---
title: "TxDOT’s spooky map features haunted hotels and reported UFO sightings"
url: "https://usubjects.com/article/txdots-spooky-map-features-haunted-hotels-and-reported-ufo-sightings-4278"
updated: "2026-10-20T16:16:14.195Z"
description: "MySA reports that the Texas Department of Transportation has created a “spooky” map featuring haunted hotels and reported UFO sightings. The item provides no further details about the locations or the reports."
sources: ["https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/traffic/article/spooky-spots-texas-22477092.php"]
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# TxDOT’s spooky map features haunted hotels and reported UFO sightings

Published: 2026-10-19  
Source: [Google News](https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/traffic/article/spooky-spots-texas-22477092.php)

### A New Kind of Texas Road-Trip Guide

Just in time for Halloween, the **Texas Department of Transportation has added a “Phantom Layer” to its interactive Statewide Planning Map**, giving users a way to explore the state’s more unusual roadside attractions. The feature highlights locations associated with haunted hotels, eerie cemeteries, cryptid lore, urban legends and reported UFO sightings.

The map was reported by *MySA* on Oct. 19, 2026. Although TxDOT’s primary mapping tool is designed to provide practical information about highway construction, rest areas, electric-vehicle charging stations and seasonal wildflower viewing, the new layer takes a more playful approach to Texas travel. Drivers and curious users can activate it online and browse spooky destinations throughout the state.

### What the Phantom Layer Includes

According to TxDOT, each location featured in the layer includes a brief summary describing its reported history or connection to Texas folklore. The categories include **haunted hotels, historical sites, cemeteries, cryptid sightings, UFO reports and other stories intended to evoke the supernatural**.

TxDOT officials described the feature in a news release as a collection of “haunted hotels, mysterious cryptid sightings, urban legends, eerie cemeteries, UFO sightings and other stories that might give you shivers as you drive around our beautiful state.” The wording emphasizes that the map presents stories and reported experiences rather than confirming paranormal activity or extraterrestrial visitation.

The available source material does not identify the specific hotels, towns or UFO-related locations included on the map. It also provides no further detail about the individual sightings, their origins or the evidence associated with them. As a result, the Phantom Layer is best understood as a guide to **Texas legends and reported phenomena**, not as an official verification of ghosts, cryptids or unidentified aerospace events.

### A Halloween-Themed Update

The Phantom Layer was created to mark the **20th anniversary of the Statewide Planning Map**. TxDOT said the project was assembled with input from agency staff and research into unusual or peculiar aspects of Texas history.

For October 2026, the online experience reportedly includes atmospheric touches, including eerie music and an image of a ghostly woman floating over a darkened map of Texas. Those features distinguish the Halloween-themed layer from the map’s standard transportation functions while maintaining the same statewide, interactive format.

### Travel and Safety Context

The addition reflects the growing popularity of roadside tourism built around folklore, historic locations and unexplained reports. Texas, with its large geographic area and extensive highway network, has long provided a setting for local ghost stories, legendary creatures and accounts of strange lights in the sky. By placing those stories within a familiar transportation resource, TxDOT is encouraging users to explore them as part of a broader road-trip experience.

Visitors should nevertheless treat the map’s entries as **entertainment and historical or cultural information**, and follow normal travel precautions. A reported haunting or UFO sighting does not establish that an event occurred as described, and users should avoid trespassing or stopping unsafely along roadways while visiting nearby locations. The Phantom Layer is available through TxDOT’s Statewide Planning Map, alongside the agency’s conventional highway and travel-planning tools.

## Provenance

This USUBJECTS page is a summary or digest of the linked original source. Any accompanying generated visual is an illustrative reconstruction, not evidence.