Top 10 Terrifying Places on Earth

whether these places fictional or real, have long been the subject of myths and mysteries.

Some of these places  are downright odd, and few of them are even a little bit dangerous.

10-The Poveglia Asylum:

In the late 1800s, the area's mentally ill resided in an asylum in Poveglia. The asylum was poorly constructed and was used as a place of exile rather than rehabilitation. There are rumors that in the 1930s, a doctor performed strange experiments on the patients here; eventually, the doctor went mad and threw himself from the asylum's tall bell tower. Though the bell in the tower was removed decades ago, locals still claim to hear its chimes echo from the lonely island.

By the mid-20th century, the facility was converted into a geriatric center, which closed in 1975. Today, the entire island is abandoned; locals and tourists are prohibited from visiting, and fishermen steer clear of the accursed place. In recent years, Italian construction crews attempted to restore the former hospital building, but abruptly stopped without explanation, leaving locals to speculate that they were driven away by the island's dark forces.

9-Alcatraz Jail:

In the late 1850s, the first inmates to occupy Alcatraz were military prisoners who were forced to build a new prison that later became known as "The Rock." The U.S. Army housed military prisoners on the island until 1933, at which time the Federal Government decided to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary, to deal with the Federal Government’s most incorrigible inmates.
Alcatraz was designed to break the spirit of the most rebellious prisoners by putting them in a structured, monotonous routine until their release.

Prisoners were given only four basic things - food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Anything beyond these basics had to be earned.

Famous criminals, such as Al Capone, George "Machine-Gun" Kelly, Alvin Karpis, and Arthur "Doc" Barker, spent time in Alcatraz. Mobsters in other prisons often managed to manipulate special privileges from guards, but this was never the case at Alcatraz.

8-Sable Home of Horses:

A fragile sliver of sand more than one hundred miles off the coast of Nova Scotia is sending the world a message.

This tiny, windswept island sits at the center of what is known as “the Graveyard of the Atlantic,” and, since the seventeenth century, its shoals have been the site of more than 475 shipwrecks. This slender island—Sable Island—42 km in length and just 1.5 km wide, is home to more than four hundred wild horses.

Abandoned there by sailors long ago or cast ashore from wrecks on the many sandbars that surround the island, this feral herd has managed to thrive in an austere, unforgiving environment that offers not a single sheltering tree and just sea grass and rainwater ponds for sustenance.

7-Snake World (Ilha da Queimada Grande:

Researchers estimate that on the island live between one and five snakes per square meter. The snakes live on the many migratory birds (enough to keep the snake density remarkably high) that use the island as a resting point.


“Between one and five snakes per square meter” might not be so terrible if the snakes were, say, two inches long and nonvenomous. The snakes on Queimada Grande, however, are a unique species of pit viper, the golden lancehead. The lancehead genus of snakes is responsible for 90 percent of Brazilian snakebite-related fatalities. The golden lanceheads that occupy Snake Island grow to well over half a meter long, and they possess a powerful fast-acting poison that melts the flesh around their bites.

6-Tashirojima: Ruled by cats:

A 40-minute ferry ride from Ishinomaki, near Sendai, will get you to a small island named Tashirojima. There you will find a population of 100 people and several hundred cats.

The feline domination of Tashirojima dates back to Japan's late Edo Period—from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. At that time, residents of the island raised silkworms for their textiles. Cats were valued because they chased away the mice that preyed on silkworms.Now known as Cat Island and on the obscure and quirky tourism trail, Tashirojima is taking advantage of its appeal to kitty-loving visitors. Cat-shaped cabins are available for overnight stays between April and November. No dogs allowed.

5- The weird Dolls land:

Just south of Mexico City, between the canals of Xochimilco you can find a small island with a sad background which never intended to be a tourist destination. The island is known as Isla de las Munecas (Island of the Dolls).
It is dedicated to the lost soul of a poor girl who met her fate too soon in strange circumstances.

The area has thousands of people, but this small island is home to hundreds of terrifying dolls. Their severed limbs, decapitated heads, and blank eyes adorn trees.

Dolls are threatening, even in the bright light of midday, but in the dark, they are particularly disturbing.It is said that a girl was found drowned in mysterious circumstances many years ago on this island and that the dolls are possessed by her Don Julian Santana Barrera was the caretaker of the island.

