{
  "id": 16644112,
  "title": "Ghost stories don’t just scare us – they remind us of historical injustices",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/26/ghost-stories-dont-just-scare-us-they-remind-us-of-historical",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-26T17:59:20.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Conversation",
    "slug": "the-conversation",
    "url": "https://theconversation.com/ghost-stories-dont-just-scare-us-they-remind-us-of-historical-injustices-293080"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "What makes a ghost story unforgettable? Aside from the eerie atmosphere and spine-tingling scares, these tales often serve as reminders of historical injustices. As a professor specializing in ghost stories at the University of Maine, I have observed certain elements that contribute to an unforgettable tale. One such element is the \"creep value,\" which encompasses the scare factor and elements that might simply be unsettling or uncanny.\n\nFor instance, the ghost of Catherine's Hill on Blacks Woods Road in Maine is said to cause fatal accidents if a lone driver does not offer her a ride. This story not only instills fear but also preserves the memory of a tragic past. Similarly, tales of a ghost ship heard but never seen by those standing at Cooksey Drive Overlook in Seal Harbor, Maine, keep alive the history of the smuggling of enslaved people during the post-abolition era. The screams of those left behind can still be heard, serving as a chilling reminder of this dark chapter in history.\n\nIn Pennsylvania, coal miners share ghost stories of witnessing pickaxe sounds, groans of the dying, and apparitions of mangled men at the sites of deadly accidents. These ghostly encounters help maintain the collective memory of the brutal work conditions endured by 19th and early 20th-century coal miners. In South America, ghost stories also serve to preserve forgotten histories. In the Amazon jungle of northern Brazil, accounts of spirits in murky water keep alive the injustices of 19th-century enslavement of Indigenous people.\n\nIn Rio de Janeiro, a haunting story of a young girl named Maria de Lourdes Fernandes, who witnessed the deaths of her parents and committed suicide to secure her inheritance, exposes inequities involving the mistreatment of juveniles and the corrupting influence of power. Lastly, the case of Sarah Ware, an unsolved 1898 murder in Bucksport, Maine, demonstrates how ghost stories can revive past events. The apparition of a long-haired woman struggling to rise from the bottom of Silver Lake has resurfaced the violence and injustice of 19th-century Maine, particularly in relation to gender and social class.",
  "summary": "From phantom ships carrying enslaved people to an apparition in a Maine lake, ghost stories have revived memories of injustices that might otherwise have been forgotten.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}