The Editors of LIFE - LIFE The Worlds Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots

LIFE The Worlds Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "LIFE The Worlds Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...17

The Worlds Most Haunted Places

Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots

SCHEUFLER COLLECTION/CORBIS/GETTY

Founded in 1478, the eerie cemetery in Josefov, the Jewish ghetto of Prague, Czech Republic, is the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe.

Contents

HENRY ROMERO/REUTERS

Introduction

Ghostly, Ghastly U.S. & Canada

Scary, Spectral Latin America

Bloody, Bone-Chilling Asia & Australia

Hair-Raising, Haunted Europe

Uncanny, Unearthly Africa

ABOVE PICTURE A mummy in the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato, Mexico, which opened its doors in 1969. The site inspired a number of Mexican wrestling/horror movies, bringing an international audience to the site.

FRONT COVER Before Bela Lugosi, there was the original Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. Vlad didnt live in Bran Castle, but an illustration of this building in Bran, Romania, inspired Bram Stoker when he created

his tale of the bloodthirsty count.

STEVEN MINCHIN/ALAMY

BACK COVER FOX PHOTOS/GETTY

Introduction

BY J.I. BAKER

DAVID MAURICE SMITH/OCULI/REDUX

DOLLS HANG FROM TREES on Isla de las Muecas (Island of the Dolls), south of Mexico City. The island is filled with toys collected by its reclusive caretaker.

There is no end to the old houses, with resounding galleries, and dismal state-bedchambers, and haunted wings shut up for many years, through which we may ramble . . . and encounter any number of ghosts, Charles Dickens once wrote.

The great English writer might as well have added Polish caves, Babylonian ruins, and Mexican mummy museums to his list of ghostly placesas we here at LIFE have done, bringing you a book filled with blood-curdling photos and eerie stories about the worlds creepiest spots. Think the hotel that inspired The Shining, the Amityville Horror house, and the dilapidated farm that was home-sweet-home to the serial killer who inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and Psycho.

No, not all these spots are strictly haunted. Somelike Australias Uluru (a.k.a. Ayers Rock) or the ancient ruins submerged under South Americas Lake Titicacaare deeply mysterious, maybe even spiritual. Otherslike Kolmanskop, Africas sand-covered ghost townare downright unnerving. But they all have one thing in common: They seem to exist partly in the known world, and partly in a shadowy realm we cant completely comprehend.

So get ready, if you dare, to encounter any number of ghosts, ghouls, yetis, haunted dollsand other things that go bump in the night.

GHOSTLY, GHASTLY U.S. & CANADA

Here in the New World there are plenty of old ghostsfrom steamy spirits Down South to the wintry wraiths of the Great White North.

TODD GIPSTEIN/CORBIS/GETTY

NIGHT FALLS on the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts, the rusty wooden house that once belonged to the family of the cousin of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote about it in his novel of the same name.

THE PARANORMAL PRISON

ALCATRAZ

PHOTOQUEST/GETTY

The view along the notorious D Block. In 2014, a British tourist saw the dark specter of a woman in a picture she took of the former visitation room. A trick of the light? A hoax? Possibly.

On May 2, 1946, in what became known as the Battle of Alcatraz, six prisoners overpowered guards, stole their weapons, and tried to escape from the prison on this isolated island in San Francisco Bay. But when they realized they were missing the key they needed to flee into the recreation yard, they grew desperate, took captives, and started shooting.

Over the next hours, two prison officers were killed and injured. Three would-be escapees were shot to death in the utility corridor between cell blocksthe very spot that, years later, San Francisco radio anchor Ted Wygant was exploring with a psychic when he was overcome by a feeling of violence and evil. I got this tremendous feeling of anger, he told the Travel Channel. I felt this presence beneath us in the dirt where these three men had died.

This is only one of many supernatural stories involving the so-called Rock, which has been a Civil War fortress, a bird sanctuary, and the birthplace of the American Indian Red Power movementin addition to the brutal home for thousands of hardened convicts. Rejected as unmanageable by other prisons, these men were called the Incorrigibles, according to former inmate Leon Whitey Thompson. You step on a toe, its gonna wind up in a death.

Many of these long-departed inmates are now said to be unruly spirits. A spectral Al Capone has been heard practicing his banjo in the shower room. (He was a member of the prison band the Rock Islanders.) Mobster Alvin Creepy Karpis calls the bakery and kitchen home, while George Machine Gun Kelly has reportedly materialized in the chapel.

But the most haunted spot in the prison, according to many paranormal investigators, is D Block, the site of the infamous 1946 escape attemptand of the islands best spook story. Though the tale seems apocryphal, its too good not to mention: A prisoner locked in cell 14-Done of the Hole cellssupposedly screamed that someone else was in the dark, cramped space with him. When guards finally opened the door, they found him dead, strangulation marks from a spectral attacker on his neck. This little setback did not, however, prevent the late prisoners ghost from showing up for roll call that night.

Unlike so many haunted places, Alcatraz doesnt commercially capitalize on its reputation. In fact, the National Park Service calls the spook stories flights of fancy, as does the islands official tour website: There are no authenticated cases of ghost sightings by any of Alcatrazs residents over the years, whether they were soldiers, prisoners, correctional officers, family members or park rangers, the site reads.

But how would you authenticate a ghost sighting, anyway? And former prisoner Thompson, for his part, believes the hype. This island is haunted, he said. It is the island of the damned.

MACIEJ BLEDOWSKI/ALAMY

ALCATRAZ Island in San Francisco Bay.

THE PSYCHO HOUSE

ED GEINS FARM

Next page

1234567...17

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «LIFE The Worlds Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots»

Look at similar books to LIFE The Worlds Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

David

Tales of Haunted Places

Wanda Willis

More Haunted Hoosier Trails: Folklore from Indianas Spookiest Places

Jeff Morris

Twin Cities Haunted Handbook: 100 Ghostly Places You Can Visit in and Around Minneapolis and St. Paul

Jeff Morris

Chicago Haunted Handbook: 99 Ghostly Places You Can Visit in and Around the Windy City

Shelli Timmons

The Ghostly Tales of Colorados Front Range

Shelli Timmons

The Ghostly Tales of Denver

Christopher Balzano

Ghostly Adventures: Chilling True Stories from Americas Haunted Hot Spots

Dave Lapham

Ghosthunting Florida

Stacey Graham

Haunted Stuff: Demonic Dolls, Screaming Skulls & Other Creepy Collectibles

Dennis William Hauck

Haunted Places: The National Directory: Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings, and Other Supernatural Locations

Dave Thompson

Haunted America FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Most Haunted Houses, Cemeteries, Battlefields, and More

Bob Curran

The Worlds Creepiest Places

Discussion, reviews of the book LIFE The Worlds Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.