Halloween and the Hungry Ghost Festival only come by once a year, but there are places that are spooky and scary all-year round. No, I’m not taking about the local haunted houses at carnivals. Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, there are some eerie places which you’ll refuse to spend the night in. Places that have bizarre histories or suspicious coincidences, places which you wouldn’t go near even with a large group of friends and multiple religious objects.
Here are the Top 5 Scariest Places In The World. Some of them are naturally occuring, some had human help, but all have a reputation for being scary, terrifying, tragic, mysterious or a combination of all, that over time, some people consider them haunted. My advice? Don’t even visit these places during the day…
* Warning : Some of the images below are rather graphic in nature, though all are safe for work. However, searching for additional images related to these places may not be safe for your soul.
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Located at the base of Mount Fuji, Aokigahara Forest can be translated to mean ‘Sea Of Trees’ in English. But Aokigahara Forest is also known by a much darker name; the ‘Suicide Forest’. Holding the dubious distinction of being the world’s most popular suicide location, Aokigahara Forest has seen hundreds of people attempt to end their life here every year since 1988. Sadly, more than 100 succeed every year, either by hanging, or by drug overdose.
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Aokigahara Forest is exceptionally quiet and dark, due to trees growing tightly together, and an unsual absence of wildlife. Mist hangs in the air, reducing visibility. Compasses don’t work in Aokigahara Forest, due to the high amount of magnetic iron ore in the volcanic soil.
All this means it’s easy to get lost within Aokigahara Forest. Because an average of 2 people hang themselves in Aokigahara Forest every week, the government has taken to putting up signs in both Japanese and English, warning that life is precious.
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To curb the problem, the government has undertaken regular sweeps of Aokigahara Forest. The forest workers probably are the worst off, as this means they’ll come upon a decomposing body swinging from the trees in the dark forest.
They then have to remove the body, and observe the proper rites, as Aokigahara Forest is believed to be haunted by the angry spirits of those who died here. It’s said the the spirits will scream through the night and the body will move on its own…
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The La Isla De Las Munecas / Island Of The Dolls, is a small patch of land near Mexico City, known for hundreds of decaying dolls hanging from trees in the area. They are the work of the (former) sole resident of the area, Julian Santana Barrera, who collected old or broken dolls.
He would then tie the dolls to trees or hang them from branches to ward of spirits, notably the spirit of a girl who drowned on the island, and was said to haunt the place.
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La Isla De Las Munecas / Island Of The Dolls is a chinampas, or a man-made floating garden designed for agriculture. In order to appease the spirit of the drowned girl, Julian Santana Barrera initially hung up one doll to ward off the phantom.
However, when paranormal activity increased, he started putting up more dolls, and even erected a shed with an altar of dolls. Julian Santana Barrera would often move the dolls among the branches, and claimed they would help him with his harvest. He even had a favourite doll; La Moneca / Monica.
After 50 years of collecting dolls and hanging them on the island, Julian was found dead, drowned in the same spot where the girl died. Urban legends say his spirit still haunts the island, along with the spirit of the drowned girl.
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Even during the day, the dolls of La Isla De Las Munecas / Island Of The Dolls are an unnerving sight, with their severed limbs, decapitated heads, and blank eyes. With hundreds hanging on trees in the area, many tell of nights when the dolls would come alive and roam the island killing animals. Witnesses claim to have seen the dolls move their limbs, some say that they heard the voices of the dolls whispering to each other, others say they feel like the dolls are watching them. Those who are wise tend to avoid the La Isla De Las Munecas / Island Of The Dolls, especially at night…
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If you’ve ever wondered what Earth will look like after the end of the world apocalypse, then you need look no further than the abandoned ghost town of Pripyat. Only 3 kilometers away from the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant (and the nearest town), Pripyat was ground zero for the worst nuclear fallout in history.
Originally housing nearly 50,000 residents, most of them workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, Pripyat was frozen in time when the nuclear disaster meltdown occured in April 1986.
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Pripyat has an eerie, still, ghoulish atmosphere. Crumbling buildings, household items left as they were, gas masks lying amongst houses, trees and grass slowly growing over the ruins, discoloured plant life, abandoned amusement park with a rusting ferris wheel and lifeless bumper cars which were never used.
