7 of the freakiest places on the planet

Human bones, headless dolls, a death ward. That abandoned house on the outskirts of town has nothing on these truly frightening places

By CNNGo staff 31 October, 2012

Where Stephen King could get inspired: the abandoned Chernobyl Amusement Park. (Image courtesy Jeroen Koch)

Scary sells. Whatever the nature of their flesh, the spirits of the dead rake in very real profits when it comes to sightseeing.

The Haunted House Association in the United States claims profits of up to US$500 million from domestic haunted house ticket sales.

The tourists shelling out are doing so for a giddy but ultimately safe experience.  

The places featured on our list below are less about the sort of commercial scare that you can buy at an amusement park.

This is the real deal. 

These sites are authentically and unintentionally weird, macabre and mysterious.

Also on CNN: Video: On the trail of a Hong Kong ghost

1. Chernobyl Amusement Park: Pripyat, Ukraine

An amusement park that threatens your life.

Deserted amusement parks can be creepy enough, but at Chernobyl Amusement Park, in the ghost town of Pripyat, Ukraine, the reason for abandonment makes the place not only creepy, but hazardous. 

The 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant closed down the plant and caused the evacuation of the entire city, rendering this amusement park useless.

While the people have long since departed, the radiation remains. 

Britain's Lupine Travel and Ukraine-based Solo East Travel both conduct tours to Chernobyl and its park.

Also on CNN: Haunted Shanghai: The phantoms of Qiu mansion

2. Sedlec Ossuary: Czech Republic

Human bone: the most ecologically friendly material of all.

The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel in Sedlec, Czech Republic. It also contains the skeletal remains of about 40,000 human beings dispersed throughout the interior in artistically arranged designs.

The most notable creations made of human bones are the chandelier in the center of the room and the coat of arms of the Schwarzenbergs -- the most blue-blooded of Bohemian aristocrats -- on the left. 

It's difficult not to let your imagination run wild when pondering the sort of sick mind that conceived of things like a chandelier of human bones. 

But the real motive behind it all is quite prosaic: it was simply a matter saving space. 

These bones were freely given from the bodies of devout Roman Catholics all over Europe who clamored to be buried here after the Abbot of Sedlec went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1278 and brought back soil from Golgotha where Jesus had supposedly been crucified. 

So many wanted to be buried in Golgotha's soil that the chapel was turned into an ossuary. The remains of the previously buried were dug up and rearranged in the 16th century: a practical if somewhat disquieting way to use limited burial space in a thrifty way. 

Open daily (except December 24 and 25) 9 a.m.-4 p.m., give or take an hour, depending on the date. Check the website for the updated schedule. Admission is 60 koruna (about US$3) per person. It is worth noting that the council in charge of the ossuary's preservation considers it a sacred place. 

Also on CNN: Haunted Hong Kong

3. Aokigahara Forest: Mount Fuji, Japan

It may look perfectly pretty and tranquil -- then again, so do many of these places.

Aokigahara Forest, at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, is a densely wooded forest that's sometimes called the "Sea of Trees" and sometimes called the "suicide forest." 

It's become something of a mecca for those who want to take their lives; 54 people committed suicide in Aokigahara Forest in 2010. The denseness of the woods means that it's likely that not all the bodies have been discovered. 

The magnetic iron in the soil also renders compasses useless, and the forest itself is uncannily quiet and said to be haunted by angry Japanese spirits.

4. Akodessewa Fetish Market: Lomé, Togo

Medicine for voodoo practitioners.

As the largest fetish market in the world, Akodessewa Fetish Market in Lomé, Togo is a haven for voodoo practitioners.

By fetish, we're referring to talismans that are used in voodoo healing. Things like crocodile heads, chimpanzee hands, cobras and bones. Lots of bones.

These things (or parts of things) are sold as ingredients to be ground up, mixed with herbs and cooked over a fire. The resulting black powder is rubbed into a cut on the patient's chest, hopefully curing him of whatever brought him there in the first place. 

