Welcome to the Nightwalks…

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From August the 12th / 13th until September the 10th this year, it’s Ghost Month or Hungry Ghost Month in China, with the Hungry Ghost Festival on August the 26th / 27th. But what does this all involve, and what led to its customs and traditions?

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Since ancient times, China has worshipped the dead in the seventh lunar month of the year. It is said that on the first day of that month, the gate to the underworld opens wide and for 28 days after that, ghosts are out and about until the gate closes again. Sacrifices and prayers are made to the gods to ensure safety during this time, and certain amulets are carried to repel evil or bad luck.

According to ancient Chinese beliefs, those who died in a normal way could reincarnate, but anyone who died guilty or who died by accident would wander the mortal realm as ghosts. Evil spirits could take the chance to cause disasters and accidents that cause more living people to die. Anyone who unexpectedly dies during Ghost Month is said to have been “taken away by ghosts”.

The spirits of ancestors are also thought to pay a visit to their families. But it’s the ghosts who wander without living descendants who need appeasing.

On the first day of Ghost Month, households either put on a feast or prepare fruits and desserts to show respect. The idea behind this is that whatever accepts your food cannot bring you trouble. People light incense at their doorways and offer such things as rice and tea as well, and clean their homes.

On the second day, public places such as shops and offices offer a food sacrifice.

The Hungry Ghost Festival or Zhongyuan Festival falls on the fifteenth day, when there is a full moon. During the night and early hours of that morning, ghosts gather and evil spirits amass. During the Festival, individuals burn joss paper or paper money by the side of the road and invoke their ancestors or ghosts with sacrifice. On the sixteenth day, public places follow suit.

The sacrifices are put on altars that are on the ground and not raised above it, because it is thought that hungry ghosts are too restless to approach high-up spaces.

During the Festival, theatrical troupes would often be invited to perform for the gods and entertain the guests at outdoor banquets. These days, China encourages more frugality so the sacrifice event is usually simpler, though Chinese opera and puppet shows are still held for the entertainment of the living and the dead.

Later on, some communities float lanterns on rivers to help guide the spirits. This happens at the start of the final week.

On the final day of Ghost Month, the ghosts return to the underworld and the gate is closed. People give sacrifices on this day to ask for safety during the rest of the year, and clean their homes again.

Some people distribute rice and other foods to the poor during the month.

There are various rules for Ghost Month to ensure good luck and to avoid being attacked or “taken by the ghosts.”

Children, the elderly, and other sensitive people avoid going outside at night during that month.

People avoid going into the sea or other bodies of water. It is thought that spirits in the water are looking for bodies to reincarnate in and will try to drown those who go swimming.

People avoid playing any sort of supernatural game.

Understandably, people avoid having elective surgeries during Ghost Month as well.

Other things avoided include moving house, launching businesses, holding any weddings, crying or shedding tears at midnight (crying in daylight is fine, but tears shed at midnight can call the ghosts to you), and tapping someone on the shoulder.

There is a Chinese belief that the human body has three fires – one on the head and one on each shoulder. Tapping someone on the shoulder is thought to briefly extinguish the fire there and create a weakness towards the ghosts, especially if the person tapped is in bad health.

Other taboos during Ghost Month:

