Fallout is predominantly a science fiction franchise, exploring a world devastated by nuclear war and the vestiges of humanity trying to survive in the wasteland. But for all of Fallout's heavy topics and themes, the series frequently gets wacky and outlandish with its lore and the creatures that inhabit post-nuclear America. There are aliens abducting characters, robots with comically lethal designs, and, in the early games, extremely direct references to other franchises like Dr. Who.

But still, most of Fallout tends to be rooted in fantastical technology. While that tech is by no means realistic, the series tries to maintain an internal logic for how it works within the scope of its own reality. That being said, ghosts and the paranormal are 100% real in the Fallout universe. Across nearly every game in the series, there are moments of supernatural activity that confirm this, and remain largely unexplained and unexplored. These 10 moments demonstrate Fallout's paranormal side most directly.

10 The Ghost Of Grandchester Mystery Mansion

A Haunted House In More Ways Than One

Starting with the most literal depiction of a ghost in the franchise, you can find a spirit haunting this building in the Nuka-World DLC for Fallout 4. The Grandchester Mystery Mansion is a haunted house attraction on the outskirts of the theme park, centering around a story about a little girl with strange powers that caused the death of her family. The location is full of upside-down rooms and staircases to nowhere, apparently intended to "confuse" the girl's ghost and keep her from escaping.

Some Gunners are holed up here when the Sole Survivor arrives, using the house's strange construction as a defensive point. But they are not the only forces present. You can pick a master level lock that leads up to the house's attic, in which you can briefly spot a little girl dressed in pre-war clothing running down a hall. You can try to pursue her, but she runs right through a door that leads to nowhere, vanishing into thin air. It seems the Grandchester Mansion was haunted, after all.

9 The Talking Graves In The Mojave Desert

Listening To The Voices Of The Dead

The undead also make an appearance in Fallout: New Vegas, at the site of the Goodpsrings Cemetery. This location is full of ramshackle graves you can read and even loot for valuables, though doing so will likely bring you face to face with the spirits of the dead. Hanging around this graveyard too long will result in you hearing ghostly whispers, seeing objects thrown around at them, and even the occasional appearance of an apparition.

It's unclear what reason, if any, there is for this graveyard in particular being so active. Nor is there a plot or mechanical relevance to these strange events; their only apparent purpose is to creep you and potential graverobbers out. It definitely works on that front, as unsuspecting players can easily be caught off-guard by this ghostly behavior.

8 Mama Murphy Can See The Future

The Latest In A String Of Psychic Characters

Mama Murphy is a standout NPC from Fallout 4 you will likely meet early on, since she is traveling with Preston Garvey from the ruined town of Quincy to the settlement of Sanctuary. She's one of the oldest characters still alive in the Commonwealth, though she seems to have no combat abilities left to her. Odds are that her powers, "The Sight," are what keep her alive, since they allow her to abuse chems and subsequently see the future.

A fragment of the radiation-worshipping Children of the Atom cult has set themselves up in an old nuclear submarine on the island, and uses an initiation ritual to bring new people into the fold.

Mama Murphy may sound insane at first, but all of her predictions do come true, showing that she really does glean some kind of psychic powers from the drugs she uses. And she's not the only character in the Fallout franchise with these sorts of psychic abilities. They were also seen with Forecaster in Fallout: New Vegas, and possibly even with the horrifying Master from Fallout 1, who could seemingly communicate with his forces using telepathy.

7 Anna The Ghost Girl (Fallout 2)

The Earliest Serious Supernatural Sighting In The Series

In the very early Fallout games, easter eggs and references to other media which break the world's logic were likely considered non-canonical, merely intended as small jokes for you to enjoy. But there was one serious depiction of ghostly behavior in Fallout 2, with a quest to return a locket to a ghost named Anna.

Anna is a previous resident of the Den, or possibly even a citizen from the area before the Great War, whose stolen locket has kept her soul trapped on Earth, unable to move on. You can interact with her visible spirit to learn this, then find and return the locket to help Anna disappear. It's a quest with very few details or lore to explain what is going on, yet has you interact with a literal ghost.

6 The Ghostly Visions In The Fog

Far Harbor's Nuclear Cult May Have Supernatural Guidance

Moving back to Fallout 4, the Far Harbor DLC holds its own paranormal quest, starting when you try to the Children of Atom. A fragment of this radiation-worshipping cult has set themselves up in an old nuclear submarine on the island, and uses an initiation ritual to bring new people into the fold. The ritual requires you drink irradiated water from a spring, which starts a quest fueled by hallucinations.

