Ghost, Witch Belief Has Risen, Poll Finds

Is Halloween getting scarier? More people apparently believe in ghosts and witches than two decades ago. A third of the people surveyed in a new Gallup Poll said they believe in ghosts, three times the number that said that two decades ago. One in five said they believe in witches, twice the rate of the late 1970s. The telephone poll of 1,005 adults, taken Oct. 21-24, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Almost 90% of people in the new poll said they have no objections to Halloween on religious grounds.