Who's There?

9,717 haunted places across America, hidden in total darkness. Your cursor is the only light.

Move through the void and the beam slowly illuminates documented haunted locations: cemeteries, hotels, hospitals, private homes. Each one pulses with a faint warm glow when caught in the light. Click any point to read what happened there.

What it does

• Renders all 9,717 locations as a constellation on a near-black canvas
• Your cursor acts as a radial flashlight with a soft falloff. Nothing outside the beam is visible
• Click a location to see its name, city, state, and the account on record
• Touch and drag on mobile for the same effect
• Geographic clustering reveals which regions of the country have the highest density of reported sites

Controls

Input	Action
Mouse move	Move flashlight
Click	Open location details
Touch + drag	Move flashlight (mobile)
Tap	Select location
Escape	Close detail panel

Stack

• Vanilla JavaScript, Canvas API
• Cormorant Garamond for the gothic serif aesthetic
• Custom CSS cursor replaced by a canvas-drawn radial gradient beam
• No frameworks, no build step

Files

whos-there/
├── index.html                    # Full visualization, inline JS/CSS
├── data/
│   ├── ghosts-positions.json     # Lat/lon for all 9,717 locations
│   └── ghosts-descriptions.json  # Names, descriptions, accounts
└── social-card.png               # 1200x630 Open Graph image

Data

Drawn from the Shadowlands Haunted Places Index, Ghost Village directory, state paranormal societies, and historical records. Locations are approximate to protect property owners.

Running locally

python3 -m http.server 8000
# open http://localhost:8000

Author

Luke Steuber — lukesteuber.com — @lukesteuber.com on Bluesky

Part of the data poems collection at dr.eamer.dev.

License

MIT