Top 10: Haunted Locations
We've all experienced it: an ill wind, a weird sound in the dark, that feeling of being watched. Most of the time it's nothing. It's just, as the saying goes, your mind playing tricks on you. Or so you tell yourself, just so that you can forget it and get back to real life.
Quite simply, when there are bills to pay, a mortgage to sweat out and a boss that won't stop riding you, there's just no time for the paranormal. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And it doesn't explain why every culture throughout history, from ancient Egyptians to 21st century Middle England, has a documented and thriving belief in spirits and their incarnations. Of course, you've every right to dismiss this whole business as child's play, and stop reading right here. And odds are you'll never be proven wrong. But if even a single doubt lingers, you might try visiting some of these places, and see for yourself how easy it is to stay a non-believer.
Number 10
The Campground Haunted Massacre Attraction, Fort Mill, South Carolina
There's no obscene history to the campground attraction, but the owners have done everything they can think of -- and that includes witchcraft and the occult -- just to scare the hell out of you. Proud members of The International Association Of Haunted Attractions and devoted attendees of the Annual National Halloween, Costume & Party Show in Chicago know a thing or two about the joy of fear.
Besides the fact that camping in the woods is a naturally ghoulish pastime, when you're told about werewolf sightings and, in all seriousness, about the mental hospital just down the road, things can become a little spine tingling.
Number 9
Moscow's Underground, Russia
In a city that is nearly 900 years old, what you see is rarely what you get, especially in Moscow, where centuries of bloodthirsty dictators, unrelenting communists and whimsical czars have made the ability to dip below the radar a matter of survival -- hence the city's vast underground network of tunnels, plunging down some 700 meters on 15 different levels.
It is here that you will find a network of abandoned bunkers, supply depots, massive vaults, and subway tunnels that, over the centuries, have been home to hobos, dissidents, artists, and exiles. Moscow's mole men, who call themselves the Diggers of the Underground Planet, have rediscovered ghastly relics like the torture chamber built by Ivan the Terrible in the 1580s and a pond that was the site of a mass suicide. And though they won't take you to see these two sites, the Diggers do take visitors on tours.
Number 8
Brissac Castle, Loire Valley, France
This particular castle is as ornate and indulgent as French castles get. With seven floors and over two hundred rooms, no expense was spared for this Loire Valley marvel when it was rebuilt in 1633. Ceilings are painted with gold and the tapestry collection is breathtaking, as is the wood-carved furniture and columns made of glass crystal.
It wouldn't be a bad place to live, except for the fact that it's haunted by the ghost of Jacques de Breze's wife, Charlotte, and her lover. Both were assassinated, and Jacque de Breze sold the castle right after their deaths. Legend has it he couldn't stand the nighttime moaning of the ghost lovers, while he slept alone.
Scared yet? Then move along, tough guy...
Number 7
Dragsholm Slot, Hørve in Sealand, Denmark
Not all phantoms are ill-tempered, and as proof you need look no further than the gray lady of Dragsholm Slot. Once a fair maiden, the gray lady haunts the halls eternally looking to do good and make sure that everything is in order, as a token of her gratitude for having a painful toothache cured right before her death.
Slightly less helpful is the white lady. Another noble maiden, she kept up a secret love affair with a commoner until the day they were both caught, and was then imprisoned inside the castle by her father. In the early 1930s, one lucky tourist managed to poke a finger hole through a piece of crumbling mortar and ended up discovering a skeleton wrapped in a dress. Needless to say, tourism is still going strong.
Number 6
Hacker House, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
The legend of the Hacker House goes back centuries, and it is continually evolving, as terrible events continue to plague this ill-omened house. It rests upon a Native American mass grave, where several dozen bodies lay, aged 20-25 and deposed execution-style, but in such a way that has baffled archaeologists because there was no evidence of weapons or struggle. And indeed Cherokee lore says that the place is cursed, a place, "where the brave may not walk, as his prayers would not be answered."
Further evidence of evil play came in 1821, from signed affidavits given by Continental Army soldiers claiming to have had a gun battle with dozens of undead. A century later, the Hacker House was a hospital and laboratory. Though reports are unclear, several bodies were excavated after a great fire in 1930, and they were found to be curiously hollow.
Experimental documentation by a Dr. Johnas Hacker seemed to indicate that the hollowing was a result of the experimental medicines ingested by his patients. Rebuilt, the house was turned into a funeral parlor where things went predictably unwell. Now people seem to have smartened up. It is possible to take tours of Hacker House, but don't nobody live there.
