GTA Online Ghosts Exposed 2026: all 10 ghost locations, hours and rewards
Ghosts Exposed 2026 has ten ghosts on a fixed 8pm–6am in-game schedule: one ghost spawns per in-game hour and stays for two real-world minutes, which puts a full pass through the hunt inside 20 real minutes. The tenth ghost, GTA V antagonist Devin Weston, only appears in the 12am–1am slot once the other nine have been photographed, so the challenge takes at least two in-game nights. RockstarINTEL
The 2026 hunt runs on a clock, not on a map
Ghosts Exposed returned for Halloween 2026 on October 1 with ten ghosts to photograph across San Andreas. According to RockstarINTEL's location guide, credited to GTA Series, each ghost appears on a fixed hourly schedule between 8pm and 6am in-game, stays visible for two real-world minutes, then vanishes until the following in-game night. Rockstar Actu's French rundown of the same week confirms the ten-ghost count and the condition attached to the last one.
That fixed schedule is what separates this collectible from an ordinary map hunt. Because a GTA Online day lasts 48 real minutes, a single in-game hour equals two real minutes — exactly the window RockstarINTEL describes. The whole 8pm-to-6am spread therefore fits inside 20 real minutes, so the difficulty is being in the right place when the clock turns, not finding the ghost.
The ten locations and their one-hour windows
Per RockstarINTEL, every ghost has two possible spawn points inside one area, and the first nine can be photographed in any order across as many nights as you need.
- 8pm–9pm — the window or the broken roof of a house in Paleto Bay.
- 9pm–10pm — the homeless encampment under the freeway overpass in Strawberry.
- 10pm–11pm — the damaged barn in Grapeseed, on either side of the platform.
- 11pm–12am — on top of the Miriam Turner Overpass near Los Santos International Airport.
- 1am–2am — the lighthouse out east, either at the top of it or at the barrier.
- 2am–3am — Cypress Flats: the doorway with the Raven lettering above it, or above the train tracks in front of the traffic lights.
- 3am–4am — the porch or the back door of the abandoned house in Grand Senora Desert.
- 4am–5am — inside Little Seoul Tower, at the very top.
- 5am–6am — the top or the bottom of the waterfall in Tongva Hills.
- 12am–1am — Mount Chiliad Wilderness, atop the Sonar Collections Dock: the ghost of Devin Weston, which only shows up once the other nine have been photographed.
Why Devin Weston makes two nights mandatory
The tenth ghost is the reason the hunt cannot be closed out in a single pass. RockstarINTEL reports that Devin Weston, the GTA V antagonist, replaces the final ghost of previous editions and unlocks only after the nine others are photographed. Rockstar Actu describes the same rule and identifies Weston as GTA V's principal antagonist — the two sources agree on both the condition and the identity.
His window is the catch. Weston appears between 12am and 1am in-game, which is the fifth of the ten hourly slots and starts eight real minutes into the night. By that point only four ghosts — the 8pm, 9pm, 10pm and 11pm ones — can possibly have been photographed, so the tenth is unreachable on a first pass no matter how fast you drive.
The fastest route is therefore two nights. Photograph the first nine across the 8pm-to-6am slots of night one, skipping the 12am–1am hour, then come back for Weston on night two. The wait is not free: after 6am the game stays in daylight for 28 real minutes before the next 8pm, and Weston's slot opens eight minutes after that, so roughly 36 real minutes separate the ninth ghost from a shot at the tenth. An Oppressor is the recommended travel option in RockstarINTEL's guide.
What the hunt pays, and how the 2x week changes it
RockstarINTEL puts each photograph at GTA$20,000 and 500 RP, with a GTA$50,000 bonus and the new Ghosts Exposed jacket for completing all ten. That is a flat GTA$250,000 and 5,000 RP for the hunt — the same total the guide quoted for the 2024 and 2025 editions, so the base value has not moved in three years.
Rockstar Actu confirms the jacket as the 2026 reward. The October 1–7 event week doubles the per-photo payment, and that is where the arithmetic changes: ten photographs at GTA$40,000 each plus the GTA$50,000 bonus come to GTA$450,000 and 10,000 RP inside the bonus week, against GTA$250,000 and 5,000 RP afterwards. Only the per-photo payout is listed as doubled, so the completion bonus is not part of the multiplier.
What changed since 2024 and 2025
The final ghost has rotated three years running, always in the same midnight slot and always at the place the character died in GTA V's story. RockstarINTEL's 2024 guide put Dom Beasley at the bottom of the Land Act Dam; its 2025 guide moved the finale to Jay Norris on the Vinewood Bowl stage; the 2026 edition parks Weston at the Sonar Collections Dock, far west on Mount Chiliad.
The reward item rotates just as reliably, and old rewards do not come back. 2024 handed out a Ghostbusters-inspired Ghosts Exposed Outfit along with the previous year's Albany Brigham livery for anyone who had missed it; 2025 swapped those for a Ghosts Exposed Cap and warned that the outfit and the livery were no longer obtainable; 2026 ships a jacket, meaning a player who skipped either year cannot fill the gap now.
The schedule itself has tightened. Both the 2024 and the 2025 lists opened at 7pm and left the 3am–4am hour empty, spreading ten ghosts over eleven hourly slots. The 2026 list uses ten consecutive hours from 8pm to 6am with no gap, a cleaner pattern that also pushes the first spawn an in-game hour later than in 2024. All of it matches Rockstar Actu's description of the hunt as the final piece of content from GTA Online's summer update.
What is not confirmed
RockstarINTEL says the 2026 hunt has no fixed end date and expects it to disappear not long after October 31, while the doubled payout only runs through October 7 — so the money window is much shorter than the event itself. The guide also notes that a one-second cooldown applies, meaning a freshly loaded lobby can be hunted immediately, and that private and public sessions both work.