This makes the market, in effect, one giant pharmacy, and while there's nothing bad about that, it may be difficult to keep your cool amidst tables piled with the desiccating, grinning heads of cheetahs and hyenas or unidentifiable, vaguely humanoid skulls laid out like melons at the local grocer's.

Peregrine Adventures conducts tours to Togo's spookiest market; www.peregrineadventures.com

Also on CNN: The haunted Beijing walking tour

5. La Isla de las Muñecas: Teshuilo Lake, Mexico

Hi, friend.

La Isla de las Muñecas, or the Island of the Dolls, is the stunningly morbid creation of a man named Don Julian Santana, who lived as a hermit on an island for some 50 odd years until his death in 2001. 

During his time there he amassed an impressively ghastly collection of dismembered, broken dolls and hung them on tree branches around the island, where they hang to this day, like sacrifices. 

It looks cruel and disturbing, but the backstory is surprisingly sweet.

Although there are several versions of the legend, they all converge upon the idea that Don Julian dedicated the dolls to the spirit of a little girl who had drowned in the canal.

Whether he communicated with the spirit, or whether the drowned girl had actually existed, are all points of contention. 

But Don Julian just wanted to give his ghostly friend some toys to play with. 

The otherwise uninhabited island is located 29 kilometers away from Mexico City, Mexico, on Teshuilo Lake, near the canals of Xochimilco.  

6. Battleship Island: Nagasaki, Japan

The infamous "Stairway to Hell" on Gunkanjima.

Hashima Island, also known as Gunkanjima (meaning "Battleship Island" as the island resembles a warship) is a 60,000-square-meter cluster of concrete ruins in the sea by Nagasaki, Japan. 

In the 1950s it was the bustling home of thousands of coal mine workers. Hashima Island has been abandoned since 1974 when the coal mines shut down.

There's always something a bit sinister about deserted islands.

Isolation is a double-edged sword; being surrounded by sea might mean an excellent vacation getaway, or getting stranded with no place to run. 

A visit to Hashima Island feels like the latter. The dilapidated buildings and abandoned belongings of the former coal miners make this place feel like the most desolate island on Earth.

Although Hashima was entirely closed off until 2009, travelers are now allowed to visit. 

For more information, check the Nagasaki Tourist Information Center: +81 95 823 3631; 1-1 Onoue-machi, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki

7. Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital: Gyeonggi, Korea

South Korea's creepiest place.

The story of this abandoned psychiatric hospital reads like a textbook plot of a horror film.

According to local legend, patients started dying mysteriously at the hospital 10 years ago, eventually forcing its closure.

It is now an abandoned, dirty building with only the most disturbing remnants of its former life, such as rusted wire fences and disintegrating examination chairs.

The hospital is famed as one of South Korea's three major haunted sites, the others being the Youngdeok haunted house, roamed by ghosts from the Korean War, and the Neulbom Garden, a former restaurant where it's said that you can still hear the sound of dishes being washed in the kitchen

The 8 Creepiest Places on Earth

We all know that horror movies are fiction, but that doesn't stop us from checking under the bed after every episode of Scooby-Doo. Fear tends to turn off the rational part of our brains, which is why even the most reasonable human beings occasionally find themselves sprinting away from little girls with wet hair hanging over their faces. But then there are some places you can take one look at and be certain -- just from a process of pure and logical deduction -- that they're home to terrible monsters. Surely, if the right combination of dopey, well-meaning everymen, sassy heroines, sex-crazy teens and arrogant jock types went to any one of these places with a few helmet cams and an ample supply of tube tops, we could all see what happens when horror stops being polite, and starts being real.

(Oh, and in case you were worried about falling asleep sometime in the next week -- like maybe you've got a big test to study for or something -- here are parts 1, 2 and 3 in the series.)

#8. The Literal Mayan Hell

Mayan Musings

Archaeologists in the Yucatan have found something interesting: the literal entrance to hell.