The story goes that Julian found a little girl drowned in mysterious circumstances while he was not able to save her life.Shortly thereafter, Julian saw a floating doll near the canals. Most probably, the doll belonged to the girl.He picked up the doll and hung it to a tree, as a way of showing respect and support the spirit of the girl.

4-Miyakejima:

The brave souls inhabiting Miyakejima, one of Japan’s Izu Islands, an archipelago just south of Tokyo, have a unique problem.In 2000, a mass evacuation was instituted due to extremely high levels of toxic gas in the area after a series of eruptions from Mount Oyama, the main volcano on the island.

All flights into the area were stopped for over eight years due to the high levels of sulphur as well. Miyakejima residents were finally permitted to return to their “normal” routines in 2005 though residents are required to carry a gas mask with them at all times.

Hypothetically speaking, were one to visit the Izu Islands, they might wake to a siren in the middle of the night, only to be met in the dark by a confused, wandering child wearing a gas mask, a hand extended asking “Are you my mother?”

Although Miyakejima appears frightening and almost post-apocalyptic, tourists can, in fact, visit the island. Aside from the dangers of poisonous gas, parts of the island are extremely lush and apparently the scuba diving is a beautiful experience filled with dolphin sightings. For visitors who believe the benefits outweigh the danger, gas masks are available upon arrival at many tourist shops on the island.

3-Clipperton Home of Murderous :

Abandoned outpost once home to a murderous tyrant.

Clipperton Island has a dark past. In 1906, a guano mining business (yes, those exist) jointly operated by British and Mexican interest groups made the only good-faith attempt at colonizing the island in its long history.One hundred men and women were deposited on the island, knowing full-well that they would depend on shipments of sustenance sent from mainland Mexico for their survival. Everything went as planned until the Mexican Civil War diverted the suppliers’ attention for years.

Slowly but surely, all the men died from either malnutrition or failed escape attempts, save one: Victoriano Álvarez. As the last living male, he proclaimed himself “king” and took to enslaving, murdering, and raping the remaining women and children.

2-Nauru Island ate itself:

Known as the country that ate itself, Nauru is - along with the islands of Banaba (Ocean Island) in Kiribati, and Makatea in French Polynesia - one of the three big “phosphate rocks” of the Pacific.

Almost the entire surface of the island was once covered with a thick layer of guano, sedimentary bird droppings that accumulated over several millennia.

The high level of phosphorus in Nauru guano made it an ideal raw material for fertilizers and explosives. Exploitation of the island’s guano reserves started at the turn of the last century.

1- The Fiji  Home of Cannibals:

The Fijians loved human flesh for its own sake, and did not merely eat a slain enemy out of revenge. Probably the absence of any animal they could eat gave rise to the custom...

The crew of every boat that was wrecked upon these shore was killed and eaten in some parts. Often a man would order to be clubbed some man or woman that he considered would be good for cooking, his plea being that his ‘black tooth was aching’ and only human flesh could cure it. Such was the absolute right of a man over his wife that he could kill and eat her, if he wished; which has been not rarely done.

So great was their craving for this strange flesh that when a man had been killed in one of their many bruits and quarrels, and his relations had buried his body, the Fijians frequently enacted the part of ghouls and, digging the body up from the grave, cooked it and feasted thereon. So customary was this that the relations of a buried man who had not died from natural causes watched his grave until the body had probably become too loathsome for even a Fijian’s appetite.
The flesh was either baked whole in the ovens, or cut up and stewed in the large earthenware pots they use for cooking. Certain herbs were nearly always cooked with the flesh, either to prevent indigestion or as a sort of savour stuffing – I know not which. The cooks who prepared it and placed it in the ovens filled the inside of the body with hot stones so that it would be well cooked all through.

References :

http://dutescoart.com/sable-island-story/

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/snake-island-ilha-de-queimada-grande


http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/05/15/tashirojima_is_an_island_in_japan_ruled_by_cats.html

http://www.isladelasmunecas.com

http://www.atlasobscura.com/categories/anomalous-islands?page=5


http://www.heretical.com/cannibal/fiji.html

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