Paranormal Beliefs

A 2005 poll by Gallup looked at the nature and commonality of paranormal beliefs held by people living in the US, Canada, and Great Britain.

This survey focused on five different paranormal beliefs: that houses can be haunted, that astrology can influence people’s lives, that extraterrestrials have at some point visited Earth, that it’s possible to communicate with the dead, and that witches are real.

The most common paranormal belief held by those surveyed is that houses can be haunted, with 37%, 28%, and 40% of US, Canadian, and British citizens believing in haunted houses, respectively.

A belief in witches, in contrast, is the least-held paranormal belief amongst those surveyed, with 21% of US citizens believing some people have witchy powers, and just 13% of those living in Canada and Britain believing the same.

Interestingly, women are quite a bit more likely to believe in astrology, haunted houses, and the possibility of communication with the dead than men, and a little bit more likely than men to believe in witches. While a believe in extraterrestrials and their having visited Earth at some point is the only paranormal believe in this survey that was more commonly held by men in all three surveyed areas, and by a fair margin.

It’s worth noting that these findings are based on relatively small surveys—a little over 1,000 respondents in each country—and all the responses were gleaned via phone interviews, which biases the answers toward beliefs held by people who are willing to sit through a phone interview.

That said, the data still suggest that a fair number of people believe in different sorts of paranormal activity, and indicate that the belief in witches has declined substantially since the witch trials of a few hundred years ago, while the belief in haunted houses (or perhaps just haunted places more generally) is persists.