If you want to take a cross-country trip full of scary places for Halloween, read on. The ten locations here are spread across our spooky state from California to New Jersey and are haunted by forces such as institutional atrocities, ecological disasters, and, of course, ghosts. Also: clown.
Clinton Road, West Milford, NJ
Clinton Road, West Milford, NJ
Photo: FotosForTheFuture (Shutterstock) To see also : LIB CAMPBELL: Please. Don’t Ban Books. | Columnists dependenttribune.com.
Clinton Road in West Milford, NJ is less than an hour’s drive from New York City, but the remote 10-mile highway is the location of countless reports of strange and paranormal activity—UFOs, witch groups, hellhounds, killer ghosts, encounters. The KKK, haunted castles, satanic cults, druidic temples, albino assassins, and more—this represents a point of contact to another reality.
Since 1905, travelers have been warning about the road. Writer J. Percy Crayon wrote, “It is never advisable to go through the ‘five mile forest’ after dark, for . . . tradition tells us that they were filled with bands of robbers, and forgers, not to mention witches who had their evening parties. dances and carousels on Green Island, and the ghosts that then appear in terrifying forms.”
Here are some modern legends and true Clinton Road stories:
The Salton Sea, Imperial County, CA
The Salton Sea, Imperial County, CA
Photo: Katrina Brown (Shutterstock) Read also : Politics and the Future of Medical Education.
If you like quiet apocalyptic places, I’ll tell you about the Salton Sea. This place is a total disaster: hundreds of miles from anything, this Southern California “lake” was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal and filled a low-lying area of the SoCal desert. It is fed through agricultural runoff, and because it is a terminal lake, the saltwater continues to rise, so that species of fish that were once brought in for sport fishing die, and so do the birds that eat them. The “sand” that surrounds the sea consists of crushed fish and bird bones. The only thing growing in the lake now is big algae. Sulfur gas bubbled from deep beneath the water, surrounding the area with a hellish stench. An optimistic 1950s stab at turning the ocean into a holiday resort is also dead, leaving a landscape dotted with rotting motels and restaurants for added disastrous décor.
The community around Bombay Beach started out on upbeat times, but plummeted into ruin as everything around it died. That’s especially important for the large number of abandoned houses that have slipped into the toxic lake. But people are admirable sometimes, and more recently, a small community of artistic types, drawn in by affordable real estate and total freedom of isolation, moved to a nearby ghost town to create whimsical installations (like the ghost driftwood galleon pictured above). above), a folky gallery, and a performance space near the end of the world.
The Clown Motel, Tonopah, NV
The Clown Motel, Tonopah, NV
In 1985, siblings Leona and Leroy David built a small motel in the small town of Tonopah, NV, right next to the grave of a long-dead silver miner. “Let’s decorate it with clowns, to make people happy,” they seemed to decide. On the same subject : Five months of humanitarian aid in Ethiopia – US State Department. Over the years, motel owners have collected thousands of clown figures, paintings, and just… clown shit. It’s everywhere.
While clown-o-philia Davids is sincere, the current owners are (understandably) leaning towards the selling point of “staying at a spooky clown-nightmare motel”, so this is a little less special. Still, there are plenty of clowns.
Kalaupapa Leper Colony, Molokai Island, HA
Kalaupapa Leper Colony, Molokai Island, HA
Photo: kridsada kamsombat (Shutterstock)
Despite the legend of the “Night March,” ghosts of long-dead warriors haunt the Hawaiian island of Molokai, the true horror is not supernatural; it’s historic. Molokai is the home of Kalopapa, a leper built to quarantine the sick against their will.
Between 1866 and 1969, some 8,000 people were separated from their families, friends and communities and forced to live in often harsh conditions in a colony built on remote land surrounded by a raging Pacific ocean on three sides and jagged, 2,000 foot. sea cliffs in the fourth.
The colony is now a National Historical Park, leprosy (aka hansen’s disease) has been eliminated globally, and residents have been allowed to leave since 1969, but a handful of the original exiles remain on the island to this day, the last to live. witness to a shameful chapter in American history. If you dare make the trip there—the colony is only accessible via donkey or small plane—it’s an interesting place to visit.
Mar-a-Lago resort, Palm Beach, FL
Mar-a-Lago resort, Palm Beach, FL
Photo: FloridaStock (Shutterstock)
I want to apologize for this lazy and obvious joke.
Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA
Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA
Photo: Christopher Hutter (Shutterstock)
I don’t believe in ghosts, but if there’s any place where the restless spirits of the damned walk the earth, it’s the Philadelphia Eastern State Prison. The castle-like prison was completed in 1829, and is a monument to the old adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The sprawling complex was designed by the “progressive” era (mostly Quakers) to be visually impressive and to have modern amenities such as hot and cold water. Its mission is to produce the remorse promised by the name “correctional”. This is done by forcing criminals into solitude like monks in the hope that they will communicate with God and correct their evil ways. It might be a good idea in theory, but in practice it meant almost complete isolation within the cold stone walls of the prison—no books, no visitors, no community, and no hope, just damp stone walls. Not surprisingly, the theory didn’t work and was abandoned almost entirely in the 20th century.
