Most any small town is the perfect place for sitting next to a camp fire and listening to a good story about Vermont ghosts. At least it was “back in the day”, but now all that seems to have been relegated to the past.
Just a few years ago, it was an eagerly anticipated event at Halloween time to visit a local bookstore and pick up Joe Citro’s latest book about ghosts, haunted houses, unusual people, places and things in Vermont. Speaking to Joe awhile back, he mentioned that he had just plain ran out of subjects to write about. Also, book stores are having a tough time and publishers are reluctant to print too many books. A perfect storm that probably helped drive the stake through the heart of the Vermont ghost story.
Just about anything that comes out in print these days is a re-hashing of stories that seem hauntingly familiar (pun intended). In other words, if you pick up a new book on Vermont ghost stories, Joe has probably “already done that” before.
Times are changing and people are too. Are ghost stories not so scary anymore?
Fast forward to 2026, and Vermont no longer feels quite like the bucolic paradise that once drew visitors from near and far. The state is facing problems that are far more immediate than anything lurking in an old farmhouse or wandering a dark country road. Drug abuse and an increase in crime, has reached into communities large and small. Taxes and the rising cost of living are putting tremendous pressure on middle-class families. Good-paying jobs can be hard to find, leaving some people working two jobs just to keep up while others find themselves relying on public assistance.
Against that backdrop, the old ghost stories and Vermont bugaboos can seem almost quaint. After all, it is difficult to be terribly frightened by a restless spirit in an abandoned house when the fears of everyday life are much closer to home. Losing a job, falling behind financially, or worrying about crime and addiction in your own community can make even Vermont’s most notorious ghosts seem fairly tame by comparison.
As my aunt used to say, “Don’t worry about dead people, it’s the living you should be afraid of“.
Is it because people have become desensitized to ghost stories?
With long-running shows like The Walking Dead becoming so popular, maybe audiences simply moved on to more exciting fare. After a few years, zombies wore out their welcome and people moved on. TV shows like A Haunting were popular too, until the formula began to wear thin, helped along by cheaper production values and increasingly exaggerated stories.
The biggest offenders may have been the reality-style ghost-hunting shows. Some seemed to make much ado about nothing, while others appeared so heavily staged that they became difficult to take seriously. Ironically, instead of proving that ghosts exist, many of these shows may have done just the opposite. After countless hours spent wandering through dark buildings with cameras, meters, and night-vision equipment, where was the undeniable evidence everyone was waiting for?
Mostly, we got eerie music, blurry shadows, strange noises, and a lot of people talking, shouting, or swearing into the darkness. Never the one piece of evidence that would finally settle the question.
If I were a ghost, I think the ghost hunters would probably frighten me away first. Crap!
Another factor in the demise of the Vermont ghost story is the rapid urbanization and culture changes taking place in Vermont. Remember the movie Funny Farm or the TV show Newhart, poking fun at the quirky, sarcastic, comfortably numb Vermont natives? To be honest, Vermont used to be a simple place where everyone knew their neighbors and communities were self sufficient. Some people never ventured 10 miles away from their small, hometowns.
To some Vermonters, Burlington, VT was once considered “the big city,” a place people from smaller towns hesitated to drive to because of “all that traffic and the goings-on.” That has changed too. Many of the old, vacant buildings that once fueled the imagination and inspired stories of hauntings, strange noises, and ghostly encounters have disappeared, replaced by chain stores, redevelopment, and the same kinds of commercial buildings found almost anywhere else.
Vermont Culture and People Have Changed
At the same time, Vermont itself has been changing. New residents have arrived from many different places and backgrounds, while some of the old local traditions, stories, and legends seem less central to everyday life than they once were. Burlington, once widely regarded as one of Vermont’s safest and most comfortable cities, is now dealing with very visible problems involving addiction, homelessness, shootings, and other crime. Church Street may still be promoted as the heart of downtown Burlington, but for many longtime Vermonters, it no longer feels like the carefree, family-friendly place they remember from earlier decades.
Vermont culture is changing quickly, and in some ways it is becoming something very different from the Vermont many of us grew up knowing. It certainly “ain’t like it used to be,” and chances are it never will be again.
Maybe that is the real Vermont ghost story: not a spirit wandering through an abandoned farmhouse, but the gradual disappearance of a place, a culture, and a way of life we once thought would always be here. And sometimes, reality can be a great deal more unsettling than any ghost story or old Vermont legend.
