9.
DOUGLAS DC-3 ON A BLACK SAND BEACH
If you walk along the shore of Iceland’s Sólheimasandur Beach, you’ll find what’s
left of a deteriorating World War II era Douglas D-3 military plane rusting away in the volcanic
black sand.
It crashed at the site in 1973 while being flown by U.S. Navy pilots.
The reason the plane went down remains a mystery to this day.
Everyone survived, but for some reason, nobody could explain just what exactly happened that
fateful day.
Investigators suspected that an empty fuel tank may have caused the accident, and that
the pilot may have tried to access the fuel tank - before the crew realized they had no
choice but to make an emergency landing.
The wreck was left there, where it remains today as a haunting shell of its former self.
A good portion of the fuselage is gone, the wings are missing, and only half the tail
is still there.
Despite the extensive damage, the aircraft is in surprisingly good shape, especially
for having spent nearly 50 years decaying on the beach, where conditions are known to
be harsh.
Most of the cabin is still intact, along with the wing engines.
Local legend holds that at one point, a farmer removed and sold the tail’s missing portion,
but no one knows for sure if that’s actually true.
The otherworldly wreck is found somewhat “off the beaten path,” surrounded by nature.
It’s one of Iceland’s most famous crashed planes.
There’s a consistent stream of curious visitors drawn to the site, where they’re free to
explore the remainder of the DC-3.
Travelers can drive to the location or go there as part of a guided tour of the country’s
southern coast.
8.
THE GALAXY
On the island of Koh Chang in the Gulf of Thailand, there’s a creepy abandoned resort
with a deserted cruise ship docked along the shore.
Dubbed The Galaxy, the 7-story, 70-bedroom vessel once functioned as one of the property’s
upscale hotels.
During its heyday, the Koh Chang Grand Lagoona Resort was a five-star destination.
But it suddenly closed one day and nobody knows why, leaving behind the Galaxy and several
other structures including chalets and fishing boats.
Travel blogger Messy Nessy Chic became curious enough to visit the property in 2017.
She later wrote that some parts of the defunct resort were unusually well-maintained, while
other areas had fallen into disrepair.
She also noticed that there were some staff members on-site, including a security guard
who collects tips in exchange for letting people explore the ghost ship.
Photographer Emily Dyan Ibarra captured a series of images showing just how run-down
the Galaxy’s rooms have become since its abandonment, with stained carpets and furniture
that’s falling apart.
There’s clearly been no electricity or running water for quite some time, and the dark and
dank vessel appears to have been taken over by stray animals, who now treat it as their
home.
Interestingly, the office contains a cabinet full of keys that was left open, almost as
if a front desk employee fled in a hurry one day and never returned.
One Reddit user wrote that the Galaxy served as a cruise liner before it was repurposed
as a floating hotel.
Locals reportedly refer to it as the “ghost ship” not only because it’s deserted,
but because numerous people have supposedly ended their own lives by jumping from it.
The vessel is eerie enough to begin with, but if the stories are true, it adds a whole
new dark dynamic to the Galaxy.
7.
HANNAH MARIE
The fishing vessel Hannah Marie was built during World War II.
During its heyday in the 1980s, it sold fish at ports in Alaska and Seattle.
The 100-foot-long (30 meters) ship has seen its fair share of misfortune, including one
disastrous incident that happened in the waters south of Juneau when its operator fell asleep
at the helm.
Hannah Marie crashed into a rock and capsized, spilling around 300 gallons of diesel fuel
into the water.
A man named Richard Cook bought the aging vessel in 2017 for a dirt-cheap price.
He perhaps bit off more than he could chew in terms of the work it required, and he abandoned
the Hannah Marie in the Snohomish River the following year.
The ship sat, untouched, for over a year, and the State of Washington apparently became
fed up in mid-2019, when it threatened to seize the vessel.
Cook received a 30-day warning with a strict ultimatum attached: remove the Hannah Marie
from the river, or the state would come and remove it, and it would no longer belong to
Cook.
In the meantime, Cook tried to tow the boat upriver to stop trespassers from stealing
its equipment.