• Calling someone by their name (ghosts can take three souls and the six senses of those you call by name)
• Glancing behind you when out walking in the countryside or somewhere sparsely populated, especially if you think someone is calling after you
• Talking about ghosts outside during the night. Speaking positive words doesn’t matter, but if you say anything criticising ghosts or the dead, watch out. Something unfortunate could happen to you!
• Hanging clothes outside at night. Ghosts like living people’s clothes and will touch them or borrow them, which is not good for you.
• Sitting in the front row of the audience during the performances. The seats at the front are reserved for the ghosts. Something bad may happen to you if you take one of their seats.
• Opening umbrellas inside the house. This may attract evil spirits because they don’t like exposure to the light.
• Taking the last bus or the last train. These are thought to be used by the ghosts, so if you board the last one you’re basically sitting surrounded by spirits.
• Whistling. Ghosts hear whistling as a call for attention from them.
• Hammering at midnight.
• Picking up money from the side of the road. This is seen as money belonging to the dead, or might have been used in a marriage ceremony for people already dead. Take it and risk being haunted. (This also applies to picking up random objects from the roadside.)
• Leaning against walls. Spirits travel along walls, and you could be blocking their path.
• Renovating or otherwise disturbing the ground. This would annoy earth spirits.
• Staying up late at night. This gets you haunted.
• Plunging chopsticks into a plate of food. This is like putting incense into a burner and is seen by the ghosts as you inviting them to eat with you.
• Eating sacrifices. Do this and you will be competing with the ghosts for food, bringing yourself bad luck.
• Celebrating your birthday at night (during the day is fine).
• Leaving slippers pointing towards the bed. This encourages ghosts to get in the bed with you.
• Having a banyan tree outside your gate. Ghosts like to gather around these trees and it can lead to having a haunted house.
• Hanging a windchime near the bed. This invites ghosts to haunt your sleep.
• Taking photos at night. The ghosts might appear in the resulting pictures.
• Shining a torch over a tree. This could wake up any spirits inside the tree.

Amulets and good-luck talismans are carried around, which include prayer beads, coarse salt, glutinous rice, crosses, and lodestones.

Actions encouraged during Ghost Month include honouring your ancestors, doing charitable work, meditating or self-reflecting, deep cleaning and decluttering, planning and preparing for new ventures (but not starting anything new), and practicing gratitude.

Ghost Month is observed not just in mainland China but in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Origins & History

The Ghost Month combines practices from both Daoist and Buddhist traditions.

In Daoism, the 15th of the 7th lunar month is the birthday of the Earth Official (Di Guan) who is one of three officials believed to judge humanity’s actions. On this day the balance between yin and yang changes, making the boundary between realms weaker.

In Buddhism, this time was Ullambana Sutra, when the disciple Maudgalyayana attempted to rescue his mother from her suffering in the world of hungry ghosts. The Buddha advised him to make offerings to monks on the 15th of the seventh month, which gave rise to the idea of the Ghost Festival.

Over the centuries, these merged with local folk customs to create the Ghost Month as we know it today.

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Sources

https://www.yourchineseastrology.com/calendar/ghost-month.htm

https://www.yourchineseastrology.com/calendar/ghost-month-taboos.htm

https://www.fengshuiwithjackson.com/article-august-ghost-month.html

Chinese Ghost Month 2026: Traditions, Taboos, and Meaning

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One of the earliest appearances of ghouls is in The Arabian Nights, or One Thousand and One Nights, portrayed as dangerous, flesh-eating demons. But how have they changed over time?

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The Mesopotamians had gallu demons in their mythology, which had very similar traits to ghouls. It may be that the Arabian nomads swapped tales with the Mesopotamians. The gallu lived in the Underworld and carried their victims into the land of the dead to eat them.

In ancient, pre-Islamic Arabic folklore, ghouls or ghūls were a class of djinn or spirits that were the children of the Islamic prince of darkness, Iblis (or Satan). They constantly shapeshifted, but they always had the hooves of a donkey. They had an extreme hunger for human flesh. Djinn were spirits capable of possessing humans or animals.

According to the ancients, ghūls were always female (sexism much?) and were sometimes confused with the si’la or witchlike species of djinn that were totally unable to change shape.

These original ghūls would stalk the desert or lurk in graveyards, ruins, and battlefields in the form of attractive women, trying to distract travellers, then killing and eating them. According to the ancients, ghūls had to be struck dead with a sword, decapitating them with one blow – a second blow would bring them back to life. They would sometimes eat dead bodies but preferred to feast on the living.

In modern Arabic tradition, ghūls are human or demonic cannibals, male or female, frequently used to frighten children into behaving. The word ghūl comes from the Arabic ghāla, which means “to seize.”

Male ghouls are called ghūl and female ghouls are called ghulah. The female ghoul is often called Mother Ghoul or Our Aunt Ghoul in stories told to girls or young women. In these stories, the ghoul appears to men as a long-lost female relative or harmless old woman, and she convinces the men (usually husbands or fathers) to enter her home, where she can ingest them. The male character’s female relatives are often able to see through the Ghoul’s disguise, and the men survive if they listen to the women (or get eaten if they don’t).

