Nightmarks in Île-de-France
6 nightmarks documented
Ball Lightning in Paris — François Arago Documents the Phenomenon (1852)
France's most eminent physicist spent years collecting ball lightning accounts in the 1850s. His work made the phenomenon respectable for science.
Père Lachaise Cemetery — the ghosts of Chopin, Wilde, and Morrison in Paris
Chopin's piano drifts through the paths, a figure lingers near Wilde's tomb, and the Communards' wall still echoes with gunfire — Père Lachaise never sleeps.
Palace of Versailles — Marie Antoinette's ghost walks the Petit Trianon gardens
Two English academics walked into the 18th century at the Petit Trianon — Marie Antoinette may still sketch in the gardens of the palace that cost her everything.
Père Lachaise Cemetery — the spectral dead of Paris's greatest necropolis
Paris's greatest necropolis — one million dead including Morrison, Wilde, Chopin, and the 1871 Communards executed at the cemetery's eastern wall.
Palais Garnier — the Paris Opera ghost of Gaston Leroux's real source
Gaston Leroux's 1910 Phantom of the Opera was based on real 19th-century reports of a disfigured man in Box 5 of the Palais Garnier — the lake beneath the stage is real.
Catacombs of Paris — six million dead beneath the City of Light
Six million sets of bones line the tunnels — orbs drift among skull walls, voices whisper in centuries-old French, and invisible hands tug at visitors underground.