Some of the scariest places in the world look like ordinary buildings.
Without the backstory or a spooky encounter, it would be hard to realise just what you’re
looking at.
Sometimes it’s easier to tell, though, and creepy photos of these locations warn these
aren’t places for the faint of heart.
Number 5
Hundreds of thousands of crosses and crucifixes cover a hill just outside the Lithuanian city
of Siauliai (Shee Ow Lay).
When the wind blows between the wooden and metal fixtures, they sing, as rosaries left
by thousands of pilgrims dance and become wind chimes.
The site is important not only to Christians but to Lithuania as a whole, a symbol of its
battle against the Soviet Union for independence and their right to their heritage.
The hill is a symbol of great tragedy, and the mound of earth itself may even have been
created by one.
There are countless stories about the Hill of Crosses, as it is known.
Before the crosses, before the hill itself, legends say the site was marked by tragedy.
In one story, there used to be a church where the hill now stands.
A great storm buried the church in sand and rock, trapping the monks who resided there
inside.
In another, it was a wooden castle owned by pagan barons that stood in the location.
In 1348, it was destroyed by the Order of the Brothers of the Sword, as the German group
tried to Christianise the area.
The pagans that survived the battle piled their fallen friends and family together and
buried them, forming the hill.
In both stories, the spirits of those that were buried beneath the mound remain at the
hill.
The crosses came sometimes around 1830, shortly after what is today Lithuania came under control
of the Russian empire.
The tsar of Russia tried to suppress the national identities of the people groups within his
empire.
Lithuanians staged a number of unsuccessful revolts.
The crosses are believed to have been placed there by the relatives of those who lost their
lives in the revolts.
It served as not only a reminder of those who had lost their lives, but of Lithuanian
heritage, as the crafting of crosses had been part of the culture in the area for centuries.
When the Soviet Union took over the area, persecution became even more prevalent as
religion was outlawed.
The government destroyed the hill of crosses, but locals would only come back and replace
the crosses with even more.
Even with KGB officers stationed in the area, the locals were undeterred.
Today there are over 200,000 wooden crosses on the hill.
It has become a pilgrimage site for Christians, as it is said the first cross was placed on
the hill by a man who was guided by a vision of the Virgin Mary.
The site itself is definitely eerie, even without knowing its disturbing backstories.
Number 4
There are plenty of scary looking buildings in Italy, which have examples of architecture
from as far back as the second century BCE.
Many of these simply look imposing or eerie, while others have disturbing backstories that
go along with them.
But many of the most disturbing buildings don’t look like much from the outside.
On the island of Sicily is a dilapidated cottage built in the traditional Mediterranean style.
Trees and wild plants almost hide the small building from view.
Many of the windows are boarded up.
The terracotta tiled roof has collapsed in some places.
From the outside, it looks like any other abandoned building.
This is the Abbey of Thelema, home to the British occultist Aleister Crowley and scene
of some of his darkest rituals and sacrifices.
Crowley was born in England to wealthy parents in the late 1800s.
He rebelled against his Christian upbringing, travelled the world, and compiled his own
philosophy to create a religion he would call Thelema.
At its core, the religion preached following one’s own will.
It included a number of pagan gods, including the Egyptian sun god, and Crowley believed
himself to be a prophet of a new age.
He and his two American lovers set up their Abbey in Cefalu (Cheh Fah Loo), a site which
was chosen after Crowley consulted a Chinese divination text.
The cottage would be both his own private dwelling and the spiritual centre of his new
religion.
A large circle was painted in red in one of the common rooms, with Thelemic deities around
the outside.
Here, he and Crowley’s followers would practice magic, rituals and, occasionally, sacrifices.
Crowley called his bedroom the Chamber of Nightmares.
He painted it with murals of dark, demonic looking entities, snakes, Thelemic symbols
and a large yellow cyclops.
Many of the rituals would include psychedelic substances which would make the murals come
to life.
Many now see the abbey and its practices as inspiration for the hippy movement, with free
love about as common as illegal substances.
However, there was a darker side, as many animals lost their lives in sacrifice and
children were allowed free roam of the building.
The abbey was eventually brought into the public eye after one of Crowley’s followers
lost his life.
According to Crowley, the man passed away after drinking from a spring Crowley had specifically
warned his followers not to drink from.
Betty May, wife of the follower and a British model, believed her husband passed away after
drinking remains from a sacrificed cat.
Betty told the papers in England, and the abbey made headlines around the world.
The Italian government banished Crowley from the country, and his abbey was soon abandoned.
The local people painted over the dark and gruesome images.
Some have been restored by followers who returned to the cottage years later, but much of the
graffiti that covers the walls today comes from modern visitors.
That doesn’t make the pictures of the site any less disturbing.
Number 3
It can be hard to imagine the modern world without humans.
Most of the more famous abandoned sites, while eerie themselves, weren’t big population
centres to begin with.
It’s hard to imagine an area as densely populated as Tokyo completely abandoned by
humans and taken over by nature.
Which is why Hashima Island is so disturbing.
Eerie pictures taken from within the concrete walls of the island are a small insight into
what major cities would look like decades after humans have left them behind.
Once state of the art apartments have become run down, walls have crumbled, and nature
has taken over.
The island itself has a dark and eerie history.
