10 Most Compelling Pieces Of Evidence That Prove Ghosts Are Real

5. Hauntings Affect House Prices

That makes it sound like we're being a bit glib, but we're totally not yanking your chain, man. Documented histories of hauntings have a real, tangible effect on property prices, and there was a case in America where a realtor was found liable for not informing a customer that the house they were being sold was already home to some spectral squatters. Like, that was an actual case that went to trial and found in the resident's favour, meaning that there's a documented moment in the history of US law where the existence of ghosts was, if not confirmed, then at least heavily implied.

One in three people in a 2005 survey admitted to thinking their homes were haunted. In the UK this could conceivably be avoided by citing the 1991 Property Misdescriptions Act, which "creates a general duty to avoid making false or misleading statements" in real estate agents. Of course you'd have to be the one to bring up in court that you think you should've been warned about the ghost in your bedsit, and the courts here may be a tad less open-minded than across the Atlantic.

A history of hauntings, whilst not proof of ghosts, do have an undeniable effect on things in the physical world, however. It can go either way; Nicolas Cage shelled out a few million for a mansion that was purportedly the most haunted building in New Orleans, because he's Nicolas Cage, and he might be an immortal vampire himself anyway. He was probably just hoping to reconnect with some old pals who weren't signed up to Friends Reunited.

Similar spooky stories have helped boost the value of old, crumbling country manors that might otherwise have gone for bargain basement prices. It works both ways, of course, since not everyone is quite as enthusiastic about sharing their living space with the tormented souls of the dead given corporeal form (or beings from an alternative universe, or whatever we decided on a couple of points ago). There's the case of people who have fled from homes, too terrified by supernatural visitors in the night to stay another minute, whose stories will bring the cash they recoup from the haunted house being far less than if they had kept their mouths shut. Or if they hadn't been trying to sell their house as quickly as possible to escape the bad mojo.