Today, the Eastern State Penitentiary is something between a museum and a tourist. It offers daytime historical tours and nighttime “ghost tours,” hosts a Halloween festival featuring a bar, band, and five “ghosts” built into an actual prison, and invites every psychic TV show on earth to record content there. I guess you have to pay the bills in your abandoned prison somehow, but considering the legitimate suffering inflicted on the defenseless in the Eastern States, it seems bland and rude. This place should exist as a sober lesson in unintentional institutional cruelty, but is monetized as a fun, spooky place where you might see ghosts instead. I wonder what the inmates of the prison were thinking as they quietly drifted through the gloomy cell blocks.
Bunny Man Bridge, Fairfax Station, VA
Bunny Man Bridge, Fairfax Station, VA
Photo: Jasmin Bauer (Shutterstock)
It is officially known as the Colchester Overpass, but locals refer to the small stone bridge as the “Rabbit Man Bridge”. Local legend says a patient escaped from a nearby mental hospital and killed local residents with an ax while wearing a homemade rabbit costume. It’s also said that if you go to the Rabbit-Man Bridge in the middle of the night, the killer will appear with his shiny ax and leave what’s left of you hanging on the bridge.
While there’s never been an asylum near the bridge, and he hasn’t killed anyone (yet), Bunny Man is actually real.
According to a police report, in 1970 an Air Force cadet and his girl were parked in the street not far from the bridge, and someone suddenly smashed the front passenger window and shouted “You are on private property, and I have your tag number. The couple left, and then found the ax on the floor of the car. According to the victims, the perpetrator was wearing a white rabbit outfit.
A few weeks later, a security guard at a construction site happened upon a man in a black and white bunny costume attacking the porch of an unfinished house with an ax. “You violated. If you come any closer, I will chop off your head,” shouted Bunny Man.
Over the following weeks, more than 50 people reported sightings of Bunny Man to the police, but no one was ever connected to the sightings. That means it’s still out there.
Sauerkraut Cave, Louisville, KY
Sauerkraut Cave, Louisville, KY
Tom Sawyer Park appears to be a normal neighborhood park on the outskirts of Louisville, but it holds a dark secret: Beneath the baseball field and picnic tables lies the “Sauerkraut Caves,” an artificial tunnel dug near the site of the Lakeland Asylum for the Insane. It is connected to a series of underground passages, including one that once led directly to the dungeons of the asylum.
As with asylums built in the 1800s, there are too many stories of abused convicts and dangerous escapes to tell, but Lakeland’s tale tends to revolve around the atrocities committed in the horribly named Sauerkraut Cave. It is said that pregnant patients are brought there when they are ready to give birth, but none have returned with children.
The abandoned Lakeland Asylum was torn down in 1997 and all that remains are two graves, where an estimated 5,000 people who once lived in Lakeland are buried in unmarked graves, and the cave, which is just waiting for you to explore its haunted depths. .
Some visitors have reported hearing the sound of a little girl screaming “mommy” from inside the cave, and feeling uneasy “like entering a room full of people who had a big fight before you arrived.”
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, NM
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, NM
Opened in 1999, the Waste Insulation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, doesn’t look scary, and that’s the problem. WIPP is where the US stores waste from nuclear weapons research and production, so this presents a problem for humanity: How do you make sure the people of the future understand that there is something very dangerous beneath the surface?
Our nation’s nuclear detritus is stored half a mile beneath New Mexico, in caves in 3,000-foot-thick salt formations. When the site is filled in in 2035, the caverns will collapse and be covered with 13 layers of concrete and earth, and the surrounding salt will fill any developing cracks.
But we can’t just throw our hands away and leave them. Nuclear material will remain radioactive in 10,000 years, and we don’t know who will appear in the distant future, so we still have to find a way to warn them. The proposed solution is an outer perimeter of thirty-two, 25-foot granite pillars, with a granite building in the center with stone slabs carved with memorials translated into English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Navajo. Another possibility: Small discs buried randomly in the ground inscribed with line drawings influenced by Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
Will the elaborate memorial deter future archaeologists, or make them think, “This must be where the treasure is buried!” remains to be seen.
Dunlora Plantation, Charlottesville, VA
Dunlora Plantation, Charlottesville, VA
Dunlora’s estate is doubly haunted, first by slavery, and second by the witch who allegedly killed several scouts. I’ll put slavery aside for the sake of brevity and focus on magicians.
Legend has it that in 1920, a group of six scouts and their chief scout got lost on a hike in the woods around Charlottesville. They accidentally wander into a witch’s property and set up camp for the night. The scoutmaster was awakened at night by noises and examined the boys, only to find their tent empty. He began to search, calling their names at night, but found no trace of them. Then he saw a light in the distance in the forest. He followed her, only to arrive at an abandoned mansion on the Dunlora Plantation. He searched the dark house, and raised his lantern to reveal Grandma’s wrinkled face, who chuckled, I’m sure. Frightened, the chief scout ran. On the road, he looked back and saw the six children standing still by the roadside staring at him, their bellies ripped open. He fainted and went crazy. The boys were later found in their tent, dead and entrails.
A few weeks later, seven mature trees appeared on the road to the plantation—six perpendicular up and down, and one gnarled and bent. Legend has it that the straight trees each contained the soul of one of the boys, imprisoned by the witch for good. The seventh is the scoutmaster, his soul twisted for all eternity.
Dunlora is now a private community of rich people now, descendants of slave lords and possibly witches, and they are haunted by teenagers who drive through their community in the middle of the night looking for the mansion and the seven trees. Residents and “historians” deny that any of the events described above actually happened, but isn’t that what they would say if they tried to cover up the unspeakable crime?
