State file · NC
Haunted places in North Carolina
What are the most haunted places in North Carolina? The best-known are Brown Mountain Lights, Grove Park Inn and the Pink Lady and The Maco Light.
North Carolina is ghost-light country. From the Blue Ridge to the coastal swamps, its most famous hauntings are not houses but lights – glowing orbs over Brown Mountain, a lantern bobbing along the tracks at Maco – and the state has an unusually long record of scientists, railroad men and newspaper reporters trying to explain them. Their reports, going back more than a century, make North Carolina a textbook case of how folklore and investigation grow up side by side.
- 3 hauntings
- 12 recorded sightings
Haunted places in North Carolina
Brown Mountain Lights
Glowing orbs said to rise above a low Blue Ridge ridge since at least 1913 – studied by the USGS, set to music and still drawing night-time watchers. Explained
Grove Park Inn and the Pink Lady
Asheville’s granite mountain resort of 1913, where a young woman who fell to the Palm Court in the 1920s is remembered as the Pink Lady. Widely reportedThe Maco Light
For a century a lantern-like light bobbed along the tracks at Maco – said to be a headless conductor’s lantern. Records point to a real 1856 death. Regional legendThe ghost lore of North Carolina
The state’s history supplies plenty of other material: the lost Roanoke colony, Blackbeard’s last stand at Ocracoke in 1718, Civil War battlefields, mill villages and the grand resorts of the mountains. Asheville in particular, with the Biltmore Estate and the 1913 Grove Park Inn, has built a lively ghost-tour scene around its Gilded Age past.
Ghost hunters drive the Blue Ridge Parkway on clear autumn nights to watch for the Brown Mountain Lights, walk the historic districts of Asheville, Wilmington and New Bern, and explore the Outer Banks lighthouses and their legends. Stay on public overlooks and roads after dark – much of the land around the light sites is national forest or private property.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Downtown Asheville
Gilded Age buildings, the old Battery Park district and Riverside Cemetery feature on Asheville’s nightly ghost tours.
- Wilmington
The port city’s historic district, antebellum houses and Oakdale Cemetery – where conductor Charles Baldwin is buried – anchor its ghost walks.
- Outer Banks and Ocracoke
Shipwrecks, lighthouses and Blackbeard’s 1718 death at Ocracoke Inlet give the barrier islands their pirate legends.
- Linville Gorge and Wiseman’s View
The rugged wilderness opposite Brown Mountain, the classic place to watch for the lights.
- New Bern
North Carolina’s colonial capital, with Tryon Palace and a historic district of 18th- and 19th-century houses that host seasonal ghost walks.
Timeline
- 1889The president hears the tale The Maco Light
Grover Cleveland is said to have asked about the station’s signal lanterns and been told of Joe Baldwin – a story traced to a railroad employee’s childhood memory.
- July 12, 1913The inn opens Grove Park Inn and the Pink Lady
Edwin Wiley Grove’s granite resort opened with an address by William Jennings Bryan and quickly became the South’s most famous mountain hotel.
- September 24, 1913First newspaper report Brown Mountain Lights
The Charlotte Daily Observer described red lights rising over Brown Mountain at regular times each night. A USGS geologist soon linked them to train headlights.
- 1920sThe fall in the Palm Court Grove Park Inn and the Pink Lady
A young woman fell from the fifth-floor balcony to the Palm Court floor and died, according to hotel history. She became known as the Pink Lady.
- 1922The Mansfield survey Brown Mountain Lights
USGS geologist George Rogers Mansfield spent two weeks mapping sightings and attributed them to vehicle and train headlights, fixed lights and brush fires, magnified by atmospheric effects.
- 1942Wartime diplomats Grove Park Inn and the Pink Lady
The federal government leased the inn to house Axis diplomats and their families awaiting deportation, one of several wartime roles.
- 1961The song Brown Mountain Lights
Scotty Wiseman’s “The Legend of the Brown Mountain Lights” became a folk and bluegrass standard and made the lights famous far beyond the Blue Ridge.
- 1964Hans Holzer’s visit The Maco Light
The parapsychologist investigated and declared the conductor’s ghost real, though he did not see the light himself.
- 1977Oak Ridge light experiment Brown Mountain Lights
Scientists projected a distant arc light that observers saw as an orange-red orb hovering over the ridge, supporting the refraction explanation.
- 1977The tracks are removed The Maco Light
The Seaboard Coast Line pulled up the rails and the trestle was lost. No sightings have been reported since.
- 2014Cameras on the mountain Brown Mountain Lights
Appalachian State University’s low-light cameras had logged some 6,300 viewing hours with no unexplained lights recorded.
- August 7, 2024The Pink Lady on local TV Grove Park Inn and the Pink Lady
WLOS marked the inn’s history with the hotel’s events manager and a local ghost-tour operator retelling the Pink Lady story.
From other news sites
Latest from North Carolina
No recent paranormal headlines from North Carolina. See all the latest paranormal news.
