Top 10 Spookiest ‘Ghost Adventures’ Moments, Ranked
Paranormal investigator Zak Bagans became TV’s expert in all things supernatural after Ghost Adventures premiered on the Travel Channel (now on Discovery+) in 2008. Over the last 15 years, Bagans and crew members Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley have ventured into the most sinister and haunted places around the globe.
Countless celebrity guests (hello, Post Malone), GIFs, spinoffs, and parodies later — if you haven’t seen Nick Kroll‘s “Ghost Bouncers” for Kroll Show, look it up immediately — Ghost Adventures remains one of the spookiest shows on TV.
Just because “ghost” is in the show’s title doesn’t mean you can only enjoy it during the Halloween season. Spooky content is intriguing all year round. Even after 27 seasons, the Discovery Channel series is still sending chills down our spine. Take a look at the best, most frightening moments in Ghost Adventures history. Scroll through the images, below, if you dare!
10. Pennhurst State School (Season 3, Episode 1)
The adventurers investigated a city hospital that was opened in 1908 but shut down in 1987 after reports of patient abuse. The spirits apparently didn’t appreciate Bagans and the gang snooping around. Bagans was reportedly hit in the face by a coat hanger while doing a nightly tour.
9. Goldfield Hotel (Season 3, Episode 1)
Continuing in the theme of physical proof by way of flying objects, Bagans was struck once again at the Goldfield Hotel when encouraging a spirit to re-enact “the flying brick.” Bagans and crew replayed the trajectory of the rock that hit him in the torso while canvassing a hallway for ghosts.
8. Route 666 (Season 16, Episode 6)
For a Ghost Adventures Halloween special two-part episode, the crew called the police after seeing shadowy figures at a cemetery. The team investigated the DeSoto Hotel and Goatman’s Bridge, but the hotel proved the creepiest: an unseen force threw a ceiling fan and lights turned on by themselves.
7. Dorothea Puente Murder House (Season 12, Episode 3)
The crew checked out the home of Dorothea Puente after a resident claimed she interacted with the spirit of the elderly serial killer. Bagans claimed to have found potential evidence of still-unknown victims by the Sacramento murderer, but the biggest reveal of the episode was the GIF-worthy comparison to Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.
6. Edinburgh Vaults (Season 1, Episode 7)
This vintage Season 1 Ghost Adventures episode featured Bagans and the crew in Scotland to check out one of the world’s most haunted destinations. Bagans offered a stuffed teddy bear to a spirit supposedly named Jack, and the crew captured night camera footage of the teddy bear mysteriously moving by itself with audio of an “unexplained children’s voice.”
5. Haunted Harvey House (Season 11, Episode 5)
The team traveled to New Mexico to investigate the Castaneda Hotel, a tourist hotspot from 1898 to the late 1940s. Bagans was the first paranormal expert allowed on the premises of the hotel, and the location’s long history of guest deaths by suicide and a bellboy’s murder-suicide on the premises led to the once-famed hotel now sitting abandoned. Visitors recounted seeing a woman with long hair wearing a white dress floating above the staircase, and the episode even extende to another nearby venue to further trace the dense haunted history behind this ill-fated inn.
4. Crescent Hotel (Season 16, Episode 6)
The 2019 Ghost Adventures season premiere featured the 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Once a “health resort” for cancer patients by fraud physician and radio personality Norman Baker, the historic site was alleged to be a “portal to the other side,” as a local medium claimed. Bagans chose to investigate after jars of human body parts and removed tumors were uncovered onsite by authorities. In the episode, Bagans was able to co to terms with his father’s own passing of cancer amidst the eerie cries for help recorded on their monitors.
3. Idaho State Tuberculosis Hospital (Season 18, Episode 10)
This heartbreaking episode featured Bagans and his band of investigators visiting an inn that was the former Idaho Sate Tuberculosis Hospital. Bagans researched the deaths of ill patients that could have been lurking the halls, yet it was the inn’s current owners who had the deepest connection to the main spirit: both of their children passed away, and their mother believed her disabled son was trying to make contact. After Bagan’s crew recorded grunts, flashing lights, and piercing screams, it seemed the grieving parent was right. “We felt you. You need to come out and show them what we saw,” Bagans coaxed the spirit after seeing a photo of the young boy.
2. Island of the Dolls (Season 9, Episode 6)
This Mexico City haunted tourist spot marked the location where a young girl drowned in mysterious circumstances. Today, the island is home to abandoned children’s dolls that are said to be possessed by the girl’s spirit. While eyeless dolls are scary enough, a cat scurried across Bagans’ legs while he investigated one of the infamous dolls — just as the doll started hysterically laughing.
1. Stone Lion Inn (Season 14, Episode 1)
A mortuary turned bed and breakfast made for an interesting type of vacation, especially when the current owner proudly performed authentic satanic rituals between murder-mystery shows. The history of the Oklahoma-based Stone Lion Inn was even more shocking — a mummified train robber’s corpse was a popular local tourist attraction in the funeral parlor for 61 years. Bagans set up a campsite over the robber’s grave and the crew began communicating with the spirit through a digital chat as the ghost described how his body was found hanging. A disclaimer for viewers: the episode frequently showed photos of robber Elmer McCurdy’s real life decaying corpse. This was by far the spookiest episode because it had proof that no one could argue — a tangible, rotting body.
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services