9.
Djibouti Military Graveyard
Located on the coast of the East African country Djibouti, Îlot du Héron is home to a military
equipment graveyard.
It’s here that you’ll find a Panhard 178B tank and an M5 Stuart tank.
The Panhard 178 is a French-built armored car that was designed before World War II
for French Cavalry units.
It was made to accommodate a crew of four.
8.
Marthe de Florian
Marthe de Florian was a Parisian socialite who lived from 1864 to 1939.
She was known for having numerous famous lovers, including former French Prime Minister Georges
Clemenceau, former President Paul Deschanel, and Italian artist Giovanni Boldini – just
to name a few.
The apartment fell into the hands of De Florian’s granddaughter, Solange Beaugiron, who fled
the home to avoid a Nazi raid during World War II.
She never returned.
De Florian’s son, Henri Beaugiron, died in the apartment in 1966, and the apartment
was simply locked up and left behind.
The family continued to pay for the home for decades.
It wasn’t until 2010 that the socialite’s descendants discovered the time capsule that
had been left behind.
Inside the apartment, they found an array of artifacts, including a painting by one
of De Florian’s lovers, Giovanni Boldini.
The artwork, which is thought to be a portrait of Ms. De Florian at the age of 24, sold for
$3.3 million at auction.
There was also a collection of letters that the couple exchanged.
The home contains numerous other paintings, as well as an old Mickey Mouse stuffed animal,
a taxidermied ostrich, old photographs, furniture, and more.
It’s been kept off-limits to the public, and rumor has it that the home contains as
many secrets as it does treasures.
7.
Kangbashi
In recent years, China has increasingly made headlines for its ghost cities that were built
and then left empty.
Experts estimate that there are at least 50 of these uninhabited metropolises throughout
the country.
These guichengs, or ghost cities, sprang up amid China’s rapid economic growth.
The government wanted to accommodate spillover from modern cities and give opportunities
to people living in rural areas, so it set out to urbanize less populated regions.
But the plan was overambitious, and many, if not most of these pre-built cities remained
empty or mostly empty.
Kangbashi is one good example.
Located on the edge of the massive, barren Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, this planned
district in the city of Ordos was built using money from the region’s coal industry profits.
It’s filled with huge apartment complexes, shopping malls, plazas, a stadium, and towering
business and government buildings.
There’s enough housing for a million people in Kangbashi, but only 100,000 or so moved
there after it was built.
The government had a goal of moving at least 300,000 residents in by 2020, but it didn’t
even meet the halfway mark.
But, as officials have argued, it takes time to populate a city, and it seems as though
Kangbashi is finally taking off.
A new flight school was built nearby, attracting new residents, and most of the city’s apartments
have been sold.
So it appears as though Kangbashi’s days as a ghost city could be over soon.
6.
World War I Soldier’s Bedroom
Hubert Rochereau was barely an adult when he left the village of Bélâbre in central
France to fight in World War I. Unfortunately, he died in an English field ambulance in 1918
at just 21 years old.
Upon learning of their son’s death, Rochereau’s parents turned his bedroom into a permanent
memorial.
They mostly kept it in the condition that he’d left it in, adding some items from
his time in the military, including his helmet, medals, and jacket.
Hubert’s books, military manuals, pipe, cigarettes, pistol, knife, notebook, and other
personal belongings were left on his furniture, including his bed and desk.
His mother and father bricked up the room, ensuring the preservation of their beloved
fallen son’s memory.
In 1935, the couple bequeathed the home to a close military friend named General Eugène
Bridoux.
The transfer of ownership was contingent upon Bridoux agreeing to leave Hubert’s room
untouched for 500 years.
But he fled the country during World War II as a Nazi collaborator and went to Spain,
where he remained for the rest of his life.
The house containing Hubert’s room ended up in the hands of Bridoux’s daughter, whose
husband, Daniel Fabre, still lived at the property as of 2014.
Local officials have been invited there to see the room, and the current owner has reassured
them that he plans to keep it the way it is.
But because the house is privately owned, there’s no guarantee that this will be the
case once the house no longer belongs to Fabre.
In recent years, the Mayor of Bélâbre has used the room’s fame as a platform for his
mission to make sure it’s preserved for years to come.
5.
Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark
Back in the 1950s, a California businessman named Bob Byers built a private waterpark
for his extended family off Interstate 15 in the Mojave Desert town of Newberry Springs.
It opened in 1962 and grew into a 250-acre (101 hectares) recreational facility that
was open to the public.
The property went by several names over the years, including Discovery Waterpark, Rock-A-Hoola
Waterpark, and Lake Dolores Waterpark.
These names reflect the various owners’ attempt to rebrand the park as it was continuously
plagued with bad luck.
Whenever someone tried to polish the property’s image in hopes of attracting a resurgence
of visitors, it was as if something got in the way.
Byers held onto the business until 1990.
He sold it to an investment group, who upgraded the equipment and reimagined the park with
a 1950s theme.
But their luck wasn’t any better than Byers’.
After operating for just three seasons while accumulating copious amounts of debt, the
park closed yet again.
One more buyer tried and failed to make the park a success, but the property has been
closed since 2004.
The weathered, graffiti-covered waterslides and other equipment and buildings left behind
are an eyesore to many and an urban exploring attraction to others.
They’re also said to be dangerous.
There are rumors that plans are in place to reopen the park yet again, but this hasn’t
happened.
As of September of last year, the property was listed on the market for $1 million.
