Latest American Polls: Do People Believe in Ghosts?

In a former post I talked about how many Americans believe in ghosts. * What is interesting is that more recent polls than the one I originally cited reflect that even more people in America do indeed believe in the existence of ghosts. Of course there are still scientists and skeptics that refute this belief stating that it is based in superstition. But regardless it appears a large percentage of Americans form their own opinion when it comes to this subject.

Here is a recent poll taken by Huffington Post/YouGov that reflects that Americans strongly disagree with skeptics.

In this poll taken in December of 2012 **, 45% of the adults surveyed stated they do believe in ghosts. These people also stated that they believe ghosts do come back depending upon the place and situation.

When asked if they believe in life after death 64% stated, “Yes”.

When asked if they had ever seen a ghost 59% stated they did not believe they had.

When asked if they believed ghosts could harm humans 43% replied that they don’t think ghosts or spirits can harm or interact with the living. ***

The results of this Huffington Post poll are very similar to an CBS News poll that was taken in 2009. This poll found that nearly half of all Americans say they believe in ghosts. Just like the above poll these Americans went on to qualify their belief with the statement “that the dead can return in certain places and situations”. This CBS poll also revealed that 78% of Americans believe in an afterlife.

* In October of 1999 a Gallup Poll in America found that one out of three people surveyed said they believe in ghosts--this is three times as many as in the 1970's.

** The margin of error in this HuffPost/YouGov poll was 3.1 percentage points.

*** I gathered these statistics from a recent article written by Lee Speigel on Huffington Post.