The Field Guide to Ghosts and Other Apparitions (Field Guides to the Unknown)

In Havana, the ghost of Ernest Hemingway has been terrifying the employees at the writer's former estate.

In Madrid, a ghost named "Ataulfo" has been haunting the museun that houses Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica.

In Washington, D.C., the vice president's daughter was so scared by a ghost's visitation that she fainted.

Ghost sightings happen every day throughout the world. Those who have never seen a ghost tend not to believe in their existence, but the experience of seeing a ghost certainly feels quite real. This entertaining cross-cultural guide to ghost sightings worldwide uses firsthand testimony and an illustrator's renderings to explore the great variety of ghost experiences that people have reported for thousands of years. You will, of course, read about ghosts of the dead, some of whom offer guidance and warning, but also about ghosts of the living, as well as what appear to be ghosts of the future. Most ghosts are of people, but they can also be of animals, things, and places -- entire ghost buildings and ghost gardens, for instance. How can we possibly explain all this? Are ghosts merely images seen in the mind's eye? Are they visitors from some alternate reality? Can they be real in an everyday material sense? Or could ghosts actually be a phenomenon of time itself?

Patrick Huyghe is a journalist and editor of the The Anomalist, a journal that explores the mysteries of science, nature, and history. His articles have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times . He lives in Putnam Valley, New York.