Halloween

NASA's Halloween playlist captures the sounds of the solar system

Celebrate Halloween With These Unsettling Sounds From Outer Space

NASA's new SoundCloud playlist captures the sounds of planets, comets and plasma waves

The "Hatbox Ghost" is one of the most beloved attractions in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.

A Brief History of the Haunted House

How Walt Disney inspired the world's scariest Halloween tradition

William Castle was adept at using marketing ploys to lure audiences to the movie theaters for his horror films.

The Hair-Raising Gimmicks of the Abominable Showman

William Castle went all-out to fright audiences with his horror movies and marketing strategy

"The mischievous deeds we perpetrated," writes Jim Deutsch, a Smithsonian curator of folklore, "were never elaborate pranks carefully planned, but rather were almost always spontaneous."

Yes. The Night Before Halloween Is a Real Holiday

In New Jersey, it's known as 'Mischief Night." In Detroit, it's 'Devil's Night.' And in Cincinnati, it's ... 'Cabbage Night'?

Eeek!

Zombie Movies Are Never Really About Zombies

Zombies have offered a way to work out cultural fears about everything from race to climate change

A woodcut from a 1720 history of "witches and wizards"

How New Printing Technology Gave Witches Their Familiar Silhouette

Popular media helped give witches their image

Even the venus fly trap, which takes an active role in catching its prey, is almost nothing like us.

Getting to the Roots of "Plant Horror"

From the serious—pod people—to the farcical—”feed me, feed me!”—this genre has produced some strange stuff

One of the excavated burials in Drawsko, Poland showed a skeleton with a sickle placed over its neck, likely to prevent the dead from rising again as the undead.

Burials Unearthed in Poland Open the Casket on The Secret Lives of Vampires

What people actually did to prevent the dead from rising again was very different than what Hollywood would have you think

Scary pumpkins are the least of what frightens us at Halloween, a day devoted to being frightened.

What Happens in the Brain When We Feel Fear

And why some of us just can't get enough of it

A 1908 postcard depicts Halloween mischief.

When Halloween Was All Tricks and No Treats

Nineteenth-century urbanization unleashed the nation's anarchic spirits, turning holiday mischief into mayhem

Rick Araluce's The Final Stop, installed at the Renwick Gallery, is a world unto itself.

At This Spectral Subway Platform, Trains Approach But Never Arrive

An otherworldly art installation debuts at the Renwick just in time for Halloween

In 2014, Americans Feared Walking Alone at Night. Now They’re Worried about Government Corruption

A survey on American fears by Chapman University sociologists has produced some surprisingly frightful results

A bust of the legless "bicycle girl" zombie executed by Rick Grimes in the Walking Dead pilot.

America's Undead Are Immortalized at the Smithsonian

The cast of "The Walking Dead" donates a set of perfectly macabre Halloween gifts

The Ilban people of East Borneo captured these six warrior skulls in a single battle. They tossed the heads into a fire pit to cure and then wrapped them in vines to suspend their prize from the rafters of the community longhouse.

Explore Haunting Relics of Death With New Photography Book

Placenta-wiping fetuses are only the tip of the frightberg

Are You Descended From Witches? New Digital Document Could Help You Find Out

The Wellcome Library manuscript lists people accused of witchcraft during the Scottish witch panic of 1658-1662

These daisy wheels were found in Saxon Tithe barn in Bradford-on-Avon.

Join an English Scavenger Hunt for Spooky, Supernatural Scratches

"Witch marks" are all over old buildings in England—and this Halloween, a preservation group is calling on the public to help document them

The tongue-eating louse will leave you speechless.

Hollywood Has Nothing on These Real Life Halloween Horror Shows

Face-unfurling, chest-exploding, zombie-making fiends: They're all around us

Freeman Fisher Gosden and Charles Correll, c. 1935 (detail), as "Amos and Andy"

The Long, Unfortunate History of Racial Parody in America

Art historian Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw discusses the painful performative origins

The Exorcist's Rule Book

A serious manifestation of evil is never a pretty thing, but Catholic priests face down demons with precision

The bonfires of Samhain were said to welcome the spirits that could travel to Earth during this special time.

Halloween Owes Its Tricks and Treats to the Ancient Celtic New Year's Eve

During Samhain, the deceased came to Earth in search of food and comfort, while evil spirits, faeries and gods came in search of mischief

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