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Well, the GMG states:
Although haunts function like traps, they are difficult to detect since they cannot be easily observed until the round in which they manifest. Detect undead or detect alignment spells of the appropriate type allow an observer a chance to notice a haunt even before it manifests (allowing that character the appropriate check to notice the haunt, but at a –4 penalty).
Detect Magic is absent from that list, so I'm guessing that it doesn't show up. Kind of like how undead don't show up on Detect Magic; they were created with magic but it's an instantaneous effect, the magic doesn't linger after the creation.
Detect Evil might work, but the Haunt chapter doesn't mention haunts being always evil; the word evil doesn't even appear in the text. It would appear that a haunt can be any alignment. I do suppose that chaotic evil would be the most common one though, just like ghosts;
Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife.
If you like and use haunts in your game, it might be worth checking #30 Haunts for Kaidan which offers deep background stories, alternate triggers, associated haunts and some unique undead monsters. Also for a great haunt/ghost encounter its probably worth checking out Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House
There's an article in Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: Haunting of Harrowstone. Maybe it gives further insight into the topic.
Ruyan.
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Haunts have gotten a lot of hate in the past, I think mainly from players who saw them as "gotcha!" things, that just basically inflict random damage on you with no chance to do anything about them.
I suppose if players are aware of the mechanics behind haunts, they won't seem quite so arbitrary.
Like traps, they can be stupid if they're just sitting somewhere, not helping the story any, not connected to anything else nearby, and not capable of doing anything dangerous enough by themselves to be a full threat. Then it's just a random CLW wand charge tax.
Much more than traps however, haunts can tell a story. When it triggers you basically have a free pass to show some backstory to the players, in the form of "ghost illusions" that reenact something bad that happened. Mechanically it mimics a spell, but only loosely.
For example, my players are about to enter a dungeon with a clockwork soldier near the end of it. That's a brutal monster against level 3 PCs, and if I inflicted it on them without any warning, they'd be dead meat. However, I plan to use a haunt to foreshadow it; they walk into a site where some previous looters got hacked to bits by the soldier. Mechanically I wrap that as a "fireball" haunt that does slashing damage instead of fire, and it takes only an instant to happen. Fluffwise, the players experience being some of those looters and getting hacked to bits in the course of a minute.
Clockwork Massacre CR 5
CE haunt (25ft. radius)
Caster level 5th
Notice Perception DC 20 (faint sounds of a steel weapon, screams of fleeing looters, swelling as the haunt activates)
hp 10; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 day
Effect when this haunt is triggered, those in the area experience a massacre of looters by a clockwork soldier with a halberd, as if they were the looters being massacred. The massacre appears to take a minute, but the haunt actually takes only a single round. All in the area are hit by the equivalent of a fireball (5d6 damage, DC 14 Reflex halves), except that the damage is slashing instead of fire.
Destruction the clockwork soldier must be destroyed.
By the way: the CR of haunts seems rather overblown to me; according to the GMG you earn XP merely by surviving it. But one 5d6 fireball seems a bit wimpy for a CR 5 encounter to me.
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A haunt is neither a spell nor a magic item, which are the two things detect magic senses. It has a caster level, but more because it acts in some ways like a spellcaster.
As quoted, each haunt has an alignment. If it's evil, detect evil might pick it up. By RAW the caster can make the check listed as its Notice DC but at a -4 penalty. I don't like that rule. Detect undead also works the same way.