Ricardo Barraca

Well, at least as far as the Mayans were concerned. The site archaeologists uncovered back in 2008 was a vast network of underground and underwater caves, crisscrossed with concrete roads, ominous columns and ruined temples. A group of hapless grad students stumbling upon an ancient, mysterious, buried city is more than enough to kick start the Lovecraft engine all on its own, but this story goes straight up horror cliche right abooouuuut now:

ZGeek
All that time spent playing "the floor is lava" would come in handy.

The Mayans believed that hell was a very specific place located in a network of underground caves beneath the jungles of the Yucatan. More specifically, they believed that the souls of the recently deceased started their journey into the afterlife being led through a pitch black, watery, subterranean maze by a mystical dog that could see perfectly in the dark. The deceased were plagued on every side by unseen creatures, harried and tortured until the death-pooch eventually brought them before a giant column, which sat on the lip of a deep pool that led to Xibalba -- their word for hell.

And that's exactly what the researchers found: an ornate system of caves, full of ancient temples and crumbling pathways that eventually led to a giant column on the edge of a deep, dark pool. Littered all throughout the site, they've found the expected remnants -- statues of priests, ceramics, human remains ...

usatoday
Hey, this was the Mayans, after all: It just ain't a party until somebody stabs a virgin.

While some of the researchers believed that they'd found the inspiration behind the myth, others think that the belief predates the caves -- that the Mayans found a place that looked a lot like hell, so they just up and built themselves a hell down there. Hired some contractors, released a couple of bats, fed a bunch of carrots to a dog, and Bob's your uncle -- you got yourself a damnation. Either way, just imagine being that first Mayan expert, stumbling down a hole in the jungle and uncovering an elaborate set of ruins. As you trod down the broken concrete road, a sense of deja vu overtakes you. Haven't you heard of something like this before? Something in your studies? Folklore, maybe? When you finally come across the huge column with the human remains and black pool at its base, it clicks: This is hell. This is exactly like the hell the Mayans were talking about in their sacred book.

We don't care how rational you are, if a dog panted right then, you would pee. You would pee forever.

#7. Scott's Hut

Tas50

Antarctica is a vast and frozen continent. It's so cold and merciless that it is a natural setting for horror. At the Mountains of Madness, The Thing, Alien vs. Predator -- even the sun doesn't want to stick around that place when winter sets in, leaving it in perpetual darkness for six months out of the year. Intrepid explorers usually come armed to the teeth with GPS systems, high-tech arctic clothing and enough advanced survival gear to bring Bear Grylls to a shuddering climax. It's plenty terrifying enough, and that's before the angry ghosts show up to take their homes back. Hold up, let us explain:

Back in the olden days, a lot of people were incredibly excited at the prospect of finding the South Pole, despite explorers having a nasty habit of dying horribly in the lethal conditions down there. One such explorer was Robert Falcon Scott, a man with the kind of heroic name and tasseled shoulder pads that secured him a place in history.

A dark, cold, bitter place.

Wikipedia
"And this medal is for heroically leading others to their death."

In the winter of 1911, Robert Scott and his men left the relative safety of their base camp, a 50-foot-by-25-foot timber and seaweed hut, and set out on a mission to reach the South Pole. Scott and four companions managed to attain the pole in January 1912, but were historically cockblocked when they discovered that another team had already beat them to it by more than a month. Scott's party dejectedly began the 800-mile journey back, but before reaching the safety of their hut, the entire group perished in the ice.

Wikipedia
In retrospect, betting all their supplies that they'd make it there first was a poor choice.

Their tent and frozen remains were not discovered until the next winter, along with Scott's diary with the final, shakily written entry reading: "It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott. For God's sake look after our people."

Holy shit, those are some ominous last words. They totally belong in a horror movie trailer; they sound like they should be frantically whispered over a montage of people running.