What do you think is behind the repeated failures?
A curse, perhaps?
Let us know your theories in the comments, and make sure to like and subscribe as well!
4.
Vintage Playroom
For years, Reverend Crispin Palling heard rumors about a hidden room inside the Anglican
Church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas in Liverpool, England.
In 2014, he opened a trapdoor in the church’s ceiling and went up there, where he discovered
a trove of old toys, including a wooden car and a toy train; books, and snacks, including
a hot chocolate packet.
One of the books was dated back to 1696, and another was a prayer book from the World War
II era.
It’s believed that the vintage play area was sealed before the building was bombed
during World War II.
It was kept that way when the church was rebuilt, and was later forgotten.
Reverend Palling told reporters that he decided to explore the room out of curiosity, stating:
“When you see a hole in the ceiling, I think you’ve got to go through it and find out
what’s on the other side.”
Palling also said that there were plans to convert the room back to its previous state,
and to donate the items found inside it to a local museum.
3.
The Crypt of Civilization
Beneath Oglethorpe University in the Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven, Georgia, there’s an
airtight chamber that isn’t supposed to be opened until the year 8113 – almost six
thousand years from now.
Thornwell Jacobs, the university’s former president, thought that a preserved museum
might offer the people of the future a glimpse into what life was like during our time.
Starting in 1937, he started working toward this vision by converting a 20 foot by 10
foot (6 by 3 meters) chamber under the administration building into a so-called “crypt of civilization.”
Inside, there’s a set of Lincoln Logs, over 800 microfilmed books and religious texts,
a TV, a can of Budweiser, an original copy of the script from Gone With the Wind, voice
recordings of historical figures like Benito Mussolini and Franklin D. Roosevelt, seed
samples, dental floss, a typewriter, a cash register, some children’s toys, and more.
Jacobs also included a note addressed to whoever opens the crypt, stating: “The world is
engaged in burying our civilization forever, and here in this crypt we leave it to you.”
He even placed a windmill powered generator for the electric devices within the crypt,
as well as a magnifier for reading records by hand – just in case electricity is no
longer being used in 8113.
The artifacts were chosen and preserved with the help of the National Bureau of Standards
in Washington, D.C.
To prevent them from decaying, many of the items were placed in stainless steel, glass-lined
containers filled with an inert gas.
The chamber was sealed on May 25, 1940 by Jacobs and Thomas Kimmwood Peters, the crypt’s
archivist and construction supervisor, in a solemn ceremony that was broadcast on local
radio.
They welded the door shut and fused a plaque to it with a message on the outside from Jacobs.
For his project, Jacobs became known as “the father of the modern time capsule.”
2.
Air Raid Shelter
For years, residents at an apartment building in Edinburgh, Scotland dismissed an old cupboard
in their basement as a storage space.
Nobody even gave it a second thought until a new neighbor named Liz Mowbray moved into
the building and expressed her curiosity about it.
Mowbray and another resident, Mia Gray, worked together to clean the space which, at first
glance, was full of old paint cans and garbage.
They realized that the space was much larger than anyone ever thought.
The pair found wash basins, a heater, and a pair of rotting wooden bunk beds dating
back to the World War II era.
Based on these items, it’s clear that the room functioned as an air raid shelter.
It was a place where the building’s residents would go during an attack, and then it was
forgotten about after the war.
Finally, 75 years later, it was rediscovered.
Speaking with the local news, Gray described the room as having a bench that wraps around
the walls, “No Smoking” signs, an emergency exit, a stove, and two triple bunk beds.
She said that she thinks there were more bunk beds, but they were too damaged to identify,
and she mentioned that the ceiling is reinforced with metal sheets.
Gray believes that a former tenant used the space for storage after the war.
But they left so much junk in there, it discouraged others from exploring or repurposing the room.
Although Edinburgh wasn’t a major target during World War II, it was still bombed from
time to time.
Locals had ample reason to prepare for an attack, and it’s likely that the shelter
was actually used on occasion.
1.
Maison Mantin
Located in the town of Moulins in central France, Maison Mantin is a 19th-century mansion
that was commissioned by a wealthy civil servant named Louis Mantin as a place to showcase
his antiques and art collection.
When he died in 1905, his will dictated that the house would be shuttered after his death,
only to be opened to the public a century later as a museum.
Mantin’s wishes were respected – well, for the most part.
In 2010, just five years behind schedule and after undergoing extensive repairs for the
damage that time had taken on the place, it was opened to visitors for the first time.
The eccentric man’s bedroom is the highlight of the mansion, according to assistant curator
Maud Leyoudec, who spoke with reporters shortly after its opening.
It’s filled with gilded leather that was made in southern France in 1712.
Leyoudec described Maison Mantin as pretty standard for its time, but also very eclectic,
with a lot of different styles represented throughout.
One room, known as the Pink or Four Seasons room, belonged to Louise Alaire, a married
woman that Mantin had an affair with for two decades.
It’s very feminine, in contrast to Mantin’s rather masculine bedroom, with furniture inspired
by the style of French king Louis XV.
The home’s restorers had a tough job cut out for them, with the timeworn mansion covered
in insect and humidity damage.
But they were careful to make it look exactly the way it did when Mantin was alive, giving
visitors a rare opportunity to effortlessly step back over 100 years in time.
That’s all for today – thanks for watching!
If you’d like to learn about more fascinating abandoned discoveries, let me know in the
comments below, and while you’re at it, be sure to subscribe.
I’ll see you next time!