In this week’s Time Machine, we’re jumping to the afterlife!
Well, not really, but we are seeing whether or not our beliefs in ghosts have changed.
Back in 1978, Gallup asked Americans if they believed in ghosts. Just 11% said they did and 89% said they did not.
Maybe the numbers are so low because the big burst of ghost movies was just about to happen. Between 1980 and 1990, ghost movies were HUGE! The Shining, Poltergeist, Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, and, of course, Ghost were big box office hits.
By 1997, when Fox News asked again, 30% of Americans said they believed in ghosts and 63% said they did not. And, that was before Haley Joel Osment saw dead people in The Sixth Sense.
Fortunately, Ipsos decided to ask the question in 2023, with a twist. Ghost believers were up to 39% of Americans and just 38% said they do not believe. The twist? They allowed respondents to answer “not sure” which claimed 22%.
That’s a pretty big change over 50 years! So, was it just movies and media or was it actual experience?
In 1990, Gallup asked Americans if they had ever seen or been in the presence of a ghost. The vast majority — 90% — said no and 9% said they had. Remember, only a few years later, 30% of Americans would say they believed in ghosts.
Jump forward 30 years to 2021 and Ipsos asks the same question. This time,
67% said they had not, while 24% said they had, indeed, been in the presence of a ghost.
So, while we can’t be sure of the cause, the data tells us Americans are way more into ghosts than they used to be. Boo!
This post was written by Marist Poll Media Team member Athen Hollis.