Country file · South America
Haunted places in Brazil
What are the most haunted places in Brazil? The best-known are Edifício Joelma, Will-o’-the-Wisp and Shadow People.
Brazil’s best-known haunted building is a monument to a real disaster. On 1 February 1974 a fire swept through the Edifício Joelma in central São Paulo, killing nearly 190 people; thirteen victims – said in popular tradition, though never officially confirmed, to have been found in a lift – were never identified, and as “the thirteen souls” they became the focus of popular devotion and of the ghost stories still told about the rebuilt tower. São Paulo also has its unsolved 1937 deaths at the Castelinho da Rua Apa, long regarded as one of the city’s haunted houses.
- 3 hauntings
- 4 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Brazil
Edifício Joelma
A São Paulo tower where a 1974 fire killed nearly 190 people; Brazil’s most famous haunted building, and home of the legend of the “thirteen souls.” Regional legend
Will-o’-the-Wisp
Pale flickering lights over marshes and bogs that lure travellers off the path – folklore’s ghost lights, and a puzzle chemists are still trying to solve. Folklore
Shadow People
Dark human-shaped figures glimpsed at the edge of sight or standing over the bed – and the sleep-paralysis research that explains many of them. Widely reportedThe ghost lore of Brazil
The country’s folklore is vast, mixing Indigenous, African and Portuguese traditions: forest spirits such as the Curupira and the mischievous Saci, the will-o’-the-wisp lights known as boitatá, and the schoolyard legend of the Loira do Banheiro, the blonde ghost of the school toilets. Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda, and Indigenous traditions across Brazil, are living faiths with their own relationships with the spirits of the dead, and are not ghost stories.
Colonial towns such as Ouro Preto, with their baroque churches and gold-rush history, are popular settings for legend tours.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Centro, São Paulo
The downtown streets around the Joelma building and the Anhangabaú valley hold many of the city’s best-known urban legends.
- Castelinho da Rua Apa, São Paulo
A small castle-like house where three members of one family were found dead in 1937, a case never fully solved.
- Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais
The UNESCO-listed colonial gold town of baroque churches and steep lanes is rich in local legends of its past.
Timeline
- November 1948The Well Murder Edifício Joelma
Police found the bodies of Benedita, Maria Antonieta and Cordélia Ferreira de Camargo in a well behind their home, about a block from the future Joelma site. The case later fed a ‘curse’ legend.
- 1971The tower is completed Edifício Joelma
The new Joelma building, on Avenida Nove de Julho, was let to the Crefisul investment bank.
- 1 February 1974The Joelma fire Edifício Joelma
A fire that began on the 12th floor engulfed the tower, killing nearly 190 people and injuring more than 300. Thirteen victims were never identified; tradition says they were found in a lift, which was never officially confirmed.
- 1978The building reopens Edifício Joelma
After four years of reconstruction, the tower reopened with new safety features; it was later renamed Edifício Praça da Bandeira.
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