Number 5
Pollepel Island, Hudson River, New York
The island has a morbid history, having been strategically important during the American War of Independence. Later, in the early 1900s, the island was bought by a Scotsman, Francis Bannerman, who decided to turn it into an homage to Scotland. A firearms maker, he built a warehouse in the style of a Scottish castle, complete with crenellated towers.
But after his death in 1918, the smooth-running Scottish enclave experienced a series of disasters. Two hundred pounds of powder and shells exploded, blowing half a building onto New York City. Lightning bolts seemed to torment the flagpoles to the point of disintegration. And in a coup de grâce, a massive storm on the Hudson caused a freighter and passenger barge, the Pollepel, to explode and crash into the island. Now all that's left are the remains, and what the Dutch refer to as the Heer of Dunderberg, a fiend (and his goblins) who inhabits the Highlands and doesn't like visitors.
What was that? It was nothing, go on...
Number 4
Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California
When Sarah Winchester's husband died in 1881, she got a case of the spooks. The gun maker's widow became convinced that she needed protection from the evil spirits of all the people killed by Winchester rifles. (Winchester Model 1873 was affectionately known as "the gun that won the West.") Her spiritual counselor advised her to find a house that would attract good spirits, but confuse evil ones.
Instead of moving, however, the widow hired a team of carpenters and craftsmen to add rooms to the Victorian mansion indefinitely. The expansion continued for 31 years until her death in 1922. After Sarah's death, the workers began hearing their names being whispered from the deserted hallways, as well as footsteps; one of them claimed to see the widow's ghost. They all decided to look for new work shortly thereafter.
Number 3
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland
This magnificent castle is typically medieval, perched atop a rocky crag, giving it an amazing vista of Scottish hills. But inside the empty halls and narrow streets of Edinburgh, there are the echoes of the dead. At least, that's what has been reported. Hot spots for specters include the castle's prison cells, the South Bridge vaults and Mary's King Close, a disused street used to quarantine and eventually entomb victims of the plague.
There are also reports of ghost dogs, a headless drummer, and the bodies of prisoners taken during the French seven-year war and the American War of Independence. In fact, there was such a glut of reports that in 2001, a scientific research team headed by Dr. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire, set out to find quantitative proof.
Number 2
Alcatraz, San Francisco, California
Lionized in the recent action film The Rock and the classic, Escape from Alcatraz, America's most infamous prison has a concrete reputation. It stems from the likes of gunners like Al Capone and Clyde Hicks, and the fact that no one has ever escaped successfully in the 29 years that it held prisoners.
Officially opening its doors in Civil War times, the Rock was transformed into a brutal prison in 1933. Its warden, James A. Johnson told each new prisoner: "Take each day of your sentence one day at a time. Don't think how far you have to go, but how far you've come." A firm believer in tough love, several prisoners died in the Hole -- cellblock D -- often from self-inflicted wounds. And that's the source of most of the reports of inexplicable crashing sounds, cell doors mysteriously closing, unearthly screams, and intense feelings of being watched.
Number 1
Bran Castle, Transylvania, Romania
In a remote corner of Carpathian Mountains in Romania, the tale of Count Dracula played out. The legend of the count dates back to the 15th century, and is based on Prince Vlad Tepes (Vlad, the Impaler) or Vlad Dracula (Vlad, son of the Dragon), a ruthless defender of Christianity.
The Count is best known for routing an army of 20,000 attacking Ottomans, and impaling them, rectum to sternum, in surrounding forests. In this bastion of gothic architecture it is possible to retrace the journey of Bram Stoker's vampire hunter, Jonathan Harker, along the Bargau Pass and up to Dracula's infamous Bran Castle.
Spooky Stuff
These are but a few of the world's spiritually active locations. Of course, if you can't make it out to Transylvania but are interested in interacting with the dead, you can always organize a séance for all your believer friends. Or if you prefer, you can just declare your skepticism and avoid the whole thing altogether. As the Marquise du Deffand once said: "Do I believe in ghosts? No, but I'm afraid of them."
Resources:
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Top ten places to spot a ghost
Oct 29 2003
AS Halloween approaches, author Richard Holland looks at some of the best locations for finding ghosts in North Wales
Daily Post
WALES is the spookiest country in the world. That's the conclusion I've come to after years of research into ghosts.
I am convinced Wales has more haunted places per square mile than anywhere else. And its ghosts are among the scariest on record!
So, when I was asked by the Daily Post to compile the Top Ten spookiest places in North Wales, I found it no easy task. It was no help that Welsh ghosts like to roam abroad - they are not all tied to traditional haunted houses - and even celebrated beauty spots can be terrifying places after dark.
