10. Garnet - USA Garnet, once a flourishing gold mine settlement,
is now a ghost town in the American state of Montana. Abandoned in the early 1900s once the gold
ran out, stories that the town is now haunted may be the reason it was never resettled. Visitors to the town have reported hearing
unexplained sounds of a piano playing, while others claim to have seen visions or heard
disturbing noises. Interpretive historian Ellen Baumler, of the
Montana Historical Society, states that the town’s ghosts “hide in the shadows, laugh
in the wind, and come out when you least expect them.” Despite the town’s ghostly reputation, Garnet
is one of Montana’s best-preserved ghost towns, with 16,000 visitors annually. 09. Butugychag [boo-tooj-cha-hg] - Russia Butugychag in North East Russia was dubbed
Death Valley in local folklore, after nomadic tribes stumbled upon the area, finding it
covered in human skeletons. Shortly after the discovery, their entire
deer herd died of a mysterious illness, after eating the town’s grass. Decades later, between 1945 and 1955, the
site became a corrective labor camp, and prisoners were forced to mine the town’s rich uranium
deposits. Nearly 400,000 prisoners are suspected to
have died in the camp’s horrific conditions, due to radiation poisoning, which reduced
their life expectancy to just a few months. The site is also thought to have contained
a top-secret government medical research facility, which carried out unknown experiments on the
prisoners. Today, trespassers are warned against visiting
due to the town’s dangerously high radiation levels. 08. Oradour-sur-Glane [orra-door soor-glan] - France On 10th June 1944, 642 inhabitants of the
French village Oradour-sur-Glane were massacred by the Nazi Waffen-SS. The victims, including 205 children, were
locked into barns, sheds, and a church, before the buildings were set on fire. Those that tried to escape were shot to death. Only seven people in the whole village survived
the attack, 6 of them by hiding under the lifeless bodies of their neighbors. The burned village was never re-built and
is now a permanent memorial to the victims, and a reminder of the cruelty of Nazism. 07. Inchkeith Island [In-chya-eeth]- Scotland Inchkeith is a small island off the coast
of Scotland, which was used as a quarantine zone for the earliest cases of syphilis in
the 1400s. Sufferers dying of the disease were dropped
off on the isolated island and told to “remain till God provided for their health”. The island is more famous for King James IV’s
‘Forbidden Experiment’ in 1443, in which he dumped two young boys on the island to
be raised by a mute woman, in an attempt to discover God’s ‘original language’. Although unproven, it was reported that the
boys grew up to speak Hebrew. The island and its mysteries now belong to
philanthropist Sir Tom Farmer, and permission is needed to land on the historic land. 06. Bodie [bow-dee] - USA The American town of Bodie is California's
official gold rush ghost town. It was a booming town in the 1870s, but within
50 years it had been largely abandoned, due to gold reserves drying up. At its height, Bodie was a typical Wild West
town, with 65 different saloons lacing the main strip, while opium dens filled the back
streets. However, as early as 1915 Bodie had gained
a reputation as a ghost town. Surrounded by a cemetery, the derelict town
started to attract those looking for ghouls and an adventure. Today the town receives 200,000 visitors a
year, who stalk the deserted streets of a town frozen in the past. 05. Vila dos Descalvados [pronounced as spelt]
- Brazil Built on an Indian burial site, Vila dos Descalvados
in Brazil was abandoned in the 1980s. Only reachable by a 2-hour boat ride, the
town has a brutal history of prison barracks, African slaves, and torture victims. Now anacondas and bats are the only residents
of the town’s historic landmarks. Locals avoid the town, believing that it’s
haunted by a child ghost who asks visitors to play with her. Currently the only building open is a hotel,
so if you fancy a relaxing holiday...this probably isn’t the place for you. 04. Dudleytown - USA This Connecticut town became known as ‘the
village of the damned’ due to the mysterious curse surrounding it. Founded in the 1700s as a farming community,
its soil offered little yield, and it was soon abandoned. According to legend, the town’s founders
were descended from Edmund Dudley, an Englishman who had been beheaded and cursed after he
attempted to kill King Henry VII. Locals soon started the rumor that anyone
who takes something from the village will have a curse placed upon their family. Stories also circulated of past residents
going insane. Two committed suicide, and one of the women
supposedly saw vivid visions of demons before she killed herself. 03. Port Arthur - Tasmania The town Port Arthur, on the isolated island
Tasmania, held a prison for Britain’s worst criminals, who were exiled onto the island
until 1877. The prison’s experimental psychological
techniques, as well as its brutal punishments, made it one of the worst British-controlled
prisons. Some convicts even murdered fellow inmates
in the hope of getting the death penalty, just to escape life at the prison. The haunting stories of Port Arthur prisoners
and circulating ghost stories have brought popularity to the remaining prison ruins. 02. Helltown - USA Helltown is a village in Ohio, which was abandoned
after houses were purchased by the National Parks Service. They then demanded that all residents leave
the area. Rumors surfaced that this was due to the government
attempting to conceal a chemical spill in the area, after toxic waste was discovered
in a local dump. Previous residents share stories about a mutant
monster that lurks the area, while others believe that Satanists use the village for
their rituals. 01. Poveglia - Italy Poveglia is an island closed to Venice that
was used as a plague pit, with thousands of still-living victims being dumped there during
part of the Black Death period, from 1348 - 1350. Reportedly, so many diseased bodies were burned
in the pit that the island’s soil is now 50% human ash. In 1922 a huge insane asylum was built on
the island. A local legend emerged that the asylum was
run by a crazy doctor, who tortured and butchered his patients, before he went mad and committed
suicide. Archaeological studies even uncovered a skull
with a brick in its mouth, an old method thought to starve suspected vampires, and a chilling
reminder of the island’s dark past.
