Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd reveals his great-grandfather was a real-life ghostbuster

Ghostbusters’ star Dan Aykroyd has revealed that his great-grandfather was a real-life ghostbuster and has the seance transcripts to prove it.

The 74–year-old actor and comedian shot to fame as one of the original cast members on Saturday Night Live at its launch back in 1975.

He later went on to star in a slew of hit comedies, including The Blues Brothers, Conheads, and Nothing but Trouble.

But to many of us he’s best-known for playing Dr. Raymond ‘Ray’ Stantz in Ghostbusters, which he also co-wrote alongside Harold Ramis, who played Peter Venkman.

Aykroyd first played Ray in the original Ghostbusters flick in 1984 and the sequel - Ghostbusters II - in 1989 and reprised the role for 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and again in 2024’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

And it turns out that it was actually pretty spot on casting, as the legendary star has a real-life ghostbuster in his family.

In a post on X, Aykroyd shared a snap of himself holding up a couple of bound manuscripts with the titles The Journals of a Kingston Spiritualist and Sitting for Materialisation as well as an old black and white photographer of a dapper looking gentleman dressed in a suit and tie and posing for the camera.

Sharing the shots, Aykroyd revealed that the books were written by his great-grandfather, presumably the man in the black and white photo, and helped to inspire him to write Ghostbusters.

“These are my great-grandfather Dr. Sam Aykroyd’s transcripts from the seances he hosted in the Old Farmhouse,” he shared.

“It was the spirit of his work passed down through the generations that inspired my interests. He’s the original Ghostbuster.”

Pretty cool, eh?

Dr. Sam Aykroyd was a mystic, who had corresponded with Sherlock Holmes writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the subject of Spiritualism.

And the interest in the unknown didn’t end with him, as Aykroyd has previously declared a ‘proud’ Spiritualist.

“I am a Spiritualist, a proud wearer of the Spiritualist badge,” he is reported to have said.

“Mediums and psychic research have gone on for many, many years ... Loads of people have seen spirits, heard a voice, or felt the cold temperature. I believe that they are between here and there, that they exist between the fourth and fifth dimensions, and that they visit us frequently.”

As well as ghosts, he is interested in various other aspects of paranormal phenomenon including UFOs and aliens, and is a lifetime member of and official Hollywood consultant for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

His interest in the supernatural and unexplained has led to him serving as the host of Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal from 1996 to 2000 and producing a one-off special titled Dan Aykroyd: Unplugged on UFOs.

His dad, Peter Aykroyd, has also published a book titled A History of Ghosts, in which he detailed the family’s historical involvement with the Spiritualist movement.

With such a long-line of ghostbusters and paranormal experts in the family, it’s little surprise that Aykroyd grew up to write Ghostbusters, isn’t it?