Here then, is my attempt at a Spooky Top Ten. It is based on quantities of ghosts in one place, and on the quality of the ghosts, that is to say how creepy or grotesque they are. You may know of spookier places - if so, I would be delighted to hear about them!
10
At number 10 in our countdown of Spooky Places is the village of Marford in Wrexham. Marford was once so badly haunted that the houses, and even the pub, had crucifixes put on them to scare off the ghost!
Lady Margaret Blackbourne is the phantom concerned; she was cruelly murdered by her husband in the 18th century and her unhappy spirit took to wandering through the village, terrifying the inhabitants. The crucifixes are still there, some in the form of cross-shaped windows, but they may not be wholly successful - some say Lady Margaret's ghost is still sometimes seen.
9
The countdown continues with the well-known Faenol estate near Bangor, in Gwynedd (above). The thousands who flock to the music festival here each year have so far escaped the attentions of the weird bird-like phantom which has been known to perch in a tree making more noise even than Bryn Terfel.
The ghost is said to shriek at passers-by:
"Woe! woe's me that I ever put
"A handle to my axe
"To fell the trees of Faenol!'
Tradition has it that this is the spirit of a man who was executed for unlawfully cutting down trees on the estate.
8
Almost as weird, but thankfully silent, is the apparition which creeps among the trees at the Old Warren, a lonely, wood-bound road which leads from Broughton, in Flintshire, to ... absolutely nowhere. The road is now a dead end (in more ways than one) and the lack of traffic and shady nooks has long made it a popular place for courting couples.
Hopes of enjoying a canoodle undisturbed, however, may be dashed by the spectre of a tall, black-clad clergyman, who swoops down disapprovingly on any young lovers he finds. No one knows the identity of this phantom prude, but his alarming behaviour had startled many a young couple mid-snog.
7
We go indoors now, to the venerable mansion of Berain at Llannefydd in Denbighshire. This old house was once the home of Catrin Tudur, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. According to legend, she had seven husbands - and murdered all of them for their money. She did this in a particularly bizarre and horrid way; she would wait until they were asleep and then pour molten lead into their ears! Catrin now haunts the house, and unfortunately for her, so do the angry spirits of her seven husbands.
6
Arguably the most famous haunted house in North Wales is Plas Teg, just off the dual carriageway between Mold and Wrexham. The 17th century manor house is haunted by a young girl who drowned in a well, but the road which runs past it is even more haunted.
Many startled drivers have had to slam on the brakes outside Plas Teg, convinced that they have run someone over. But no body or injured person has ever been found, even though on at least one occasion the police helicopter and sniffer dogs were employed to find the victim!
5
Our next location is just inside Wales, on the border of Powys with Shropshire. High on a craggy limestone hill above the village of Llanymynech there is an ancient disused mine working, called the Ogof (Welsh for cave).
For years the Ogof had a sinister reputation. It was said that if you stepped within five paces of it, the cave mouth would drag you inside and you would be lost forever! A musician named Ned Pugh once entered the Ogof armed only with his fiddle and some candles, convinced that he could walk the length of the cavern and emerge from another cave near Llanymynech.
He was never seen alive again.
His corpse, however, was seen one night, hovering in the entrance to the cave, its arms fiddling some crazy, devilish tune.
4
Glyn Diffwys is a deep, steep-sided chasm near Llangwm, in Conwy. From ancient times this valley has formed part of an important route through North Wales.
Its gloom and seclusion made it an ideal place for bandits to waylay and murder solitary travellers.
In time, it was said that at night the gorge became crowded with the spirits of the robbers' victims, all vainly waiting for the day when their bodies might receive a Christian burial.
3
Almost as many ghosts haunt the parish of Beddgelert in Gwynedd - and they are even more frightening. The famous beauty spot of the Aberglaslyn Pass takes on another character at night. It is haunted by a phantom horseman, "a figure of fire'", and a huge, black dog.
Near the village a short stretch of the River Colwyn was haunted by the echoing screams of an unfortunate maiden drowned there by her faithless lover centuries before. The old manor house of Plas Gwynant was haunted by a noisy, violent poltergeist.
One night, the young woman who lived there looked out of her back door and saw something so horrible that she died of fright!
2
Just one ghost is sufficient for the runner-up spot. That's because this ghost is easily the most mysterious, the most ghastly to look upon and the most aggressive on record.
One night in the Gloddaeth Woods, near Llandudno, a poacher climbed a tree overlooking a foxes' den. As he sat patiently waiting to bag the foxes, he heard an eerie moaning noise coming towards him through the woods.
