Whether you see them as poignant relics of the past, or simply as urban playgrounds for
the daring, abandoned theme parks have an unmistakably creepy draw to them.
But look beyond the spooky photos and eerily creaking Ferris wheels, and you'll find that
many of these abandoned theme parks hide chilling secrets more spine-tingling than a sweater
full of spiders.
Disney's River Country
In the late '70s, Disney was the hot kid on the block.
Following the success of Disney World, the Imagineers set their sights on a different
sort of attraction: a backwoods river getaway in the Florida swampland.
Built in 1976, the park actually did pretty well.
It rolled along until 2005, then closed its doors suddenly and without explanation.
Rumors about the sudden closing abounded.
At least two children drowned in the park, but the most common explanation was the park's
water facilities had become infected with an amoeba that swims up through a person's
nose and eats away pieces of their brain — until they die.
For whatever reason, Disney shut the park down, then seemingly forgot about it.
It's now become an overgrown jungle where dingy water slides still wind through the
encroaching trees, and the pools lay dormant, filled with murky green water that definitely,
most likely, probably, maybe hides some kind of human-murdering Black Lagoon monster.
"Really?"
"Nah.
I'm just screwing with you."
Spreepark
Germany's Spreepark was built in former East Berlin, just after the fall of the Berlin
Wall.
Today, it's a gutted, rusting remnant of the post-unification economic splurge.
A Ferris wheel looms over the trees, beached pirate ships are slowly disappearing under
creeping vines, and a lone roller coaster track runs into the gaping mouth of a graffiti-covered
monster.
Built in 1989, it was a popular attraction until the mid-'90s, then slowly sank into
a sea of insolvency.
It closed in 2001, and in 2003, its builder was arrested when police found a reported
167 kilograms of Peruvian cocaine inside the mast of one of the rides, the Flying Carpet.
And here tourists thought they were just going on an ordinary magic carpet ride.
Kejonuma Leisure Land
At its peak in the '80s, more than 200,000 tourists flocked to Kejonuma Leisure Land
each year.
Located in central Japan, Leisure Land boasted a small-but-impressive collection of fairground
rides that kept the park humming for over 20 years, until it finally shut down in 2000.
Now, it's been reclaimed by nature.
Most of the rides are still standing, although they've been crippled by rust and choking
weeds in the intervening years.
Visit it at night, and it's easily one of the eeriest abandoned parks in the world,
but there's another reason why locals prefer not to visit the ruins: a supposed ancient
curse on the land.
As the legend goes, there's a small pond just outside the theme park that holds the tormented
soul of a young mother.
She lived near the pond, and one day found that she was pregnant.
Instead of a child, though, she supposedly gave birth to a snake, which slithered into
the pond and called out to her.
Driven insane by her snake-child's cries, the woman dove into the pond and committed
suicide.
Even the name of the region itself, Kejonuma, translates to "pond of the ghost woman."
"Whoa!
Dude that's creepy."
Blub Water Park
You wouldn't guess it from the name or its current state, but Blub was once one of Germany's
most popular water parks.
It ran for two decades before an unlikely invader forced the owner to drain the pools
and lock everyone out.
Sometime in the late '90s, Blub was overrun by rats.
The park fought the vermin back and managed to shamble along for another few years, but
it was a losing battle, especially once the public realized what was happening.
In 2002, Blub declared bankruptcy and abandoned the massive facility to the rats living in
its walls.
Now, it has all the eerie charm you'd expect from a derelict water park … huge in-ground
pools, empty swimming grottoes, and dried-up water slides that end in a long drop to unforgiving
tile.
Chippewa Lake Park
If you approached Chippewa Lake Park before 2010, the first thing you would have seen
was an ancient roller coaster rail peeking over the tops of the trees, like the hand
of a giant beckoning you closer.
By then, the park had been derelict for over three decades, after being abandoned in 1978.
And for years, the old roller coasters, Ferris wheel, and buildings slid beneath the choking
underbrush, and then a spate of arson in the early 2000s burned out most of the large structures
to the ground.
In 2010, the property was sold, and partially demolished, before everything came to a halt
over a lawsuit.
The rest of the former amusement park now sits in the twilight of death, waiting for
someone to finish putting it out of its misery.
And speaking of death, there's supposedly an unmarked grave hiding somewhere amid the
towering, skeletal structures of Chippewa Lake Park, like an Easter Egg from Hell.
The park's final owner, Parker Beach, allegedly requested to be buried in the park he'd loved
so much.
Whether or not it ever happened is up for debate, but it's definitely not something
you want to think about as you poke through the overgrown ruins, in the final moments
of daylight.
"I'm freaking out man.
You are freaking out, man."
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