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Next week (31 October) is Halloween, the day of the year that celebrates all things spooky!

To mark the occasion and usher in the scariest day of the year, Guinness World Records has dug out six haunting records from the archives, which will be sure to send a shiver down your spine. 

Take a trip around the world with the records below, and discover the most hair-raising tales from Mexico to New Zealand, and perhaps to a whole other world... 

  Largest collection haunted dolls

Largest collection of haunted dolls

The world's largest collection of haunted dolls can be found on Mexico's Island of the Dolls or La Isla de las Muñecas.

Located south of Mexico City within a vast network of canals, the tiny isle houses thousands of broken, mutilated and decaying dolls, hanging from virtually every tree and bush.

This collection began when a hermit called Don Julian Santana Barrera moved there during the 1950s. He claimed that he was being haunted by the ghost of a young girl, who had drowned in one of the canals surrounding this island three decades earlier.

To appease and occupy her restless spirit, he began placing dolls around the island.

Ironically, Don Julian met his own death in 2001 by drowning in the very same canal where the girl had died.

The Island of the Dolls is now a tourist attraction, and locals claim that at night the dolls come to life, animated by the spirits of the dead, and begin to call, whisper, move their limbs, and turn their heads of their own accord.

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Highest grossing ghost/haunting movie

Despite many scary horror movies shaking up our October each year, the record still stays with one of the most enduring ghost movies of all time. 

The Highest grossing ghost/haunting movie of all time is supernatural classic The Sixth Sense (1999), starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film had grossed $673m (£420m) worldwide as of 4 May 2000.

Largest Ouija board

The Largest Ouija board measures an incredible 121.01 m² (1,302.54 ft²), and was achieved by Blair Murphy and Team Grand Midway (USA) in Windber, Pennsylvania, USA, on 28 October 2016.

A Ouija board is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0–9, and sometimes other words and symbols.

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It is believed to be a tool that can be used to contact spirits, and enable them to communicate to the living by spelling out words using the board.

The Ouija board was created on the roof of the Grand Midway Hotel, a hotel with a haunted reputation owned by Blair Murphy which inspired this record attempt. 

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Oldest ghost

The Oldest ghost allegedly resides at Ghost Ranch, located in north-central New Mexico's Rio Arriba County.

It earned its name from the many alleged sightings of a huge, ghostly reptile of serpentine form, measuring from 6- 9 m long. Locals have dubbed the ghost Vivaron; the snake-demon.

Initially dismissed as mere folklore, it acquired greater significance and attention when, in 1947, palaeontologist Edwin H. Colbert unearthed a huge cache of fossil skeletons in this same area, derived from various prehistoric reptiles.

These not only included more than a thousand dinosaur specimens but also a very elongate 9-m-long crocodile-like creature known as a phytosaur.

Its discovery led to speculation that the paranormal "snake-demon" being reported by the locals was the ghost of the phytosaur.

If this were true, the 220 million year old phytosaur, dating from the Triassic Period, would be the world's oldest ghost.

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Largest Tarot card

Created by Terence Kauffman and Blair Murphy (both USA), the Largest Tarot card measures a huge 6.42 m (21 ft 1 in) long and 4.87 m (16 ft 0 in) wide, as measured on 11 September 2017.

Blair, also the holder of the  Largest Ouija board, and Terrence, a tattoo artist also from Windber, created the design for the tarot card.

They chose to depict the Universe card from the Thoth tarot card deck, as they felt it was the most beautiful. After completing the card, they displayed it by hanging it from the ceiling of the Grand Midway Hotel.

Most expensive ghosts

Two vials supposedly containing the exorcised spirits of an old man and a young girl were sold at an online auction in March 2010 for NZ$2,830 ($1,990; £1,300).

Avie Woodbury, (New Zealand) said the ghosts had been captured in her Christchurch house following an exorcism.

She believed one of the spirits to belong to a man by the name of Les Graham, who died in the house in the 1920's.

The second spirit, belonging to a young girl, was then summoned by Avie’s partner after using a Oujia board.

The auction, which attracted more than 200,000 page views on the Trade Me website, was won by Safer Smoke NZ, a company which produces electronic cigarette substitutes.

The spirits were bottled up holy water, as it supposedly “dulls the spirits energy” explained Avie.

Proceeds from the sale of the expensive spirits, after the exorcism fee was deducted, went to an animal charity.