Then 'a horrible sight was presented to the frightened man's view':
"There he saw before him, a nude being with eyes burning like fire, and these glittering balls were directed towards him. The awful being was only a dozen or so yards off.
"And now it crouched, and now it stood erect, but never for a single instant withdrew its terrible eyes from the miserable man in the tree, who would have fallen to the ground were it not for the protecting boughs."
The horrible thing kept the poor man in this state of dread all night. At last, the sun rose and the apparition vanished.
Whatever it was no one knows, but it could be haunting that woodland still.
1
Far and away the most badly haunted place in North Wales - if we count numbers of ghosts and their ability to scare - is, or rather was, the valley of the Vyrnwy at Llanwddyn in Powys.
In the 1870s the local vicar made a list of all the ghosts which haunted the valley. He counted an unlucky 13 of them!
One appeared as "a large bull", another as a pack of hounds and another as "sheets of light". One had the habit of "pelting passers-by with mud and dirt".
Another was capable of killing sheep and yet another had the habit of forcing night-bound travellers to hand over their money (although the latter sounds like a fake ghost of the Scooby Doo variety to me).
The most worrying thing is that some years after the vicar compiled his list, this horribly haunted valley was flooded to create the Vyrnwy Reservoir - immersing all those spooks within its waters. Now that water is piped to thousands of homes, and is being drunk every day in countless cups of tea.
Personally, I think I'll stick to the Evian!
Richard Holland is the author of Supernatural Clwyd; the Folk Tales of North-East Wales and Haunted Wales. In preparation is Haunted Wales, the Authoritative Guide to Welsh Ghostlore, to be published early next year. If you have had any spooky experiences yourself, Richard would be delighted to hear about them. Please contact him care of featureswales@dailypost.co.uk
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ON THE FRIGHT ROAD
Oct. 29, 2004
A75 is Scots most haunted
By Rod Mills
A STRETCH of road in Dumfriesshire is the most haunted in Scotland, a survey has claimed.
Researchers approached ghosthunters from across the UK to find the area with the most reports of ghostly goings-on.
And the A75 between Gretna and Annan came third in the Vauxhall Top 10 of Britain's most haunted roads.
Reports of haunted happenings on the A75 date back several decades.
Drivers have reported seeing a man wearing a hessian sack on his head who vanishes when they get close to him.
Other mysterious sightings include a man in his 30s wearing a red top who also jumps in front of cars and then disappears.
And the chilling figure of an old man with no eyes has been spotted leaning against a wall near the road several times.
Ian Addicoat, president of the Paranormal Research Organisation who helped research the list, said: 'There has been a definite rise in interest in the paranormal in the UK due to programmes such as Most Haunted.
'More and more people are jumping into their cars and driving to ghoulish hotspots to have some fun and experience the unexplained first hand.'
Veteran Scottish ghosthunter Tom Robertson, 68, agreed the A75 was a place of high activity for paranormal sightings.
He said: 'It's a very old route that has lots of history and that might have something to do with it.'
Ghostly road - Rated most haunted in Britian - November 2, 2004
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Haunted by the past
Vampires in London? Angels in Budapest? Cities hold hints that we still believe in the supernatural
By Yvonne Cook
05 April 2005
"People in cities are meant to be objective, rational, above superstition. Modernity was meant to have eliminated things like belief in ghosts. But it simply isn't so," Dr Steve Pile asserts.
His research in three cities - London, Singapore and New Orleans - has shown they are simply teeming with haunted sites. A catalogue of spooky experiences is recorded in his new book, Real Cities, which has raised eyebrows among some academics who doubt that the supernatural can be the subject of serious academic research.
Dr Pile disagrees. "Geographers for some time have been interested in how people think about and respond to places, and what difference these feelings make to how places get produced. I am particularly interested in the role of fantasy and imagination in the production of places," he says.
His research suggests that ghosts are almost always associated with a particular place, and with some kind of traumatic past event. "In Singapore, quite a lot are associated with the occupation by the Japanese between 1942 and 1945," he said.
"When the Japanese first arrived they rounded up a large number of Chinese men from prominent families, took them to various beaches around Singapore, and shot them. Nowadays young kids go to the beach and stay overnight, and many come back and report seeing Japanese soldiers and feeling themselves being shot."
Ghosts don't just haunt places which are old or spooky. "There are a lot of apparitions in Singapore reported in very new tower blocks. It usually turns out that the tower block was built on the site of an old cemetery."
In London, ghosts often inhabit buildings built on the site of "plague pits", where the bodies of victims of the dreadful 17th century epidemic were buried en masse. "People have seen ghost rats, and ghost flies emerging from the ground and swarming round," said Dr Pile. Titled ghosts are quite common ("aristocrats who have jumped off tall buildings or died in various other horrible ways"), as well as ghosts connected with the wartime Blitz.