The Ghoul is also believed to drink blood and steal coins, and also to assume the form of the person they have most recently eaten. Early ghouls were believed to carry diseases on their skin from the places they inhabited.

There were tales of one ghoul named Ghul-e Biyaban, who inhabited the wildernesses of Iran and Afghanistan.

In 1667, a hyena who attacked a woman in Mecca was called a ghul, possibly because of a perceived similarity to ghouls in early Arabic folklore. Originally, ghūls were hairy and canine, and would often shapeshift into hyenas to lure people into the desert. They were also humanoid, with hooves for feet.

Antoine Galland introduced the character of the ghoul into European society when he translated The Arabian Nights (or The Thousand and One Nights) into French, though he interpreted it rather loosely, adding in characters and stories that weren’t part of the original work. He added the character Amina (a woman who enjoyed hanging out with ghouls in a graveyard rather than with her husband) which led to the idea of ghouls preferring to eat dead bodies.

Ghūls became ghouls in the English Gothic horror tradition in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they were seen as grave-robbing creatures that fed on dead bodies and children. They are still shapeshifters, with the poet Edgar Allen Poe saying that they are “neither man nor woman… neither brute nor human”.

The first usage of the word “ghoul” was in William Beckford’s Orientalist novel, Vathek, in 1786.

Ghouls gained popularity in European stories from writing by the likes of Horace Walpole, Lord Byron, and especially H P Lovecraft.

Ghouls are believed to ride on dogs and hares and light fires at night to lead travellers astray. In their original form, they are thought to resemble hideous, hunched, corpse-like beings: skeletal frames, glowing eyes, rotting flesh, but with more intelligence than zombies, able to walk on two legs but preferring to crawl or run on all fours. Nowadays, they are believed to transform into human shape, animal shape, or the form of someone recently deceased to lure travellers or gravediggers into their dens to eat them. In some tales, they hide in underground tunnels or crypts then emerge to hunt at night.

In their later forms, ghouls are still believed to be somewhat canine and with hooves, but instead of being hairy they have pale, rubbery skin. They have an even greater shapeshifting ability, and can even absorb the memories of their victims once they eat their brain, so they can blend into society. There are even tales of ghoul changelings (e.g. Pickman’s Model by H. P. Lovecraft).

In some stories, they are weak against sunlight, holy symbols, spells, or weapons imbued with divine power.

Recent stories of ghouls suggest that they are in basements and cellars of abandoned buildings, and could have an underground network of tunnels to travel through. They may even have access to the subway and are thought to eat the remains of subway crash casualties before emergency services manage to get there.

Later stories of ghouls hold that the creatures can also be killed using fire, electrocution, and concentrated acids.

According to the story “The Nameless Offspring” by Clark Ashton Smith, ghouls procreate by mating with humans who have been mistakenly buried (ergh…). Other stories say a ghoul is a former human who lived such an evil life, they changed into one (or transformed into one after death) or is a human who once cannibalised another human. Others believe that ghouls are created through the spread of an infectious disease, transmitted by the ghoul’s bite or contact with other bodily fluids.

It so happens that I redefined the meaning of what a ghoul is for the flash fiction “Deathwalk” which you can read for free in GossamerWight’s Uncanny Regimes anthology:

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Sources

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ghoul

Ghouls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoul

https://mythology.net/monsters/ghoul/

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Throughout the world there have been reports of people hearing bizarre frequencies, some of them still unexplained. Is it the Om Buddhists believe in? Is it cosmic microwave background radiation? Or something else?

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There is a phenomenon known as the Hum, or the worldwide hum. It’s a persistent and often invasive low-frequency sound, either droning, humming, or rumbling, that is noticeable to many people (4% worldwide) in a given area (though not all people, interestingly enough).

The Hum was first reported in the UK in Bristol, England, in the late 1960s to mid-1970s. The Bristol Evening Post received an influx of letters about the sound. At first, it was blamed on large industrial fans running in a department store warehouse… but the reports continued years after the warehouse closed!

