Even before Disneyland opened in 1955, Walt Disney had asked his designers and engineers to start coming up with sketches and concepts for a haunted attraction. Disney Imagineers spent years developing the complex engineering used for the special effects. The advances they made in animatronic technology lifted the project to a whole new level, and finally culminated with the opening in 1969 of the world’s greatest haunted dark ride.

Disney chose to house his ghosts in a replica of a late nineteenth century plantation manor. After entering the mansion, guests, without even being aware of it, are whisked by elevators to the actual location of the massive ride--a huge warehouse beyond the berm of the park. They are taken through haunted rooms and halls in vehicles called Doom Buggies. Crystal chandeliers draped with cobwebs hang from the ceiling and bronze gargoyles hold flickering candles in their clawed hands. Spirits float in and out of sight and benign portraits hung on the walls transform into horrifying images. Toward the end of the ride, guests are transported to the graveyard where they encounter singing statues, and graves and crypts open to allow their occupants to wander about and visit with one another. Some of these characters are actually Disney’s audio animatronic robots and yet the amazing transparent ghosts are created with an 18th century trick known to magicians as the Pepper’s ghost illusion.

MLA worked on quieting the Omnimover system. Guests ride in hemispherical shells that have a steel fin attached below each vehicle. Electric motors drive wheels on either side of the fins that propel the vehicles. Certain wheel materials cause an annoying squeal while others are silent. 

Information on the history of the Haunted Mansion courtesy Jeff Baham