As Halloween is fast approaching, and folks are getting ready to sit around campfires and strum a guitar and then maybe sing a song and then tell a "ghost story", The Duke feels compelled to present these fifteen terrifying facts regarding the paranormal.

Every one of these horrifying statements is true, some even more so than others.

1. The word "Ghost" is derived from the Latin word, Ghostingus, meaning "Ghost".

2. The first ever reported case of a haunted house, in a town in Istanbul, sometime in the 17th century, was eventually discredited when it was discovered that the "house" in question was actually a large shed.

3. Scientists believe that if all the ghosts in the world were piled on top of one another, the weight would probably be enough to burrow a hole from London to Sydney.

4. Michele LaVinsky, a world famous Medium from New York, was publicly shamed when it was discovered that the "ghost" to whom he spoke was not, in fact, a ghost, but rather LaVinsky's cousin, a carpenter by trade who once married the Princess of Scotland.

5. President Roosevelt once trained a tiny army of pixies to infiltrate the offices of the KGB. The creatures were eventually captured and forced to live up a mountain in Kenya.

6. The Loch Ness Monster is actually a "creature", and not really a "monster" at all.

7. In 1973, an experiment was carried out to determine the sulphur content of a poltergeist. It was determined that the entity had the exact same sulphur content as one and a half small potatoes.

8. Sir Ian McKellen, star of Lord Of The Rings, rose to fame when it was discovered he had an evil conjoined twin living between his shoulder-blades. The twin, Seth, had some success as a television celebrity in his own right, eventually having two children with Nancy Sinatra.

9. In late 1989, a British gentleman by the name of Arthur Greenway set fire to fifteen flats in an apartment block, as part of an elaborate scheme to convince his friends that he was "possessed by Satan." He later admitted it "was all just a bit of a laugh, really".

10. Janet Dean, from Toronto, Canada, is the only woman ever to have married a ghost. The pair were wed in 1994, following an amendment to the state legislation.

11. Leading Vampirologist, Irvin Howard PHD, has proven that no only do vampires exist, but that they are terrified of cupboards.

12. 300 years after his death, William Shakespeare appeared in a restaurant in New Guinea, ordering a large bun. A passer-by remarked, "It wouldn't have been so bad, but he hadn't even shaved."

13. Andrew Jones, of County Wexford, Ireland, was admitted to a mental institution after declaring that the devil had possessed him and forced him to make some regrettable decisions regarding his garden furniture. "It's Lucifer's fault", exclaimed Jones, when asked about the pond by his front door, a pond which not only had no definable shape, but also had no water.

14. David Cronenberg's film of The Fly was actually based on a true story.

15. The first UFO was created by the Vikings, as a means of crossing the English Channel undetected.

Thanks folks.

The Duke resides at Mondo Irlando.