Halloween is over, but the wicked places in our world didn't disappear together with it. They are thrilling the lovers of adrenalin and scary stories, who are willing to see something, from which normal tourists hastily run away. So, here are 10 the most horrible places in the world, one is scarier than another.
1. Mutter Museum of Medical History in Philadelphia.
Mutter Museum of Medical History in Philadelphia - is the museum of pathologies, old medical equipment and biological exhibit items; the museum is situated in the oldest in North America medical school complex. The museum is most famous for its giant collection of skulls; here are also gathered all kinds of unique exhibit items, for example a woman's dead body which turned into the soap in the soil where she was buried. Here are also Siamese twins with conjoined livers, the skeleton of two-headed child and other creepy showpieces.
2. Truk Lagoon in Micronesia. Much of Japanese Navy forces are now lying at the bottom of shallow Truk Lagoon in Micronesia, southwest of Hawaii. Blue depths, explored by Jacques Cousteau in 1971 and thick-sown with wrecks of battleships and aircraft carriers, sunk in the year 1944, became open for divers. However, some of them are still afraid of crews, which had not left their battle positions. Ships and planes had struck for a long time into the coral reefs, but still, new and too curious tourists who pry where they shouldn't, become their victims.
3. Sonora Witchcraft Market in Mexico City, Mexico
Mexico witches sitting in tight stalls are promising the quick riddance from poverty and spousal infidelity, and martyred exotic iguanas, frogs and wild birds are hanged for sale in the cages on the walls of the tents. Sonora market is opened everyday to pilgrims from Mexico City and tourists from far beyond who come here for fortune predictions and promises of better life. This is the place where the local population buys "supernatural" stuff, ranging from potions made according to ancient Aztec recipes to Buddha statues. Hard-headed enthusiasts may even buy here some blood of rattlesnake or dried hummingbirds for taming the luck. However, one should remember that witchcraft in Mexico is not a joke: the National Association of Sorcerers was engaged in presidential election in order to turn it into the honest and free one, using magical spells.
4. Easter Island, Chili
One of the most mysterious places on earth is Easter Island, with huge, cut out stone figures of giants, ingrown in the soil under the weight of millenniums. Statues are staring in the skies, as if they were guilty of some mystical crimes. Only the stone giants know where have disappeared the people who installed them. There is no one on the Easter Island who knows the secret of making, moving and installing of these giant statues with the height of 21 meters and weight of 90 tons. Though, they were often moved more than 20 kilometers away from the open cast where the ancient sculptors worked. Nowadays, the life is barely lingering on the island where a mighty civilization once flourished, and no one knows where did the mysterious constructors come from and where did they disappear. Of course, except those who have read Thor Heyerdahl in childhood. For them, all these mysteries - about making and installing the statues are no longer a secret.
5. Manchac Swamps in Louisiana
Boats with tourists, floating through the swamps in the torchlight are surrounded by old cypresses and long threads of moss hanging down from the branches of cypresses. The howl, sounding from afar could be that of rou-ga-rou - the Cajun version of werewolf.
Manchac Swaps are also called "ghost swaps". There are situated near New-Orleans and are the place, Goths are dreaming about. It is said that the swamps were cursed by a captured voodoo queen, in the beginning of XX th century. As a result, three villages disappeared during the hurricane in the year 1915. The repose of this birds' cemetery is disturbed only by the dead bodies, which surface time to time - this is the heritage of hundred years old commercial activities. Besides that, the alligators, which are more numerous than dead bodies will not strain at eating fresh tourist meat.
6. Paris Catacombs, France
Bones and skulls are packed on both sides of the corridor like goods in the warehouse - lots of goods. The air here is dry and bears only a slight hint of decomposition. Here are also some letterings, in general dating from the French Revolution, which are flagging king and noblemen. After getting inside the catacombs under Paris, it becomes clear why Victor Hugo and Anne Rice have wrote their famous stories about exactly these catacombs. They stretch for about 187 kilometers under the whole city and only insignificant part of them is opened to public. It is said that the rest of them are patrolled by special legendary underground police, though, most likely they are patrolled by legions of corpses. Or vampires. Well, who cares! The mines existed here in Roman times, and when in the year 1785 the Paris cemeteries were overflowing, the tunnels came into their present state.