A recording of the Bristol Hum in 2020, during lockdown:

Other Hums were detected in the country, mostly in coastal areas (Hythe, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea), but also in London.

In the early 1970s, there was a University study conducted on fifty people who could hear a low, throbbing background noise that others weren’t able to hear. The sound always peaked between 30 and 40 Hertz, only audible in cool weather with a slight breeze, usually early in the mornings. The sounds were often contained in a 6 mile-wide location.

The Hum has caused three people to commit suicide in the UK, according to Mark Pilkington in the Guardian. While some people find the Hum to be a curiosity or a bit of an annoyance, for others it is life-altering and can lead to anxiety or depression.

In the late 1980s to early 1990s, the Hum was heard in Taos, New Mexico, and Kokomo, Indiana.

Since then, Hums have been heard in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa  and many European cities. They’re often in densely populated areas and are named after the places in which they occur, for example the Taos Hum in New Mexico and the Windsor Hum in Ontario.

The Taos Hum

At least 2% of people could hear a Hum in Taos, New Mexico in the early 1990s. Every hearer noticed it at different frequencies ranging from 32 to 80 Hertz. It was possible for them to move away from the Hum, with one hearer saying it had a range of 30 miles, so the source was likely external and not biological. Middle-aged people were more likely to hear it, with an almost equal number of males and females affected. (There are also eight times as many ambidextrous hearers of the Hum worldwide than in the general population, and a lot more people with a personal or family history of autism or ADHD who can hear it.)

An example of the Taos Hum is audible here:

Auckland Hum

In 2006, a man named Tom Moir at the Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, managed to get some recordings of this Hum, which was about 56 Hertz.

An example:

Windsor Hum

Back in late 2011, people living in Windsor, Ontario started hearing low, droning vibrations which were often loud enough to vibrate windows and cause annoyance. Some people experienced nosebleeds, headaches, and insomnia. On one evening in 2012, there were 22,000 complaints about it to officials.

The sound may have come from Zug Island, a very industrialised section of River Rouge on the north bank of the Detroit River. Canadian officials tried to get U.S. assistance in locating the source of the noise, but they were prevented from accessing the island.

A steel mill operated by U.S. Steel might have been the cause, but no new equipment was put in or switched on around the time the Hum became apparent. Once the blast furnaces were retired in April 2020, the Hum dissipated.

A recording of the Windsor Hum in 2011:

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Dr Glen MacPherson, a Canadian teacher who first heard the Hum while living and working in Sechelt in British Columbia, has a website dedicated to recording people’s reports of the Hum around the world: https://thehum.info/. It’s an interactive map and database that he set up in 2012. Currently, he is having someone comb through the Times of London’s digital archive for records of a Hum in the 18th or 19th centuries. If convincing examples of a Hum are found from these time periods, that means technological explanations for it could be ruled out.

Possible explanations for these Hums include high-pressure gas pipelines, power distribution lines, distant mining operations, small undersea earthquakes, atmospheric resonance, industrial machinery or fans at nearby factories, and other mechanical sources such as cooling towers, air compressors, diesel generators, vacuum pumps, or large transformers.

Some researchers hazard that very low frequency radio waves from the military TACAMO system, used by aircraft to communicate with submarines, might be the source of the Hum. According to Dr MacPherson, the human body is capable of experiencing electromagnetic energy as sound. The neuroscientist Alan Frey conducted experiments into “microwave hearing” which revealed that certain frequencies could be heard as sounds.

Another explanation could be tinnitus, or the venous hum (the sound of your blood circulation in your upper chest, near the collarbone. Also known as the “nun’s murmur” or “bruit de diable” [noise of devils].) However, the Hum is low-frequency and actual tinnitus within the ear is usually the hearing of high-frequency sounds.

Some people who hear the Hum say that it’s worse inside their homes rather than outside. Some say it’s just as noticeable outdoors as indoors. Some people have said the Hum is made worse by soundproofing (e.g. double-glazing).

