"What Is a Ghost? "

The concept of a ghost, also known as a specter, is based on the ancient idea that a person's spirit exists separately from his or her body, and may continue to exist after that person dies. Because of this idea, many societies began to use funeral rituals as a way of ensuring that the dead person's spirit would not return to "haunt" the living.

Places that are haunted are usually believed to be associated with some occurrence or emotion in the ghost's past; they are often a former home or the place where he or she died. Aside from actual ghostly apparitions, traditional signs of haunting range from strange noises, lights, odors or breezes to the displacement of objects, bells that ring spontaneously or musical instruments that seem to play on their own.