These hallucinations resemble a woman in the fog, guiding you to a specific area to retrieve an idol. When you ask the Children about this figure, they refer to her as "The Mother," and believe her to essentially be a prophet of Atom himself. It's possible that this is all a trick being put on by the Children of Far Harbor -- or maybe, their beliefs aren't so baseless after all, and there is some entity within the fog guiding them towards nuclear destruction...

5 The Eldritch Tome On Point Lookout

Fallout Gets Lovecraftian As You Hunt Down A Spooky Book

On a similar note, Point Lookout in Fallout 3 contains a tome of forbidden knowledge that may connect to a sort of eldritch god. The book, called the Krivbeknih, was supposedly used to lead the swampfolk in religious rituals before and after the Great War, though they have since forgotten its true meaning and follow its cruel practices blindly. You may be hired by Obadiah Blackhall to retrieve the book for him, or asked by a nun named Marcella to destroy it.

Obadiah claims the Blackhall family were the original possessors of the tome. This family is actually related to the Dunwiches (which will be discussed later), and have their own connections to the occult.

You can steal the book from the swampfolk, and follow up on either request if they wish. Obadiah, it seems, will be corrupted by the text and resort to killing innocents in sacrifices, showing it does hold some evil influence. Alternatively, the book can be brought to the Dunwich building (which holds its own secrets) and burned, which will simultaneously burn all the ghouls in the area.

4 The Disappearance Of The Hubologists

A More Mysterious Version Of Bright's New Vegas Flight

In Fallout 4's Nuka-World DLC, another strange location can be found on the park's outskirts: the Hubologist's Camp, an old gas station now occupied by of a weird cult. The Hubologists believe they are destined to travel to another world, similarly to the ghouls led by Bright in Fallout: New Vegas. And just like Bright's group, they aim to use a spaceship to get there.

Except the Hubologist's ship is just a broken theme park ride, which they need help repairing to even operate. The Sole Survivor may intentionally sabotage the machine, which will kill the cultists, or they may set it up properly. Activating the "spaceship" will cause the ride to start, but eventually, the Hubologists will disappear in a flash of light. There may be non-supernatural explanations for this; after all, teleportation is used by the Institute in the very same game. Still, it's essentially a miracle that this half-baked plan works at all.

3 The Mothman Of West Virginia

Fallout 76 Gets Spooky With This Randomly-Appearing Enemy

Fallout 76 has a lot of content centered around the Mothman, a creature with real-world inspirations in folk tales of cryptids and paranormal occurrences. Strange and fantastical creatures are by no means out of place in Fallout, with many of them explained by genetic experimentation and radiation. But the Mothman is another story.

The game seems to imply that the Mothman was "summoned" to pre-apocalyptic West Virginia by cultists worshiping it. Within the game itself, Mothmen are non-unique enemies and can spawn randomly, and don't seem to be the harbingers of doom folklore implies them to be. Still, this cult worships them as agents of a higher power, and if it's true that the first Mothmen appeared before the war, it's probable that their origins are quite different from other mutated animal species.

2 The Curious Case Of Cabot House

Fallout's Immortal Family And Their Extraterrestrial Origins

The Cabots are the stars of one of Fallout 4's more interesting side quests. They are a family of aristocrats that have lived in their manor for centuries, using an experimental serum to halt their aging. It's revealed in the final part of their quest that the family patriarch, Lorenzo Cabot, is the source of this serum, as it is extracted from his body by his son, Jack. Lorenzo has psychic powers from a helmet he wears, which halts his own aging and makes his blood a tonic to give others similar properties.

You can take this same serum to gain a massive boost to your strength and resistances, if only for a short time.

The game explains Lorenzo's powers are being from beyond the stars, as he found his strange helmet on an expedition to an alien ruin in the 1800s. The helmet has driven him mad and murderous, making it impossible to tell how much of what he says is true, but he claims to hear messages from a higher power through the helm, and the powers it gives him allow him to destroy his entire family with little effort, so it's clear that something extraordinary is happening.

1 The Occult Activity Of The Dunwich Company

Two Games With One Sinister Goal

The Dunwich company appears in not one but two games, Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, and both times it connects to the occult and supernatural. The Dunwich Building in Fallout 3 is the site of a strange obelisk that emits radiation and is worshiped by feral ghouls. This is the place where the Krivbeknih can be destroyed, and several tapes in the area refer to its powers.

There are also hallucinations of pre-war times that occur inside the building, which is also the case in the Dunwich Borers site in Fallout 4. These hallucinations reveal that the miners were part of a ritualistic cult that sacrificed people using an item called Kremvh's Tooth, a title which bears some resemblance to Point Lookout's Lovecraftian tome. The Dunwich company was clearly up to some strange occult business, the details of which are lost to time and the Great War.