encounters with the supernatural, a total of 797. That was followed by London (701), Essex (507), and Sussex (438).

But of UK regions, South West England had the most hauntings with 2,149 reports of paranormal activity, followed by East England (1,787) and South East England (1,682). The bulk of paranormal sightings were in England (10,357) but there were also 785 in Wales, 419 in Scotland, and 139 in Northern Ireland.