Human ears are capable of generating their own random sounds from the cochlea, otherwise known as spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAE). 30 to 68% of adults with normal hearing have these, though most people are unaware of them. They are anywhere from 500 to 5000 Hz and can sound like cicadas or faint hissing, buzzing, or ringing, especially if you’re in a silent environment. They’re a byproduct of the ear’s sound amplification.

Various Hums can be caused by wildlife. A humming in Sausalito, California, was found to be caused by the mating calls of male midshipman fish. That particular sound was resonating through the hulls of houseboats.

The Scottish Association for Marine Science guessed that a hum during the night in Hythe may be coming from a similar “sonic” type of fish, though this is unlikely as that sort of fish isn’t found often in the inshore waters of the UK.

Low-frequency sounds or infrasound can come from ocean waves hitting the shore, or from wind blowing across the landscape.

The question is, why is a subset of humanity able to detect this signal?

Animals are known to be able to predict earthquakes via imperceptible (to us) sound, and take action to protect themselves. Perhaps from an evolutionary point of view, it’s a good thing some of us can hear these kinds of vibrations.

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Havana Syndrome

This is a mysterious neurological illness that is so far unexplained, but associated with the sudden hearing of a bizarre tone.

In August 2017, American and Canadian diplomatic personnel in Cuba said they had been suffering with weird health problems since late 2016. There were 21 original cases in Cuba, which began with strange grating noises coming from a certain direction, or loud screeching, chirping, clicking, or piercing noises. Some people experienced pressure, vibration, or a sensation similar to driving a car with a window partly rolled down. These sounds lasted anywhere from 20 seconds to half an hour, while the diplomats were at home or in their hotel rooms. Other people nearby (friends, family members or guests in neighbouring rooms) heard and felt nothing unusual.

The US State Department concluded that it was either an attack or exposure to an unknown device, though it didn’t say that the Cuban government was responsible. People speculated that it was a sonic weapon or infrasound of some kind.

Symptoms included nausea, hearing loss, memory loss, visual problems such as sensitivity to light or blurred vision, intense pressure or vibrating in the head, ear pain, tinnitus, dizziness or unsteady gait, diffuse head pain, insomnia, and poor concentration. Some of this lasted for months, and some of the sufferers had long-lasting health problems.

In August 2017, the US fired two Cuban diplomats in retaliation, and the next month it warned US residents not to travel to Cuba, announcing it would be withdrawing non-essential staff from the US embassy there.

In March 2018, some Canadian diplomats went to Pittsburgh to see a neurologist who had previously diagnosed some brain issues in the US diplomats. MRIs of the Canadians showed signs of brain damage similar to their US counterparts.

In early 2018, Global Affairs Canada ended family postings to Cuba and removed all staff members from there who had families. Many of the Canadians affected in 2017 were still unable to work due to their health problems.

Starting from late 2017, suspected Havana syndrome attacks were affecting US intelligence staff in various locations: Moscow in Russia, Tbilisi in Georgia, Poland, Taiwan, Australia, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Austria.

In early 2018, US diplomats in China began reporting signs of health issues similar to those in Cuba. It was unclear whether it was the result of an attack, exposure to toxins, listening to devices that accidentally produced harmful sounds, or just mass hysteria. In June 2018, the US State Department issued a warning for the whole of mainland China, telling anyone who experienced unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises to not attempt to locate their source.

In August 2021, two American diplomats were evacuated from Hanoi in Vietnam, after cases of Havana syndrome were reported. In September of that year, an aide de camp of the CIA director had signs of the syndrome on a visit to India.

In 2019, a White House official had symptoms while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb in Washington. In November 2020, a similar thing happened on The Ellipse lawn adjacent to the White House’s south side. Still, the cause wasn’t found. However, eight recordings of the signal the sufferers heard in 2017 were analysed and found to be the chirping of the Indies short-tailed cricket. The sounds may have been used as a distraction or a cover.

In 2021, dozens of US personnel in Vienna (and some of their children) came down with the syndrome. Apart from Havana, Vienna has had the most incidents. Also in 2021, cases happened in Berlin, Serbia, and Bogota, Colombia.