In New Orleans, on the other hand, hauntings tend to reflect the influence of the city's French past and its association with slavery. "A ghost called Julie who was the slave-mistress of a French-Creole gentleman appears on the top-floor balcony of 732 Royal Street," said Dr Pile.
"The two were very much in love. One day the gentleman's family called unexpectedly and he asked Julie to go out onto the balcony and wait while he told his family about their love. She was almost naked - in some stories completely naked - and it was a winter's night. She waited and waited but he never came, and eventually she died of cold."
Ghosts are associated with the feeling that "something bad has not gone away", Dr Pile suggests. "On the one hand ghosts are quite reassuring, because they suggest there is an afterlife. On the other hand they are recalling something about the past which is still quite troubling." In the case of Julie "the traumas associated with slavery are being replayed". And while the great fires that swept New Orleans and gave rise to many ghost stories are in the past, New Orleans residents still live with the knowledge that their city is very vulnerable to fire.
"I can't prove it, but I guess every city in the world has ghost stories," Dr Pile says. And not just ghosts. New Orleans and London are apparently riddled with vampires. Budapest, on the other hand, is packed with angels. But do sophisticated city-dwellers really believe the stories they tell?
As part of his research Dr Pile has been on the popular tourist "ghost walks" through London. "There were usually about 10 or 12 people. We would start out very light-hearted, but by about halfway through some people would be really spooked - they would start hearing things and saying, 'What's that shadow?'"
In one well-known experiment conducted by psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, a group of students were taken to different locations in the Edinburgh catacombs. About one-third reported feeling some kind of unusual sensation; and, bizarrely, they were most likely to be in the locations where ghostly happenings had been reported in the past.
"Even where people don't want to believe it, some part of them cannot dismiss the possibility," Dr Pile says. "This may be because we do not really know the truth - to prove that ghosts do not exist is very difficult."
He believes those involved in shaping our cities should take people's leanings towards the supernatural on board. "Part of the point of calling the book Real Cities is that the things I am describing are real, they reveal real issues and the legacies of real events," he says.
"The first concern is that we do not pay enough attention to the irrational. I am not suggesting that we start building creepy basements, but there may be ways in which we can create magical places.
"Secondly, very often ghosts are associated with the sense that something bad happened in the past and we have not quite dealt with it. Perhaps we need to think about ways of memorialising events, or maybe an apology is needed.
"In New Orleans there is this huge legacy of slavery which is not really talked about. Maybe they need to deal with it in a better way. Otherwise the ghosts will just keep coming back."
Dr Steve Pile is an urban and cultural geographer, and helped create Open University courses Understanding Cities and a Living in a Globalised World. 'Real Cities: Modernity, Space and Phantasmagorias of City Life' is published by Sage Publications
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Top Ten Spookiest Places to Visit: ( 2005 )
Some based in reality - some based in Legend.
10 - Shanghai Tunnels in Portland Oregon
9 - Jailer's Inn in Bardstown Kentucky
8 - Okanagan Lake ( Ogopogo: Lake Monster ) in Kelowna BC
7 - Bigfoot Country in woods just outside Cresent City, California
6 - Crocodiles ( Crock Country ) in the Canals of Florida City
5 - French Quarter ( Spirits, Vampires, Voodoo ) of New Orleans
4 - Dinosaur National Park in Colorado
3 - Salem Witches ( Salem Witch Museum ) in Salem, MA
2 - Denver Mega Maze in Denver Colorado ( 15 miles North of Denver CO and open in September and October )
1 - Bat City ( One and a half million bats ) in Austin Texas
Top Ten Places of Mystery
10. Crystal Skulls - Southern Mexico
9. Nazca Lines - Nazca Peru
8. Bermuda Triangle - Atlantic Ocean
7. Ark of the Covenant - Ethiopia
6. House of Mystery - Oregon Vortex - Oregon
5. The Boston Strangler - Boston
4. The Loch Ness Monster - Inverness, Scotland
3. Crop Circles - Avebury, England
2. Easter Island Giants - Easter Island, Chile
1. Jack the Ripper - London England
Scream GB - BRITAIN’S spookiest cities have been pinpointed in a new survey of supernatural shenanigans. Ghost expert Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe looked at how many sightings had been recorded per 10,000 population in each place. Derby’s 14 per 10,000, 315 in total since records began, turned out to be the phantoms’ favourite. Here we bring you hair-raising highlights from the ten creepiest corners of the country. - 8/26/08
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