All places
The full catalogue of approved places — abandoned buildings, anomalous zones, UFO sightings. Sort by rating, recency or discussion, and narrow it by category.
493 places
Arkaim
A circular Bronze Age fortified settlement in Russia's Chelyabinsk region, excavated in 1987 just before it was to be flooded. The archaeological site quickly attracted an esoteric following — visitors come from across Russia "for the energy".
Sacsayhuamán
An Inca fortress above Cusco, built from multi-tonne blocks fitted together without mortar so tightly that a knife blade will not pass between them. How they were shaped and lifted is still debated.
Yonaguni Monument
An underwater formation off the Japanese island of Yonaguni with flat terraces and right angles. Some read it as a sunken city, others as natural sandstone split along its bedding — the argument is still open.
Baalbek
A Roman temple complex in Lebanon standing on a base of megaliths weighing up to 800 tonnes. Exactly how those blocks were moved is not settled — which is what fuels the stream of alternative theories about them.
Göbekli Tepe
A sanctuary in south-eastern Turkey around 11,500 years old — older than farming, pottery or the wheel. Its circles of T-shaped pillars carved with animals upended assumptions about what came first, the temple or the town.
Carnac Stones
Over 3,000 standing stones set in long rows on the Brittany coast around 4500 BC. Why they were raised is unknown; Breton legend calls them a Roman legion turned to stone by Saint Cornelius.
Glastonbury Tor
A Somerset hill crowned by the lone St Michael's Tower, its slopes cut into terraces. It is identified with the legendary Avalon, where the wounded King Arthur was carried, and counted a centre of Britain's Celtic mythology.
Mount Shasta
A volcano in northern California surrounded by perhaps the densest tangle of esoteric legend in America — from Telos, an underground Lemurian city, to reports of glowing objects above the summit.
Devils Tower
Devils Tower is a colossal columnar igneous monolith rising 386 meters (1,267 feet) above the Belle Fourche River valley in northeastern Wyoming, USA. It holds historic significance as the very first designated U.S. National Monument (established in 1906). Formed of striking vertical phonolite columns, the formation serves as a sacred cultural sanctuary for indigenous tribes and a global icon of pop culture and ufology.
Uluru
A massive sandstone monolith in central Australia that shifts from ochre to deep red at sunset. For the Aṉangu people it is a sacred site with its own rules about what may be photographed and where one may not climb.
Giant's Causeway
Some 40,000 basalt columns on the coast of Northern Ireland, formed as lava cooled. Legend has it the giant Finn McCool built the causeway across the sea to reach a rival in Scotland.
Externsteine
A ridge of sandstone pillars in the Teutoburg Forest with a chapel and a 12th-century relief carved into the rock. It has attracted theories of an ancient sanctuary for centuries — from 19th-century romantics to Third Reich ideologues.
Newgrange
An Irish passage tomb built around 3200 BC — older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. At the winter solstice a beam of rising sun passes through a narrow opening and lights the chamber deep inside.
Bran Castle
A fortress on a Carpathian mountain pass, known as "Dracula's Castle". Vlad the Impaler almost certainly never lived here — the link to Stoker's novel came later, though the silhouette on its crag fits it well.
Loch Ness
A deep loch in the Scottish Highlands holding more water than every lake in England and Wales combined. Monster reports date from 1933; sonar sweeps and DNA surveys have found no such animal.
Island of the Dolls
An islet in the Xochimilco canals near Mexico City, hung with salvaged dolls for half a century. Its caretaker said he hung them to appease the spirit of a drowned girl; after his death in 2001 it became a tourist pilgrimage.
Highgate Cemetery
An overgrown Victorian cemetery in north London with gothic vaults and an Egyptian Avenue. In the early 1970s a newspaper frenzy about a "Highgate Vampire" drew crowds of hunters to its gates.
Akershus Fortress
A medieval fortress and prison on the Oslo fjord, never taken by siege. Its dungeons gave rise to Norwegian legends of the dog Malcanisen and a faceless woman said to guard the cellars.
Greyfriars Kirkyard
An old graveyard in central Edinburgh with the "Covenanters' Prison" at its far end. Since 1999 visitors have reported unexplained cuts and bruises — the phenomenon nicknamed the Mackenzie Poltergeist.
The Ancient Ram Inn
A 12th-century house in Gloucestershire, said to stand on crossing ley lines and a pagan site. Reputed one of Britain's grimmest buildings — its owners avoided sleeping on the upper floor for decades.
The Stanley Hotel
A hotel in the Colorado Rockies where Stephen King spent a night in room 217 and conceived The Shining. Staff and guests have reported piano notes and children's footsteps in empty corridors for decades.
The Myrtles Plantation
A Louisiana estate billed as one of America's most haunted houses. Its best-known story is of an enslaved woman, Chloe, in a green turban — undocumented, but persistent for well over a century.
Château de Brissac
The tallest château in France, seven storeys in the Loire valley. It carries the legend of the "Green Lady" — Charlotte de Brézé, killed in the 15th century, whose moaning is said to be heard in the tower at dawn.
Socotra
A Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean, cut off from the mainland for millions of years. A third of its plants grow nowhere else — including the umbrella-crowned dragon's blood trees that make it look extraterrestrial.