Onlookers later described watching as the Hannah Marie became lodged into a riverbank
and began taking on water.
Two days later, items began falling off the vessel and into the water.
At last update, the state planned to act on its threat to seize the boat, which will cost
taxpayers somewhere between $250,000 and $300,000.
Cook can expect to receive a bill for the costs, but whether or not he’ll ever pay
it is another matter.
6.
BEL AMICA
Members of the Italian coast guard were perplexed in August 2006, when they spotted a schooner
called the Bel Amica drifting aimlessly off the Sardinian coast in the Mediterranean Sea.
The vessel was found near Punta Volpe and appeared to be abandoned.
Its discoverers boarded it and steered it away from some rocks and shallow waters that
it was headed toward.
Inside the Bel Amica, they found French maps of North African bodies of water, partially
eaten Egyptian meals, a pile of clothing, and the Luxembourg flag.
Investigators soon discovered that the boat was never registered in any country, including
Italy.
They also realized that the Bel Amica was not an antique vessel, as they had first suspected.
It was actually a modern boat owned by a man named Franc Rouayrux from Luxembourg.
He had anchored it in deep waters and deserted it, claiming later on that he had left to
deal with a family emergency and planned to return to the yacht as soon as he had taken
care of things back home.
But the story didn’t quite add up for detectives or the Italian press, which suggested that
Rouayrux abandoned the Bel Amica to avoid paying taxes on it.
Unfortunately, to this day, nobody seems to know the real story, and if they do, they’re
staying quiet about it.
What do you think the true story is about the Bel Amica?
Who do you believe?
Let us know in the comments below and if you’re liking this video, be sure to hit the thumbs
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5.
LOFTUS TRAMSHED
When an old green shed in New South Wales, Australia was set ablaze in October 2015,
it was probably easy to think, at first glance, that there probably wasn’t anything too
valuable inside.
Sadly, that wasn’t the case.
At the time, the Sydney Tramway Museum was using the inconspicuous building as a storage
facility for an array of retired trams and buses dating as far back as 1898.
It was chock-full of vintage streetcars and other historic vehicles, including two Sydney
trams that were built in 1911, several dating back to the 1930s, a Melbourne tram from 1929,
and two 1940s-era double-decker buses.
Firefighters spent hours battling the flames before finally snuffing the fire out.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but it was sadly too late to save any of the vehicles inside
the shed.
The vehicles were awaiting restoration when the fire broke out; sadly, they were all destroyed.
After dealing with dozens of break-ins by local vandals, who covered the fascinating
trains, trams and buses with graffiti, staff members unfortunately weren’t surprised.
Speaking with the Daily Telegraph, museum chairman Howard Clarke said the intruders
always found a way inside, no matter what the museum did to try securing the building.
If you’ve ever heard the saying “this is why we can’t have nice things,” then
you know that it fits this unfortunate situation perfectly.
4.
BAGGER 258 & BAGGER 1473
Nicknamed the “Blue Wonder,” Bagger 258 is a massive bucket wheel excavator that sits
abandoned in a field in Schipkau, Germany.
It was first used as a coal machine in 1964, when the region was under the control of the
communist East German government.
At 563 feet (172 meters) long and nearly 164 feet (50 meters) tall, Bagger 258 is more
like a mobile factory than just a vehicle.
It’s equipped with tank-like tracks, which enable it to move at the tremendously slow
speed of no more than 20 feet (6 meters) per minute.
The colossal contraption has 10 blades, which dug as deep as 49 feet (15 meters) into the
ground, collecting huge buckets of coal and soil.
In the meantime, some of the coal was mechanically sifted and fed into the machine’s engine
to keep it running.
Bagger 258 was abandoned in 2002 for the same reason that many mining sites and vehicles
are left behind: there was nothing left to mine.
It was cheaper and easier to desert the aging machine than it would have been to dismantle
it, which is why it remains at the site today, with its faded and chipping paint reminding
visitors of just how old it is.
Schipkau is also home to Bagger 1473, another massive abandoned bucket wheel excavator that
many urban explorers have mistaken for Bagger 258.
It was used from 1965 until 2002, when the nearby mining resources were depleted.
