Halloween 2009: Top Costumes, History, Myths, More

WITCHCRAFT AND WILD TALES

Do You Believe in Magic?

More than a third of Americans say they believe in ghosts, according to an AP-Ipsos poll conducted before Halloween 2007.

Twenty-three percent claimed to have seen a ghost or sensed one's presence.

About one in five people believe that spells or witchcraft are real, according to the poll. (Learn more about modern witchcraft.)

Halloween Urban Legends

Some Halloween spook stories just won't die—even if there's little substance behind the scare.

For example satanic cults, far more common in fiction than in fact, have been said to sacrifice black cats on Halloween.

But experts say there is little evidence for such fears, and that the few isolated incidents involving abused black cats were the work of disturbed—often adolescent—loners.

Candy tainted by poisons, needles, or razor blades is another Halloween hobgoblin.

Sociologist Joel Best said dangerous-candy rumors may be manifestations of fears and anxieties about the future. In a world where so many threats—terrorism, crashing stock markets—seem uncontrollable, it may be comforting for parents to focus on preventable calamities, such as a child biting into a spiked apple, said Best, of the University of Delaware.

Best conducted a study of alleged tainted Halloween candy incidents.

"I have been unable to find a substantiated report of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating," he wrote.http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091028-halloween-facts-costumes-history.html