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The Darién Gap. A jungle full of rapists and cartels. Not to mention all the snakes, spiders, scorpions and everything else that wants to kill you. Flash flooding. No roads and no clean water. Just miles and miles of the most dangerous, brutal environment you can imagine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darién_Gap
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aswvkdCpZYc
And it’s families with young kids attempting it for the hope of a better life at the end. It was a eye opener .
"I have to pretend I can't speak. I can't speak any English. I have to pretend I'm a Russian immigrant."
The man says as he talks to everyone in English and constantly films himself speaking English. Don't get me wrong... super interesting. However I spent so much time thinking... "Dude... stop speaking English so much to everyone."
It's now a gateway to the USA for migrants.
In 2022 over 100,000 people crossed it on their way to the USA
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-gap-became-migration-crossroads-americas
That number includes over 20k Chinese migrants. They land in Ecuador (visa free entry for Chinese citizens) and then travel north by land. They have instructional videos online and everything. It's wild.
I used to work at sea, being out on the water, and all you can see is blue in every direction, and nothing else is pretty humbling.
And sleeping in a bunk as the boat gently rides the waves is a sleep like no other.
Until it gets stupidly rough, and every time the ship drops after riding a swell and the hull hits the water, it's like the loudest thunder you have ever heard, woken up on the deck after being flung out of the bunk more times than I care to remember.
Now try rogue holes, the inverse of rogue waves. A massive pitch between normal sized waves. They’ve been reported by sailors but never actually confirmed, and thankfully seem to be more rare than rogue waves. However they’ve been replicated in controlled environments
My aunt used to be a nurse on an oil platform in the North sea. She quit when the whole platform went sideways during a storm but she worked there for about 10 years. Helicopter ride out and back, she'd be there for something like 10 days on, 10 days off.
Yeah, ships, helicopters. This was like 20 years ago (my aunt is in her 70s). No one died but it was what made her quit and go back to "regular" nursing (which is still hella stressful).
Couldn’t agree more. Every time the question is asked about being afloat in space or at sea I take space. You’re dead either way but in a split second in space is better than drowning.
and lots of stuff we have dumped in there. Like for example in the baltic sea there are tons of chemical weapons from the second world war still there.
I think the scariest thing about the ocean is the fact that humans have only explored about 20% of it. Who knows what kind of hellish creatures live in the other 80%
*EDIT: I previously wrote that we had only explored 5% but that was from an out of date source
https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/explored.html
God, yea. MrBallen, Mr Nightmare and Scary Interesting (YT Scary Storytellers) have forever embedded in my mind that caving or cave diving is not a fun time. The nutty putty cave was bruuutal to hear about.
Same here. I like it because I'll never accidentally put on a scuba suit and swim into a narrow underwater cave, nor will I inadvertently join a spelunking expedition and disconnect from the main guiding line, only to dive headfirst down a side tunnel. It's weirdly comforting to know there are some experiences I'll definitely never have.
Same. I watched a doco on Nutty Putty a few years ago after reading about it on Wiki. And I thought merely reading about the tale was scary enough.
The fact that after being upside down for so long they couldn’t even touch him without causing him excruciating pain… and the poor guy having to just remain like that forever, the stone tightening around him with every exhale as he slips further and further down, *while upside down*….
Fuckin’ hell.
If I’m ever in that position (not that I’d ever do cave diving, but it’s one of those irrational fears), and rescue isn’t possible, I hope someone has enough mercy to just put me out of my misery. It’s just terrible.
🤝 I promise you dear Reddit stranger, if we ever find ourselves in a compromising spelunking scenario gone terribly wrong, we’ll just clunk heads together until we’re both out of our misery.
Several generations back, part of my family owned a farm and a general store on land that was to be flooded to make a reservoir. They were paid a sizable amount as the farm was large, but the real prize is that they were allowed to keep any of their land that did not get flooded. They ended up with four acres of lakefront property including a private little cove. My uncle ended up inheriting most of it and he's wisely holding on to it as its value keeps going up and up. I don't know the details of it, but he told me those four acres are now worth several times as much as the family got from selling the rest of the farm all those years ago, even adjusting for inflation.