After Bagger 1473 was taken out of service, the surrounding municipal governments agreed
to preserve the machine and to install it as a monument to the region’s mining history.
Sadly, the decommissioned excavator became a popular target among vandals, and it deteriorated
rapidly.
The same municipalities who agreed to save Bagger 1473 announced plans to scrap it in
2019.
To prevent this from happening, state archaeologists and officials scrambled to have the machine
declared historically significant.
While the move protected it from being demolished, the gargantuan piece of equipment continues
to rot as authorities try to figure out how to preserve it and who will pay for it.
3.
BOS 400 SHIPWRECK
In the 1990s, the BOS 400 was Africa’s largest floating crane.
It was capable of lifting 1200 tons (1,089 metric tons).
With no main engines of its own, it had to be towed from one location to the next.
While being pulled from Cape Town, South Africa to Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo in
1994, the machine and its tugboat encountered a violent storm.
At the time, the BOS 400 was being towed by the Russian tugboat Tigre, which was underpowered
and ill-equipped for transporting such a massive barge.
The tow rope broke and the BOS 400 crashed into some rocks and ran aground.
The Tigre’s crew radioed to Cape Town harbor for help.
Two tugboats were dispatched to the scene, but the seas were still rough, and both failed
to connect to the stranded crane.
All 14 crew members had to be airlifted to safety.
The BOS 400 was valued at around $70 million at the time of the disaster.
It was declared a total loss after several failed salvage attempts and was left just
sitting among the boulders, where it still is to this day, as one of the more seldom-visited
sites in South Africa’s Maori Bay.
2.
L. WADE CHILDRESS
If you drive through the small, sleepy city of Prairie du Chien in Crawford County, Wisconsin,
you might pass by an old pushboat sitting in the field.
Nobody seems to know how the 176-foot-long (54 meters) vessel, known as the L. Wade Childress,
got to its current location more than 200 miles (322 km) from where it sank.
In fact, very little is known about the ship, period.
The L. Wade Childress was built in 1948.
It sank in the Mississippi River near Fort Madison, Iowa in December 1985 after an early
freeze caused large ice chunks to flow through the water, battering this and many other vessels.
The boat was raised the following year before somehow ending up along Highway K in Prairie
du Chien, where it’s sat ever since.
According to rumors, someone wanted to convert the derelict ship into a bed and breakfast
at one point.
But that never happened, and nobody seems to know who was behind these alleged plans
or why nothing has been done with the L. Wade Childress.
For the most part, the ship’s interior is empty and falling apart.
In other words, there’s not much to see besides some old bathrooms, a fuse box, and
a stove.
But the boat remains a popular topic of discussion and curiosity, perhaps due to its visibility
– after all, it’s impossible to miss when driving by.
1.
FDR’S TRAIN
At an undisclosed location beneath New York City’s iconic Grand Central Terminal, there’s
a 1930s-era train station housing a single track, known simply as Track 61.
It was allegedly built just so that then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) could arrive
and leave without being spotted by the public.
The native New Yorker frequently visited the Big Apple but didn’t want anyone to know
that he suffered from polio, which may have weakened his image due to the stigma that
came along with the condition at the time.
Roosevelt arrived on Track 61 in a specially designed armored car, which held his limousine.
The limo was driven straight off the train and into an extra-large elevator, which transported
FDR and his entourage up to the ballroom of the historic Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Track 61 went out of use when FDR died in 1945.
Until recently, the train car that was rumored to belong to the former President, and which
was reportedly used for transporting him in and out of the station, remained on the track,
slowly deteriorating as time took its toll on the vehicle.
The Danbury Railway Museum in Connecticut now owns the car.
Since then, numerous train experts and enthusiasts have offered up the disappointing news that
the car actually never belonged to FDR.
Known as a “baggage car” or “tool car,” its use was far less spectacular than many
would like to think.
But as one of the few remaining examples of a car of its type, it’s still fascinating
in its own right, even if a little less glamorous than it was originally thought to be.
The interior consists of an aging wooden floor, hooks for hanging tools, and a generator.
Thanks for watching!
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