Ghosts in the Pokémon world
Ghosts (Japanese: ゆうれい ghost) are souls that live in Lavender Town's Pokémon Tower.
In the games
In Generation I and FireRed and LeafGreen, before getting a Silph Scope, several unidentified ghosts (in reality Gastly, Haunter and Cubone) appear in the Pokémon Tower. Another stronger ghost is revealed to be a mother Marowak, which haunts the tower as a result of its death at the hands of Team Rocket.
The identity of the ghosts can be revealed with an item called the Silph Scope; without the device, battling the ghosts is impossible. Whenever the player orders an attack against an unknown ghost, the player's Pokémon will be too scared to move. Instead of being attacked, the ghost will say "Get out…. Get out…." Before the battle against Marowak's ghost, a similar message appears, saying "Be gone… Intruders…"
In addition, ghosts cannot be caught without being identified first. If one tries to throw a Poké Ball at a ghost, it dodges, and the message comes up "It dodged the thrown Ball! This Pokémon can't be caught!". Even Master Balls fail to capture the ghosts. Although most ghosts can be captured with the help of the Silph Scope, the Marowak's ghost cannot, even if it is unmasked.
During the course of the game, the player must obtain the Silph Scope and battle the undead Marowak to calm its spirit. After the Rocket Grunts who killed it are defeated, Mr. Fuji will express his gratitude to the player.
Trivia
- One of Missingno.'s forms in Generation I is a placeholder for the ghost sprite.
- In Red, Blue, and Yellow, players can exploit a glitch to make the ghost reveal itself. In battle, simply check the stats of any Pokémon, then return to the battle. The ghost will turn into either a Gastly, Haunter, or Cubone. This has no other effect, though, and it still cannot be battled or captured.
In the anime
In the anime, a ghost of the same sort appeared briefly in The Tower of Terror. When scanned with the Pokédex, the result was "missing data". Later, a Haunter takes Ash's and Pikachu's souls out of their bodies after they have been killed by a chandelier. Here is it shown that ghosts can fly around and remain in the form they took while living; however, living beings cannot see them.