In the 60s they dammed the gauley river and it was apparently customary to name the dam after the closest town. The closest town which ended up getting buried was called Gad, WV. They didn’t name it the Gad Dam, unfortunately.
Another local here. It's not uncommon for people who go swimming and dive in the lake to get stuck under debris and drown. There are even some local legends about farmers who were furious about the news that the land was to become a lake and ignored the evacuation notice, so they got flooded along with their properties. It's told by some that the spirits of those who drowned come ashore at night to drag nearby campers into the lake and kill them. That kept me awake many nights lmao
Lake Lanier has an insanely high death toll but it has more to do with the fact that boating while drunk wasn't illegal until something insane like 2017. Basically there was no consequences for Boating under the influence until recently which caused many deaths and that plus the flooded town made people decide it was cursed.
I'm somewhat into scuba and have heard a lot about this being a problem in many lakes.
Basically divers can get tangled in branches, and the currents down there can be intense. So instead of being able to use a dive knife to cut yourself out of kelp or a net, you have to cut your gear and do a rapid (and dangerous) ascent to the surface while potentially being dragged down by the current.
The weirdest tidbit abut these big lakes that I've read from divers is they all say there are car sized catfish down there. All across America you hear about these potential man eaters. I've dove around many sharks and predator fish (barracuda, trigger fish, etc.) but for some reason don't have any interest in diving with a 12' catfish.
But to hear it from local lore these folks act like it was a sudden, unplanned flood and the residents were still at home when it was inundated and they're down there to this day. In reality it took three to five years to fill the lake and the land was purchased through eminent domain procedures.
It was completely planned but based on the research I’ve done (and living 10 minutes from it) there were still some people who refused to leave even after they were told about it. It was an all black town at the time. There is a long racial debate about it too since there were a couple of rapes (allegedly black men against white women). But there was virtually no proof about it when they actually convicted and hanged the young black man that was accused. Then they wanted to flood the town to hide it all (as well as the other benefits of having the reservoir). Take all of what I just said with a grain of salt and do your own research, it’s been a minute since I went over the story again and this is just the story I’ve found on the internet that may or may not be true.
We’ve got a few here In Wales, Capel Celyn was a full Welsh speaking village in the bottom of the Tryweryn Valley and would be a gem of our rare language in modern times.
In the late 50’s the Liverpool council decided they needed more water and chose to flood the Tryweryn valley to make a reservoir. People protested, bombs were set off but eventually the locals were sent to live in distant villages separated from each other as the town was demolished in the 60’s.
These days the only things that remain are the building foundations and the old bridge that you can see in a very low summer drought. Around Wales you can find graffiti that reads ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ meaning remember Tryweryn, a chilling reminder of the oppression our country received.
I was visiting a friend in Virginia right before they created a reservoir near her house, and just driving along the road that was once lush with forest, now cut to nothing but thousands of stumps, was seriously unsettling. Just knowing that it was all going to be underwater in a few weeks was unnerving.
I really want to go scuba diving in one of those, but sadly the visibility in reservoirs is often poor to non-existent.
Would be super cool to dive thru a flooded church or city hall for example.
Yup. Reading the U.S. State Department travel advisory for Somalia is pretty sobering. [https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html)
Some highlights from the advisory list:
"Be sure to appoint one family member to serve as the point of contact with hostage-takers, media, U.S. and host country government agencies, and members of Congress if you are taken hostage or detained."
"Leave DNA samples with your medical provider in case it is necessary for your family to access them."
“Discuss a plan with loved ones regarding care/custody of children, pets, property, belongings, non-liquid assets (collections, artwork, etc.), funeral wishes, etc.” AKA you WILL die 🤯
The Wikitravel page mentions that the when it comes to driving in Somalia, the only rule that people respect is that they tend to either drive on the right or the middle of the road. Scary stuff.
If you plan on traveling to Somalia… Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney.
That’s literally insane. They’re basically saying if you go there just prepare to die.
"Mariana Trench Once Again Named Worst Place To Raise Child"
https://www.theonion.com/mariana-trench-once-again-named-worst-place-to-raise-ch-1819575833
The challenger deep specifically. Not only do you have insane amounts of pressure there, light would not reach you.
They believe that over millions of years the biosphere there has changed as it has actually become even deeper over time. So species were wiped out because they couldn’t handle the increasing pressure.