The hut that Scott was so desperately trying to reach was abandoned after, y'know, everybody living there died, and it was completely forgotten ... for about 40 years, until a U.S. expedition dug it back out of the snow. The building was found perfectly preserved by the cold, right down to the tomato ketchup and delicious cans of ox tongue, as though still awaiting the return of its hungry, forsaken owners. It looks like this:

Wikipedia
"This Spam still hasn't reached its expiration date."

So if you ever happen to be stuck in the howling icy wastes at the bottom of the world, with the sun about to vanish for six months and the temperature dropping rapidly, go ahead and seek shelter here. It looks like a pretty comfortable place, actually, even if there are restless dead with famously unfinished business whose last wish on earth was just to come home to it. But yeah, you settle on in. Help yourself to some uncannily preserved century-old ox tongue. Just, uh ... don't answer the door if somebody comes knocking.

#6. This Abandoned Russian Laboratory

English Russia

A group of Russian "urban explorers" were out doing their thing -- drinking "cologne" out of a giant novelty bottle and foolishly discussing the merits of single-stripe track pants over the clearly superior two-stripe variety -- when they discovered something weird: a sealed building full of disused lab equipment and strange little glass jars. When they wiped the dust off, this is what they saw:

English Russia
The Soviet ending of Red Alert 2?

Yep. Brains. Pickled brains in jars, sealed up in an abandoned laboratory beneath Moscow. It was a long-forgotten relic of the Cold War, a secret Soviet installation that had been hastily abandoned for no apparent reason. There's no specific date listed, but one of their finds was a weathered image of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev gathering dust beneath a preserved, disembodied brain in a jar.

English Russia
Budget cuts required improvised paperweights.

How long had it sat abandoned? Twenty, thirty years? More? There's no way to say, as the urban explorers website was pulled and deleted soon after they cataloged their find. That could mean that it's a hoax, or it could mean that the Russian police just don't appreciate people breaking into sealed government facilities ... or it could mean that they woke something terrible in the abandoned laboratory and have paid a terrible price for their hubris. Hey, we're in no position to say, so we'll just show you a few more of the pictures and let you work it out on your own.

English Russia
Disembodied cat organs, or the newest adorable Disney character?

OK, that's a bit disturbing, but that's clearly just a cat brain. It's not like they were crudely butchering animals on site and-

English Russia
Oh. Ooooooh.

Well, all right. This is starting to look like Leatherface's high school biology class. But there's nothing -- absolutely nothing -- that implies that this laboratory was manufacturing tiny animal-hybrid cannibals that they would set loose upon society, tearing flesh and devouring all they fi-

English Russia
Clearly the work of pirahana-fleas.

#5. Lome's Voodoo Market

iringoloskov.blogspot.com

Pop culture tends to treat Voodoo like "crude, evil magic," so it's easy to forget that Voodoo is an actual, legitimate religion that many people still practice seriously. It's especially popular in Western African countries like Togo, and its capital, Lome, is home to one of the largest markets of Voodoo paraphernalia in the world ...

... which, unfortunately for Voodoo's image, is just another way of saying heaps of terrifying animal skulls.

Dominik Schwarz

Most religions just stick to stuff like bread, but this is fine, too.

In Western African Voodoo, it's believed that animal remains hold magical powers that can be used to protect oneself from evil and diseases. However, modern, on-the-go Voodoo-ites (Voodoodes?) might not have the time to ensnare and butcher a bunch of tiny critters to grind up and rub into their wounds. That's where the Lome Market comes in: Among its many stands and stalls, you can find an impressive assortment of talismans, fetishes and oh, so many skulls: crocodiles, cats, monkeys, vultures, owls, snakes -- it's a creepy skull buffet, and everybody's invited!

panoramio.com
National Geographic
Take all you can eat, but please eat all you take.

While it's certainly unsettling to look at, and there is literally no amount of money that you could pay us to walk through that place while high, none of the animals were actually killed in the market. So when you get down to it, the Lome bazaar is really just like your friendly neighborhood Walgreens, only with high-octane nightmare fuel where the aspirin should be.

BBC

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20140_the-8-creepiest-places-earth-part-4.html#ixzz2Nya7mp82