The Worst Ghosts of 2025
An examination of the worst ghost evidence to hit the headlines in the last 12 months
Every year, since 2010, I’ve written a review of the five worst ghosts to have made the headlines in the previous 12 months. Worst not because they’re awful ghosts, but because they’re just a bit naff - and there’s not much I like more than a ghost that’s a bit rubbish. See last year’s worst ghosts below:
If you’re new here, allow me to explain: I’m a paranormal researcher who uses scientific scepticism to look for rational explanations for the weird and spooky things people experience. I don’t believe in the paranormal, but it’s a subject that endlessly fascinates me, and I’ve been investigating ghost mysteries for over 20 years.
2025’s Worst Ghosts list has it all: haunted hotels, medieval doorways doing a lot of heavy lifting, night-vision apparitions courtesy of Ring doorbells (of course), legend trippers calling themselves investigators but not knowing how cameras work, and ghost-hunting gadgets lighting up the countryside like a 90s rave.
So, without further ado, let’s jump into the worst ghosts of 2025! ⛈️
#5 By golly, a ghost!
The first ghost on the list technically dates back to 2016 but made the headlines in 2025. The holiday photo was taken at the famously haunted Stanley Hotel where Henry Yau claims he deliberately waited until the grand staircase was clear of people before taking the photo, only to later discover a dark, human-shaped figure standing at the top of the stairs. He shared the image on Facebook with a red circle for clarity and the immortal caption: “By golly! I think I may have captured a #ghost.” The hotel, of course, is best known for inspiring The Shining, which did absolutely nothing to calm the internet down.
What we’re likely looking at here is a combination of low light, long exposure, and someone quietly not being as gone as hoped. Hotel interiors like this are dim, warmly lit, and full of reflective surfaces; a person moving or standing still briefly at the top of the stairs can register as a dark, semi-defined shape, especially if they’re dressed in darker clothing and partially backlit. Add a bit of noise, compression, and expectation - plus the psychological boost of knowing the hotel’s reputation - and suddenly a perfectly normal human becomes a Victorian-looking apparition.
As for the sudden illness afterwards? Chalk that up to altitude, excitement, a late dinner, or the creeping realisation that you’ve just accidentally invented a ghost story you’ll be explaining for the next nine years. By golly, indeed.
#4 The ghost of a miner’s wife
This one comes courtesy of a Ring doorbell in Staffordshire via those top class journalists over at LadBible. Homeowner, Kerry-Anne Docherty, spotted what looked like a semi-transparent figure drifting past her neighbour, Jackie Batt, in night-vision footage captured early one morning. Batt, who says she didn’t see anyone else at the time, later suggested the tall, hat-wearing figure resembled a woman in 1940s clothing and speculated it might be the ghost of a miner’s wife, given the history of their houses.
The reality is that transparent figures (and even animals and cars) in Ring doorbell night-vision footage are a well-documented camera artefact rather than evidence of anything paranormal. In low-light conditions, Ring cameras rely on infrared illumination, heavy video compression, and frame-to-frame noise reduction to produce a usable image. When a person or object moves through the scene, these processes can partially blend frames, smear motion, or preserve the static background more strongly than the moving subject, creating the illusion that a person briefly fades, doubles, or becomes see-through. Reflections of infrared light from nearby walls, windows, wet surfaces, or even slight lens smudges can exaggerate the effect, particularly in night mode where the system is already working at the limits of what the sensor can resolve.
Or, you know, it’s the ghost of a Miner’s wife, I guess 🤷
#3 Empress Matilda (but make it a doorway)
This one comes from Oxford Castle, where an Australian backpacker on a daytime tour accidentally photographed what tabloids like The Mirror quickly identified as the ghost of Empress Matilda. The pale, cloaked figure appears to be standing in a shadowy doorway inside St George’s Tower - a location famously linked to Matilda’s dramatic 12th-century escape during a siege. The photographer says the room looked empty moments earlier and they only noticed the figure later when reviewing the photos at home, a detail which, naturally, did not calm anyone down.
In reality, this is a like a case of architectural pareidolia: a narrow stone recess photographed at an angle, with the inner room not properly visible, taken in uneven daylight, picking out some elements and leaving the rest in shadow. The “figure” has no face, limbs, depth, or separation from the surrounding stone - just a convenient vertical light patch doing its best impression of a medieval woman once a story is attached. Without the caption, it’s a doorway. With it, it’s suddenly Plantagenet royalty popping back in to check nobody’s nicked her escape route…
#2 Lady Dinah Pearce’s ghost in motion
This photo comes from a séance held at The Pearce Institute in Glasgow, where according to The National, ghost hunting event staff claim to have captured on camera the ghost of Lady Dinah Pearce, benefactor of the building and widow of shipbuilding magnate Sir William Pearce. The photograph was taken after a late-night séance in which participants sat around a table calling out to Lady Pearce, and was later shared by Paranormal Scotland Ltd as what they describe as their clearest evidence yet of an “intelligent haunting” (👀).
It’s claimed the photo shows the outline of a figure, including face and clothing. In reality, it shows multiple seated people who are already visibly blurred, strongly suggesting a slow shutter speed or long exposure in low light. When someone moves through the frame - or shifts position - they appear semi-transparent, smeared, or partially overlaid on the background, producing exactly the kind of apparition effect seen here. There’s no single, stable figure - just motion blur, camera shake, and overlapping exposures doing what they’ve always done best at séances - creating something uncanny enough for the brain to promote it straight to ghost.
#1 The blood moon EDM rave ghost
This entry comes from Kinnitty Castle, where a group calling themselves Paranormal Supernatural Investigations Ireland (paranormal and supernatural, just in case you were worried they’d miss anything) claimed to capture an “extraordinary mass of energy” at a stone circle following a blood moon. According to the group, their equipment was “lighting up,” the atmosphere was “electric,” and a mysterious shape appeared in one photograph but not the next — which they took as clear evidence of an entity making itself known.
What the image actually shows is a low-light, long-exposure photograph featuring significant motion blur, camera shake, and a frankly heroic amount of red and green LEDs from ghost-hunting equipment. The result looks less like an ancient spirit and more like someone accidentally wandered into a forest rave while the DJ was mid–light test. The dark, semi-transparent figure is consistent with a person moving through the frame during a slow shutter, while the neon ground glow is just gadgets enthusiastically painting the landscape like it’s Glastonbury, but for vibes.
Either that, or the ghosts of Offaly have finally embraced drum and bass 🙌
Thanks for reading, and for indulging this annual tradition of gentle scepticism and festive side-eye. Whether you’re spending the holidays with family, friends, or quietly reviewing blurry photos from haunted hotels on a solo stakeout, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, peaceful New Year - and may 2026 bring us fewer red circles, fewer masses of energy, and just the right number of rubbish ghosts.
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