Is it true that 1 in 3 Britts have seen a ghost and more believe in Ghosts than God in the Uk?

Extremely unlikely!

It does not ring true partly for what it says, but also simply as highly incredible statistics.

To have gained a credible result a survey on beliefs like that would have needed to ask a very large number of Brit[i]on[/i]s of all backgrounds and locations in what is a very diverse country; and I doubt anyone has the will, time or resources to have done so.

So it would be interesting to know what the documentary was, and the sources it cited. I don't think even the Census asks in that detail although it does ask about general religious belief.

I don't doubt the existence of the belief, but what makes the claim odd is the supposed numbers holding it: a third of an entire country's population of many tens of millions? Really?

You might obtain a relative estimate of religious belief overall in the country by comparing mean attendances of places of worship of all faiths, with population; but over as much of the country as possible for any statistical merit. That though would not tell you what non-attendees think.

What you might have heard was a report about one of those cobbled-together "surveys" of a relatively few people, by some group, magazine or the like wanting to highlight some views of its own - a trick common among the advertising trade.

Or a sincere survey shamelessly mis-quoted by the newspapers to push a given view or simply by sheer ignorance.

Examples of either case are comprehensively dismantled by the Radio Four programme [i]More Or Less[/i]; which goes back to the the source to read what had really been found, or to establish if the "study" was at all genuine - which most of the glossy-magazine and advertising-agencies ones are not.