Derry full of Halloween creatures according to new PSNI data

Europe’s biggest Halloween celebration has been non-stop in Derry this week.

The whole city embraces the festivities, with the culmination of the celebrations with the fireworks display along the quay of the Foyle from October 31 at 8:15pm.

Halloween allows the creative juices of individuals to flow, as many of the thousands that participate in the holiday fabricate ingenious costumes.

Costumes including the popular and simplistic priest, to pop culture costumes like Barbie and everyone’s favourite athlete from the Paris Olympics, Australian breakdancer Raygun, will likely be seen moving their way around the streets of Derry on Thursday night.

However, there are those that wish to embrace the classic costumes as they celebrate the modern iteration of the traditional Gaelic festival of Samhain.

Irish culture has a rich history of mythical creatures, including banshees, fairies, and ghosts, which helps in their embrace of Halloween.

You may expect to only see these creatures during the holiday, but Derry’s branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has had to deal with a number of reports about sightings of mythical legends throughout the last six years.

The latest data from the PSNI, up to August 2024, has witnessed the sighting of 37 mythical creatures across this period.

Witches have seemed to have moved to Derry in 2023, as the PSNI had to deal with one report that year before an influx of sightings in 2024 as there were three reports of witches in the city.

While there were no sightings prior to this of witches, there have been consistent sightings of aliens from 2019, with two aliens reported each year until 2022.

In 2023, the population of aliens in Derry increased with a reported three sightings, but there has only been one sighting in 2024.

Another mythical creature that has had one sighting this year is the infamous vampire.

While vampires have been part of cultures across Europe for centuries, the most famous depiction of the creature was in Dubliner Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula.

The 19th-century literary work has influenced the vampiric traits that have since dominated folkloric tradition.

This creature also showed up in Derry in 2022, as the PSNI had to deal with two sightings.

The only other traditional Halloween creature reported in Derry in 2024 was ghosts.

Ghosts happen to be the most populous creature to be sighted across this period in Derry.

In total, there have been 16 ghost sightings across the last four years, with half of those occurring in 2023.

There were no sightings of ghosts prior to 2021 in Derry, with the only zombie report to the PSNI coming this year too.

A supernatural incident was the earliest thing reported to the PSNI in 2019.

However, the Freedom of Information report made to the PSNI found that the city has been safe from any werewolf sightings, as none had been made across the period.

Expect there to be many sightings of these creatures across Halloween week in Derry, particularly on Thursday, October 31, Halloween night. Just beware that they could be real, taking their one opportunity to walk amongst the human population undetected.