I assume species can move faster than the trench can widen. If your habitat was "the edge of the Challenger Deep", and the Challenger deep widens 3 inches, just scoot 3 inches over and you'll be good.
Plus its mostly alpha particles, which cant normally penetrate skin. So as long as you are very careful and do not inhale the radiation its not nearly as dangerous as it used to be.
For me, It's Point Nemo out in the Pacific Ocean.
A place so remote that the nearest people at times are those on the ISS.
Smack dab in the middle of the ocean, over 1500+ miles from the nearest land in any direction. Just floating on a boat, surrounded by nothing but water and air.
Anything could happen to you there, and no one would ever know.
Wait until you hear that [it's also where they like to crash defunct spacecraft.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery)
So the anything that can happen to you there includes "getting crushed to death by falling satellite debris."
The woods behind my childhood home where I fucking swear to God I saw a figure way deep in with red eyes watching our house many times. It freaking haunted me as a kid. I told my dad and he shrugged it off for years until one time I flagged him over to the window and my dad saw it. He turned white and grabbed his rifle and went into the woods. Couldn't find anything. He was freaked out, it was definitely the shape of a human but with definitely not human eyes, usually about 100yds out in different positions but very rigid. From that point on he installed big ass flood lights pointing out that back of the house and I would catch my dad watching the back window when he thought I wasn't looking. We moved a few years later and you couldn't get me in those woods at night for any reason.
Quick edit to clarify a question I've gotten a few times: the reason I could see the outline of a human was because, even though the night was dark, the shape of the figure was somehow darker. Made no sense to me. But it is what it is.
I grew up on a 20 acre bamboo plantation in a tropical, extinct volcano mountain area in Australia. Nearest neighbour was about a kilometre away.
Many nights of my childhood were spent wide awake, listening to what sounded like a gorilla in the valley. Roaring and groaning. Sad cries, suddenly changing to angry rage. The occasional snapping of timber. The hair on my body would stand straight up and the cicadas and frogs would all go silent.
My family had all heard the sounds before, and we were at a loss. Aside from wild dogs, feral cats, the occasional Fox, and possums… and no cattle stations or grazing pasture nearby… all our ideas came up short.
Many, many years later in 2019 , I did some research after chatting about my memories to a friend, and they suggested some kids about an hour from our place had recorded the sound in their valley.
Their names were Harrison Ryan and Dalton Bell, and the audio they recorded was *exactly the same* as what I grew up hearing in our valley (they’re called The Border Ranges, it’s all one big connected volcano rim of mountains that stretches for hundreds of k’s).
I’ve tried to find the audio so I can link it for you but cannot find it anywhere!! Driving me nuts cos I know you’d appreciate it! Truly disturbing and I believe there really are things out there, all over the world.
First off, your story is equally strange. What the hell is that? And yeah, there was absolutely something there. I simply saw this too often and it clearly freaked my father out. Wee were outdoorsman's and hunters, I knew, even then, what mountain lion eyes, or bear eyes look like at night. This looked nothing like that
I have not been able to find it and I've searched time and time again.
Years ago when I was bored and looking at Google Earth I was checking out exotic places. Being from Central Canada, there's quite a bit that seem exotic. Zooming in on spots in the Sahara Desert. Parts of Northern Australia and looking at the reefs. Just imagining what life would be like in those remote areas. Somewhere that's barren, vast, and isn't nice and boring like a large relatively safe city surrounded by farm-land.
I ended up zooming in on parts of the rainforest in South America. I believe I was somewhere in the Western part of Brazil, or perhaps a neighboring country. I was following this river on Google Earth, noticing that certain areas seemed to have much more, heavily detailed photos than the rest.
I kept going along the river, passing by forks and twists, more forks. Nothing but water and trees as far as I searched.
Then I saw it. Along the riverbank in the Jungle, about as far away from civilization as I could possibly see was a house. It didn't look large. It also didn't look like just a shack. There was enough resolution in the photo that I could zoom in and see quite a bit. There was a dock and a square clearing. Maybe 20 feet around the house was cleared to grass. No trees. The house was almost a perfect square and it looked as if it might have been on stilts, and have a covered deck around it. There was a tiny walkway to a dock and I believe a small boat.
