UPDATE: Guinness Responds to Most Haunted Village Inquiry

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At the end of 2019 I made it my mission to discover if there had ever been a Most Haunted Village Guinness world record. I’d come across a claim in a video on YouTube that in 1989 the Guinness Book of World Records awarded Pluckley the title of “Most Haunted Village in Britain.”

There were two ways to confirm this:

1. Find a 1989 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.
2. Ask Guinness themselves.

I did both.

Book Try #1

I found a copy on Amazon, but the first try I was sent the wrong year. It was a 1990 version, not 1989.

There was no mention of anything haunted in the 1990 edition.

However, there were some interesting clauses that made me think it unlikely Guinness could have a “most haunted” category based on its stringent criteria for setting records.

I wasn’t to be deterred from finding a 1989 copy, though. I found a hardcover one, ordered it, and waited patiently for it to arrive. (Which didn’t take very long.)

Book Try #2

Bingo! Second time was the charm!

The moment it arrived, I eagerly started perusing the pages in search of my answer, which I actually already knew was there. Guinness had replied by this time.

Guinness Writes Back

To my amazement and delight, Guinness took my inquiry seriously and actually wrote back! Here’s a screenshot of their email:

So I had interpreted their clauses correctly after all. There was no way, based on their parameters, to qualify anything as haunted, much less “most haunted.”

At one time, however, they had acknowledged the village in Kent might fit such a bill, if they had such a bill to offer. That was still useful info to discover.

It also made me more curious to see the entry for myself. Which I was finally able to do as soon as the hardcover edition arrived.

Contents

Out of these twelve sections, which one would you expect to find a Most Haunted Village listing under?

1. The Human Being
2. The Living World
3. The Natural World
4. The Universe and Space
5. The Scientific World
6. The Arts and Entertainment
7. The World’s Structures
8. The Mechanical World
9. The Business World
10. Human Achievements
11. The Human World
12. Sports, Games and Pastimes

I did not guess correctly the first, second or third time.

I was guessing at all because I had not found “Pluckley” or “most haunted village” in the Index. I knew it was in this book, but where?

After not finding it in any of the sections that made sense to me, I tried the Index again, this time looking up “ghost” on the off chance it might be there.

Bingo!

Specifically, the listing said, “Ghost, most durable.”

Okay, that was intriguing. What the hell is a “Most Durable Ghost?” I turned to page 20 to find out.

Physiology and Anatomy?

Page 20 fell under the Physiology and Anatomy subsection of the Human Being main section. Huh. Go figure.

I hadn’t really seen any subsection I thought I’d find a haunted village listing in in that section, so I hadn’t even looked. (My first guess had been under Section 7: The World’s Structures.)

But under the Physiology and Anatomy subsection of the Human Being is where they put their “durable ghosts.”

Which I totally ignored at first, because directly to the left of it was what I had been searching for all along: the Pluckley listing!

But there were two bonus entries with paranormal flare on this page too: one having to deal with extra-sensory perception and the other with the most durable ghosts thing.(Whatever those were. That was a term I’d never heard before. Have you?)

Anyway, here’s what those entries said:

None of these were in the 1990 edition –likely because of the same reason they eliminated the Most Haunted Village category.

However, there was a Largest Human Centipede category in the 1990 version.

Which of course made me think of the horror movie by the same name:

But it wasn’t like the movie. (Thankfully.)

It consisted of 490 people tied together by their ankles who moved 98 feet 5 inches and not a single person fell over. (Good thing. I imagine that would’ve been nothing but a big ol’ domino effect!)

So that’s that. Mission accomplished! Now we know Pluckley was named most (likely) to be the most haunted village, and why it no longer is.