 Have you ever wondered why so many ghosts in horror films are female? What is the reason for this? Do they appear to be scarier? If you try to think of two famous film ghosts, you'll probably come up with Samara from The Ring and The Old Woman from The Shining. Female ghosts have far more interesting stories than male ghosts. They're grieving the loss of their children. They're a wrathful darling. They're mourning the loss of their energetic excellence, or they're attempting to resurrect themselves by engaging in sexual relations with a living person. But before we look at the famous female ghosts and urban legends from around the world, let me tell you a quick story of unfinished business. There's a ghost in town, you know, and not one of the harmless ones either. She died of a broken heart after the loss of her daughter. If you're sensitive, you can see her walking the streets, screaming and rending her clothes. She says she won't rest until she's found out who murdered her child. And she means it. Her daughter's boyfriend, thrown out of the window over and over. Her school rival's face pressed against an iron. Her father, the ghost's husband, nearly drowned in a bathtub. She appears hurling accusations and hurts you until you confess. It usually doesn't take long, but she still doesn't move on and realizes it's a lie, so she leaves and finds the next person on the list. Sometimes her screams become subs. What if it was some wandering vagrant who left town weeks ago? Some serial killers who picked a random target they have no connection to. What if she never learns who took her daughter away? I try to tell her. She does know, of course. I point to the note. I tell her over and over. No one killed me. I took my own life. You don't need to keep hurting people. It was all my fault. And she leans down and gently takes my skeletal face and bony hands and shakes her head. Of course you didn't. I know my daughter. I always accepted you. I did everything I could to make you happy. You wouldn't do this. Someone faked the note. I know it. I was a good mom. You wouldn't have done this. I try to explain over and over, but she's not listening. The suspect's the local priest now. She never quite trusted him anyway. My guilt is no match for her rage, so all I can do is watch as she floats away. Shortly, I hear screams from the church. There's a ghost in town, you know? And not one of the harmless ones, either. Some of the scariest ghosts and urban legends are female. From Bloody Mary to the White Lady. Have you seen any of these women? The Vanished Hitchhiker. This one appears to be straight out of terrifying stories and it is one of the most well-known urban legends of all time. The story tends to differ from teller to teller, but the basic premise is that the vanishing hitchhiker is an urban legend in which people traveling by vehicle pick up a young, beautiful hitchhiker. They drive her home and notice that she's vanished when they park. The person who answers the door informs them that the girl died many years ago. There's a similar story which is about two travelers sitting next to each other on a train. Normally a man and a woman, one of them is reading a book, the other person asks what the book is about, the first person says that it's about ghosts, and then they have a conversation about ghosts. The second person then asks if the first person believes in ghosts or has ever seen one, to which the first person says that they've never seen or believed in ghosts at all. The second person then says that this is doubtful and with that the second person vanishes. This was the version used in the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book series. La Llorona or La Llorona, weeping woman, the wailing woman or the crier, is an oral legend about the ghost of a woman who steals children to drown them. La Llorona is always crying when you see her. She's crying because she killed her children. There are multiple versions to this story as well. The legend states a lady was unloved by her husband but the husband adored their two children. She called her husband with another lady and drowned her children in a river. Out of pain and outrage, she at that point drowned herself. She was denied passage to paradise until she found the spirits of her two children. She cries and moans and takes youngsters and suffocates them in the stream that she and her children suffocated in themselves. The legend represents La Llorona as an individual or as a ghost. In one variation, the lore states that after giving birth to and raising two sons, an aging wife felt that her husband fell out of love with her and only loved their sons. After catching her husband cheating on her with a younger woman, she was consumed by grief and anger so she drowned her sons in a river to punish her husband, then drowned herself as well because of what she had done. She was tricked by a demon that told her her son's souls were lost but she be granted entry to heaven if she found their lost souls and brought them to heaven where they belonged. The demon knew that her son's souls were already in heaven so the woman would be stuck in the land of the living trying to find her sons forever, crying constantly for the sins she committed. After having spent a long time without finding her sons, her grief and her desperation to just be able to die and be at peace caused her to start taking other children's souls by drowning them. Anne Bolen Anne Bolen was famously beheaded on the orders of her husband Henry VIII when he was frustrated that she didn't bear him a son and heir. The ghost of Anne Bolen is said to haunt the tower of London where she was imprisoned before she died. The king divorced her and beheaded her for not giving him a male heir and accused her of black magic and incest. Anne's ghost has her head thankfully but she is still said to frighten passersby as she wanders through the halls. She's even been seen in other historic buildings. She's probably looking for justice, poor Anne. The ghost of Sir Thomas Anne Bolen's father is also believed to haunt the tower of London, having been cursed for taking no action to prevent two of his children being executed by Henry VIII. La Planchata La Planchata in Spanish means the ironed lady, assuming that I am saying it correctly. La Planchata is a well-known ghost legend in Mexico and the southwestern part of the U.S. It's a story of a ghostly nurse who was seen in hospitals in central Mexico in urban areas. The nurse is seen wearing an old-fashioned nurse uniform. Here's the backstory. In the 1930s, a nurse named Eulalia worked at the hospital. She always wore a clean, crisply ironed uniform. She was an excellent nurse and her patients were lucky to have her. Soon this changed when a handsome doctor entered her life. They got engaged and started living a happy life. Shortly after the engagement, the doctor left to attend a seminar and, to Eulalia's concern, he did not return the following week. Several weeks later, she found out that he found another woman while there and married her. This left her heartbroken and she lapsed into depression. She was so distracted by the pain that she became ill herself and died in the hospital where she worked. After her death, multiple staff members started experiencing strange things in the emergency room. Some believed that she glows and floats in the hospital corridors, while some believed that she walked normally but her footsteps are not heard. Hospital staff started to call the ghost La Planchata because she always appears wearing a clean, freshly-pressed uniform. And there are various versions of this story as well. In one of the versions, Eulalia was a cruel nurse who didn't treat her patients right and due to that she was being punished to take care of the patients for eternity. Kate Bats The legend of the Bell Witch is probably one of the most famous pieces of Southern lore. It is a story of a spirit who tormented the Bell family. In 1817, a man named John Bell and his family began experiencing ghostly happenings in their Tennessee home. The poltergeist-like activity, things being thrown, strange sounds, sugar being taken from the bowls, ghostly laughter, spooked animals, it was all thought to be caused by a witch named Kate Bats. However, it was later found that daughter Betsy was probably causing the activity. However, the Bell Witch lives on. The Blair Witch Project was based in part on the Bell Witch legend. Bloody Mary Standing in the dark bathroom facing a mirror and chanting her name three times, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, and Bloody Mary's ghost is said to appear right behind you, sometimes holding a baby, other times telling you how she will come after you. Bloody Mary is a folklore legend consisting of a ghost phantom or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is chanted repeatedly. Bloody Mary appearances are mostly witnessed in a group participation play. Bloody Mary's story originated with Queen Mary I being childless, and thus she was replaced by her husband with another woman. When you dim the lights and repeat her name in the mirror three times, she thinks you are taunting her for being childless.