Pripyat looks like the sort of place where you might encounter zombies, mutant monsters or irradiated ghouls. Radiation levels remain too high for permanent human habitation, but tour groups are able to visit Pripyat safely for 1 or 2 days (hopefully).
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The actual urban environment of Pripyat itself is hazardous, with uncovered manholes in the middle of barely-recognizable streets, open elevator shafts, flooded basements, decayed wooden floors, collapsed roofs, large amounts of broken glass and more. Pripyat has been referenced in popular culture, as a setting for end-of-the-world scenerios, in video games (Call Of Duty 4) and movies (Chernobyl Diaries).
The most terrifying thing about Pripyat is not the eerie silence and ruins of the place, it is the former still-living victims of the disaster, who face an increased risk of cancer and premature death. Estimates put the number of Pripyat future casualties due to cancer at around 4,000 people.
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With thick poisionous sulphurous smoke rising from the ground, huge cracks in the road, sinkholes which spontanously open up in the earth and swallow everything, fires which release heat of over a thousand degrees in the streets, low visibility, overgrown streets, no wildlife, and an eerie, abandoned ghost town condemned by the government, Centralia is the perfect background setting for a horror movie.
And it has… Centralia has been the setting or inspiration behind numerous fiction and non-fiction books, movies and video games depicting hell, most notably the horror series Silent Hill.
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Centralia used to be a bustling coal mining town, with over 2,700 residents. In 1962, workers set a heap of trash ablaze in an abandoned mine pit which was used as Centralia’s landfill. Unknown to them, there existed a dangerous enviornmental hazard at that exact spot, an exposed vein of anthracite coal.
The highly flammable mineral was unexpectedly ignited by the trash fire, and quickly spread to the coal underground, and then to the surrounding coal mines and beneath the town. All efforts to contain the underground fire failed.
When poisionous gases and sinkholes started occuring, the government condemned Centralia, relocated its residents, reconstructed the highway to detour around it, and removed Centralia from maps of the area.
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More than 50 years later, the underground fire in Centralia still burns, and the amount of coal in the 8 mile vein is expected to feed the fire for another 250 years. Despite the dangers of the place, about a dozen people still live in Centralia, choosing to remain because they claim the relocation was part of a government conspiracy.
They keep Centralia’s 4 cemeteries well maintained, along with the iconic church on the hill. Urban legends abound, graffiti scrawls warning people they are entering hell, and stories telling of specific spots in town where ghostly figures appear at night…
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The imposing gothic facade of the Old Anderlecht Veterinary School is foreboding enough, but step inside and you’ll encounter dark, dank corridors, crumbling rooms, sounds of dripping water, and a foul stench hanging in the air.
But descend into the dark basement, and an even worse horror awaits… A genuine mad scientist laboratory, with rusty, barbaric medical equipment, dusty shelves containing bottles of questionable coloured liquids, and various assorted parts of dissected animals in jars, including heads, brains, lungs, hearts, intestines, limbs, livers, eyeballs and more.
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The Old Anderlecht Veterinary School was once part of a veterinary complex of 19 buildings, but while the rest have been renovated and modernised, this lone building still remains.
The Old Anderlecht Veterinary School has since stood abandoned and derelict, with all its bizzare artifacts and creepy exhibits. Reports say local construction crews are afraid to go near the place, claiming it’s cursed. The Old Anderlecht Veterinary School has thus come to be more commonly known as the ‘Horror Labs’.
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Unusual experimentation definitely took place at the Old Anderlecht Veterinary School, because reports tell of animal parts sewn together. “The head of a calf joined with the leg of a cat,” was a sight reported by one explorer. “The lung of a sheep beside the brain of a bear, imprisoned behind half a centimeter of delicate glass.”
Parts of cats and dogs sewn together with a pig’s head, hollowed out heads with the skin still intact sitting on dusty shelves. You’ll almost expect Frankenstein’s Monster or a mad scientist suddenly bursting in on you…
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Disclaimer: All photos and images are credited and copyrighted to their respective owners. This post for written purely for entertainment purposes. Also, your life is precious, please refrain from taking it at any of these locations.
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