7. Winchester House, San Jose, California
"Magical" Winchester House - a titanic construction with many superstitions referring to it. A fortune-teller has told Sarah Winchester, the heiress of arms company, that the ghosts of those who were killed with Winchester rifles will chase her, unless she leaves Connecticut, moves to the West and builds such a house, which could not be finished during all her life. The construction has started in San Jose, in the year 1884 and didn't stop for 38 years, till Sarah died. Nowadays, the ghosts of her madness live in 160 rooms of the house: there are stairs going straight into the ceiling, doors that open right in the middle of the wall, spider motifs, chandeliers and hooks. Since the house was opened to public, there are ceaseless complaints about clapping doors, sound of footsteps in the night, moving lights; door handles which turn by themselves. Even if tourists do not believe in ghosts, the place shocks by its immensity.
8. Mary King's dead-end in Edinburgh
Several streets with dark past hidden under the medieval Old Town in Edinburgh. The place, where in the XVII-th century the plague victims were closed up and left to die, is famous for its poltergeists. Something unknown touches tourists' hands and feet. It is said, that this is the ghost of Annie, a young girl who was left there by her parents in the year 1645. A hundred years later, like in scary fairy-tales, a big new building was built on the place of King's Close. In the year 2003 the Close was opened for tourists, who were attracted by the stories about its supernatural spirits.
Visitors will be guided down the stone stairs to the dark, oppressive lanes.
Except Annie's room there is an exposition of medieval life and deaths from plague reconstructed. The main thing is - do not stop when you feel the icy breath of death.
9. Occult Abbey of Thelema in Sicily
Aleister Crowley - is perhaps one of most odious occultists in the world, and this stone farm house filled with dark pagan wall-paintings, once was the cosmopolis of satanic orgies. At least, it was considered to be such in 1920-s.
Crowley is known because of his fans, such as Marilyn Manson and the fact that he appeared on the cover of Beatles' album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. Crowley has founded the Abbey of Thelema, named after the utopia described in Rabelais' 'Gargantua', whose motto was "Do what you want." It became the commune of free love. Newcomers had to spend night in "Room of Nightmares" where they, high on heroin and marijuana stared at frescoes of earth, skies and hell. After a popular English dandy had died in the Abbey, the media raised a stink, making Mussolini close this dodgy commune. Notorious clandestine stage director Kenneth Anger had dug out this story and shot a movie there, which later has mysteriously disappeared. Now the Abbey is half-ruined and grassed over. However, there are few frescoes left inside, with the help of which Crowley intimidated his followers.
Tourists, apt to esotericism can wander there and thrill themselves.
10. Chernobyl in Ukraine
Tourists, coming to Ukraine, in the abandoned city of Pripyat, find themselves in the exclusion zone. Here, all the stuff is left in hurry in that horrible 1986, when Chernobyl NPP accident made thousands of people leave their homes forever. The apartments are opened wide, ivy climbs up the painted walls of kindergarten, toys are lying around scattered, and newspapers are left opened on kitchen tables. Swings are still wiggling by the dead wind, creaking. Now, when the radiation level is safe for the short-time visits, Chernobyl zone is opened for tourists. All excursions to Chernobyl are almost the same, because the movements about exclusion zone are strictly limited. As a rule, tourists start from Kiev via bus, and then go to Chernobyl NPP on foot, then tour it and watch the "Sarcophagus". One could wander about the streets of ghost-town of Pripyat and visit the parking of contaminated vehicles. It is also possible to meet local self-settlers, the residents of "restricted zone."
