Explore the Myths and Legends of Ghosts Haunting the Smithsonian!

Smithsonian Institution Building (aka the Castle)

Post Author - Ellis Nolan

No, this isn’t another installment of “Night at The Museum.” With some of the Smithsonian Institution’s buildings being over 200 years old, it’s no wonder that many employees have reported paranormal experiences in the museum halls.

Perhaps the most notable apparition to make mischief in “America’s Attic” was museum founder and namesake James Smithson. Smithson was a wealthy British chemist whose sole request in his will was that his fortune be used to found “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men” in Washington, DC. Smithson died in 1829, and unfortunately was never able to visit the institution he created. That is, not while he was living. In 1903, then-regent of the Institution Alexander Graham Bell traveled to Genoa, Italy, to exhume Smithson’s remains and transport them back to Washington, DC. Original plans for Smithson’s crypt were bombastic, but as the reality of dwindling funding for the project set in, the founder’s remains were relegated to a converted janitor’s closet in the Smithsonian Castle.

U.S. consul William H Bishop with Smithson's skull

Maybe Smithson didn’t really want to be moved. In 1973, Smithsonian curator James Goode decided to have the remains removed from the crypt and examined as employees had reported they had seen Smithson in the museum halls. The disinterring didn’t exactly go smoothly. While Goode’s crew attempted to open the metal casket with torches, the silk lining of the coffin caught fire. Not wanting to damage the artifact further with an extinguisher, Goode instructed the workers to spit water on the coffin to douse the flames. The pathologist who examined Smithson’s remains found nothing unusual, but Smithson’s ghost seemed to continue haunting the halls, as another sighting was reported in 1980.

Smithson isn’t the only specter to be spotted in the museum. Joseph Henry, the Smithsonian Institution’s first president, is memorialized with a statue in front of the Smithsonian Castle, but he has also been witnessed wandering the halls by many a night guard. Ironically, Henry didn’t believe people could interact with the spiritual realm. As recently as 2001, a night shift volunteer at the National Zoo reported a man who appeared and then vanished while leaning against an elephant enclosure. Readers theorized this was the ghost of the Zoo’s first head keeper, William Blackburne. Maybe places with vast collections of old artifacts are simply an interesting place for the undead to spend eternity. Stay tuned for Paranormal Activity: Mini Museum HQ!