There are still investigations underway as to whether the syndrome could be caused by some type of microwave, ultrasonic, or laser device. FMI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome

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Eerie Undersea Sounds

In the Pacific Ocean in 1997, a mysterious “slow down” sound was identified. It was recorded by NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on their array of underwater microphones.

It’s a long, drawn-out noise that decreases in frequency over the span of 7 minutes. The sound happens about 3 times a year at different times. It can be heard across thousands of miles. There has been speculation that it’s caused by a gigantic undiscovered undersea creature or even a prehistoric animal like a pleisiosaur. It’s likely to be caused by ice sheets sliding together or an underwater volcano, but whatever it is, it’s big.

The Bloop

Before that, in 1997, NOAA recorded a shorter signal under the Pacific Ocean that they named The Bloop. (They were actually trying to find evidence of Russian submarines.)

NOAA said it couldn’t be caused by anything man-made, so there was speculation that it could be the calls of a huge creature under the ocean. Then in 2012, scientists explained that the sound was caused by ice quakes, or a glacier breaking in half.

The Loneliest Whale Call

This runs at 52 Hertz, an isolated sound picked up by the US Navy while they were trying to track submarines. Whales usually call at a range of 10 to 40 Hertz, using the sounds to communicate with one another. This one appears to be larger – perhaps a blue whale – and is alone. The pattern of the call is like a blue whale’s and scientists have nicknamed it 52 Blue.

It’s higher frequency may have made it unrecognisable to other whales, hence its isolation. It has been recorded multiple times over years, but never seen. It could be a mix of a blue whale and a fin whale, or it may have a genetic mutation.

This recording has been sped up 10 times to make it easier for humans to hear, but this is the whale call:

Rosetta the Singing Comet

Comet 67P/C-G is giving off a humming or singing signal. The ESA sent its Rosetta probe to this 4km-wide comet, which detected changes in the comet’s magnetic field.

The comet is a contact binary, made of two smaller pieces joined together with a “neck” in-between them. Sunlight causes a lot of dust and ice to flare up from the neck, and the comet emits a low-frequency clicking sound caused by oscillations in its magnetic field as it interacts with the solar wind.

If you were close to this comet, you would smell rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide), a horse stable (ammonia) and almonds (hydrogen cyanide).

Recent analysis of samples from the comet show that comets similar to it may have been responsible for delivering noble gases and complex organic molecules to Earth while the planet was in its early days, billions of years ago.

The data has been sped up 10,000 times so that humans can hear it.

Radio signal SHGB02+14A

This signal first came to us in 2003 via a radio telescope in West Virginia. Identified by SETI at Home researchers, the signal was a repeating 1.42 second pulse that couldn’t be explained by a known source, natural or man-made. It had three frequency bands. NASA sent a spacecraft to its location to figure out what it was, but the craft malfunctioned.

The signal repeated again in 2015, the same frequencies from the same origin (between the constellations Pisces and Aries). No one has deciphered what caused it and it hasn’t returned since then.

Lorimer Bursts / Fast Radio Bursts

First detected in Australia in 2007, this was the first detected fast radio burst or FRB that only lasted 5 milliseconds, named after Duncan Lorimer, the astronomer who discovered it.

The FRB came from about 3 billion light years away, and was of unknown origin. FRBs may come from highly energised neutron stars in distant galaxies. The oldest FRB to reach us took 8 billion years to get here and had the energy of 30 years’ worth of what our Sun can produce.

Some FRBs repeat, but many don’t visit us again.

Here is an example of what the oldest FRB sounds like.

And just for fun, you can find sounds from planets and space missions from NASA at https://www.nasa.gov/sounds-from-beyond/ or on Soundcloud. Here is what the Sun sounds like:

https://m.soundcloud.com/nasa/sun-sonification

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Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

Humdingers https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/jul/22/research.science3?CMP=share_btn_url

https://thehum.info/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719040002.htm

https://strangesounds.org/strange-sounds/the-hum

https://theconversation.com/cracking-the-mystery-of-the-worldwide-hum-60296

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hum-listeners-rebecca-hall-mystery-noise-b2647826.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome

https://www.medicinenet.com/what_is_havana_syndrome/article.htm