Hashima Island is otherwise known as Gunkanjima (Gunn Kinn Jih Muh), which roughly translates
to warship island.
And from a boat approaching the island or a helicopter hovering above, it’s easy to
see why it has been given the name.
Everything from the shape of the island to the positioning of the buildings makes it
resemble a battleship.
Though only about 16 acres in size, the little island played a major part in Japan’s industrial
revolution.
Coal was found on the island and, in 1890, the Mitsubishi company purchased the island
to exploit the natural resources.
Between 1887 and 1974, coal mines functioned on the island.
To accommodate the workers, seven-floor apartment blocks were built.
They were the first large reinforced concrete buildings in Japan.
Before long, living spaces were joined by schools, a hospital, and other facilities
for the island’s growing population.
At one point more than 5200 people lived on the island.
But the coal wouldn’t last forever, and nor would Japan’s reliance on it.
By the 1970s, the reserves were running low and there was little use for coal, as petroleum,
natural gas, and renewable energy sources became more commonplace.
The coal mines were closed and, almost overnight, the island was abandoned.
But the concrete walls of Hashima Island hide dark secrets.
Not every worker on the island was there willingly.
During World War two, Chinese prisoners of war and forced labourers from Korea were forced
to work in the mines.
Conditions were gruelling and inhumane.
Many labourers lost their lives.
When Japan applied to make the island a World Heritage site, they promised to build an education
centre explaining the dark history, though words like “forced labour” are omitted.
Number 2
In the heart of New York City is 22 acres of land completely devoid of human life.
This is North Brother Island in the East River, and it has been abandoned for half a century.
The island has seen more than its fair share of disease and decay.
Not only did it house a hospital for incredibly infectious diseases, it was also the site
of a tragedy that was New York’s biggest loss of life until 2001.
This tragedy was the sinking of the General Slocum, a ship that, in 1904, was chartered
to ferry women and children to a picnic on Long Island.
Halfway through the trip, a fire broke out in one of the ship’s machine rooms.
A 12-year-old boy tried to warn the captain of the incident, but he was ignored.
By the time any of the crew noticed the flames, it was impossible to get the blaze under control.
It reached a cabin filled with gasoline and the boat sank just off the shore of North
Brother Island.
The island was already home to a hospital at this point, and staff and patients rushed
out to help survivors.
321 people survived the incident, but more than a thousand lives were lost.
For days after the sinking, bodies washed ashore on the island.
Sadly, loss of life wasn’t something the island was unfamiliar with.
North Brother Island is, of course, most famous for the infectious disease hospital that housed
sufferers of smallpox, tuberculosis, and typhus.
The most famous of these residents was Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary.
Mary had the honour of becoming America’s first known asymptomatic character of the
disease, and she would unknowingly infect people as she went about her work as a cook.
When she was identified as the source of an outbreak, she was quarantined on the island,
but Mary never believed she really carried the disease.
She was held there against her will, refusing a treatment that would have, it was later
confirmed, stopped her from being infectious.
She managed to sue for release, but when she went back to working as a cook she was brought
back to the island where she would spend the rest of her life.
After the hospital closed, it became a housing complex for World War 2 veterans.
It was also temporarily a rehabilitation centre before being closed for good in 1964.
Today, it’s a bird sanctuary and off limits to visitors.
However, those who have visited have taken many creepy photos, and brought back stories
of ghostly cries that sound far too close to be coming from off the island.
Number 1
Creepy pictures of abandoned amusement parks can send a chill down anyone’s spine.
Some are abandoned due to manmade disasters.
Others close simply because they’re no longer profitable.
But in the case of Lake Shawnee, it seems the park was built on cursed land.
Lake Shawnee has a dark history.
Shortly after the creation of the United States, settlers headed west to claim land that had
belonged to Native Americans for thousands of years.
One of these settlers was Mitchell Clay, who established an 800-acre farm in what was then
western Virginia, on the edge of Lake Shawnee.
Clay and his wife had 14 children together and enjoyed a good life on what was then the
western frontier.
But the family came into conflict with the Native American tribe that had once lived
on the land they now called home.
Clay lost a number of his family members during the conflict, while he and other settlers
took the lives of several native Americans.
Not long after, the Clay family abandoned the farm.
The area would remain uninhabited for 144, until the 1920s, when an entrepreneur decided
it was the perfect place to build an amusement park.
The coal industry had been growing in the area, and Conley Snidow thought a place for
families to enjoy would be the perfect addition to the community.
It wasn’t an extravagant park, but featured circular swings, a water slide, man made ponds
and swimming holes, and a dance hall.
The park became relatively popular, but with that popularity came tragedy.
Health and safety at the park weren’t like it is today, and a number of patrons lost
their lives on the rides or in the swimming hole.
After about 40 years of operation, it closed for good in 1966.
There were rumours the land was cursed and, perhaps, it was.
In the 1980s, a developer purchased the land with the intention of building houses and
community spaces.
But almost as soon as construction began, workers made a horrible discovery: human bones.
The bones were not of some recent victim.
It would turn out the grave was that of someone who had passed away hundreds of years ago.
Further investigation found the site had once been a Native American burial ground.
While it may be cliché to say the land was cursed, the property developer decided not
to test fate.
Construction was abandoned, leaving us with these unsettling images.