Ghosts and Bed Sheets: Ghost Hunting Tip No.5

By Dr. Mark Farley

Do you know how ghosts came to be represented by wearing bed sheets? The white sheet represents the burial shroud used to cover the corpse during viewing in Victorian Funerals. The sheet was thin enough to see the deceased but thick enough to prevent bugs from landing and laying their eggs on the corpse. In the era before modern embalming, preventing bug larva from burrowing into the corpse was one of the few methods of slowing the decay.

If the deceased rose from the casket or the grave, they would do so covered with their burial shroud.