Five of the spookiest ghost stories from around the world

We love to hear them, but we’re still scared by them.

Whether we’re scared of dying or we’re just fascinated with the after life, humans have been obsessed with paranormal phenomena for thousands of years.

And it seems everyone loves a good ghost story, which is why we’ve rounded up five of the most frightening stories of all time….

Screaming trees at a mental asylum

Dr. George Zeller, who was the first director of what is now called Peoria State Hospital in Illinois, documented the paranormal sightings he encountered at the mental asylum.

A man dubbed ‘Old Book’, who worked as a gravedigger between 1878 and 1910, was said to have leant against an old elm tree and weep for the dead.

The story goes that when Old Book died, hundred of patients attended his funeral. But as his coffin was lowered into the ground, a crying sound echoed from the elm tree. Apparently, after this the elm began to die but no one could remove the tree. Eventually the tree was struck during a lightening storm and the crying completely ceased.

The Stockholm ghost train

An old railway train in the Swedish capital was used as a back-up train if others broke down. The Silverpilen began getting a reputation as being haunted. Locals claim the train picks up its spirit passengers and speeds through the city after midnight, only stopping to pick up living passengers – who either disappear forever or ‘get off’ weeks, months or even years later!

Bengt af Klintberg, wrote about the train in his 1986 book, Råttan I pizzan (The Rat in the Pizza): “[I]t is only seen after midnight. It stops only once every year. The passengers in the train seem to be living dead, with expressionless, vacant looks.

“A very common detail is that a person who just wanted to travel to the next station remained seated for one week in the Silverpilen. Many girls dared not enter trains which they believed could be Silverpilen.”

The ghost of Windsor

Herne The Hunter is said to haunt Berkshire’s Windsor Forest and Great Park for hundred of years, and he even made a cameo in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.

He’s been described as a keeper of the forest and is seen walking around with great ragged horns, a terrifying face and big antlers. Apparently, he was a man of social standing that feel into disgrace, and chose to hang himself in the woods.

Oil-covered Malaysian Monsters

Legend has it a spectre called the Orang Minyak, which means ‘oily man’, roams the Earth looking to win back his long lost love, and was helped along the way by the Devil, who made him rape 21 virgins within a week.

In the 60s, there was mass hysteria, after stories started being spread about the violent monster and unmarried women starting borrowing men’s clothing to fool the Orang Minyak into thinking they were not virgins.

• Is this proof that ghosts exist?

The Coogee Virgin

Don’t be scared of sharks or jellyfish in the beach at Sydney’s beach in Coogee, be wary of the Coogee Virgin – a strange hazy apparition that has been spotted on a certain cliff bath. The Catholic Church has dismissed the phenomenon as a simple trick of the light.

The Virgin is generally visible on sunny days in the afternoon. She has a habit of drifting in and out of view, depending on how the light falls on her usual spot.

Want more celebrity, entertainment and lifestyle news? Follow Be on Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.