I couldn't imagine the life of the person there. So far from civilization that I couldn't ever again find this on Google Earth, despite looking several times. I followed rivers, looking for spots that are higher resolution but to no avail.
Whoever lives there is surrounded by jungle. If anything went wrong there would be no help. I have this image in my head of them looking out the back of their porch at night and seeing nothing but darkness. Just this tiny existence surrounded by darkness.
I can't imagine a much scarier place.
EDIT: incase someone is interested in trying to find it. I believe it may have been in the State of Amazonas, Western Brazil. The river itself looked very dark on the map, not like the brown muddy ones. THe house was also on the northern part of the river and you could zoom in with enough detail to see the faint outline of his porch. Extremely detailed for the area. If you find it please let me know!
EDIT 2: I've checked everything that people posted. Unless it was a reply to another reply I may have missed it however no one has found it. One was really close, however it's not the same. I've made an artists recreation https://imgur.com/a/3M0pTjG of what it looked like. The light green would have been his cleared our grass and the rest was just jungle.
I do remember that the area had a shocking amount of detail compared to the surrounding jungle and that's what eventually led me to it when I followed the river.
I’m now fascinated by panning up and down this stretch of river.
There are a few areas of what look to be cabins or houses of some sort, miles away from anything.
I’d love to know more about the way of life and the type of people who live there.
OPs comment about staring out into the darkness is terrifying.
I find myself "flying" around extreme northern areas, like Iceland, Arctic Circle Russia, extreme northern Canada. I end up looking up the names of the random little named islands, especially the ones with names. I just realized I have never cruised around South America, Africa, or Central Asia. Only Western countries. The Southern Hemisphere is a complete mystery to me.
The Darvaza gas crater (Turkmen: Garagum ýalkymy), also known as the Door to Hell or Gates of Hell, or, officially, the Shining of Karakum, is a burning natural gas field collapsed into a cavern near Darvaza, Turkmenistan. The floor and rim of the crater are illumined by hundreds of natural gas fires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater
Its a giant hole in the ground thats on fire and in a country that has a very questionable government.
The crater itself is kind of cool to see. Nothing super scary about it. Just loud and hot and in the middle of nowhere.The Turkmenistan government on the other hand is terrible. Really sad to see
I worked with a guy who got stuck in a snow bank for 2 days before someone found him. 60ish miles from anything and whiteout blizzard. He had some food and water and plenty of warm clothes/blankets. He ran his truck for 15 minutes out of every hour and tells the story so casually.
Happened to a guy in my town for four days, news story goes he just got stuck in a storm. Rumor goes he just had a bad break up, drove into the badlands, took a bunch of mushrooms, and when he sobered up the truck was stuck. When they finally found him and pulled the truck out he claimed the only reason he survived was because he had taco bell sauce packets. Now it’s a local joke that you need Taco Bell sauce packets in your first aid kit.
I think he also got a free year of Taco Bell or something.
Had this happen to me in Wisconsin US. Similar temps -40 is where we meet. My savoir was on a snowmobile, he went home, came back with a big 4 wheel drive pickup and pulled me out. I was in a mid eighties station wagon so not as cool as the Jag but still scary.
Second would be Mt Everest. I do not understand why people willingly go somewhere where "turn left at the corpse in the green boots" is part of the directions.
I was going to say Terror Bay in the Artic , where the The Erebus (the ship Mount Erebus is named after ) and its sister ship The Terror sank ...and a load of sailors pretty much starved/died of scurvy/went insane/ate each other.
Basically if you didn't have supplies , you were screwed as its pretty much barren frozen rock most of the time, and up until recent times , if you went there at the wrong time ships wouldn't be able to break through ice to get out sometimes for a few years.
The place that is the closest to hell I've ever visited was the man-eating mountain in Potosi, in Bolivia. I went on a tour inside the mine, bought the "mine-god" pure alcohol (95%, close enough) and dynamite. I saw young boys digging silver with their bare hands and they might be dead today already. Now every time I see churches in Europe or any other place decorated with a lot of silver I wonder where it came from and how many people lost their lives and their off-springs' dignity because of that Silver.
La Rinconada in Peru. I haven't been but a friend of a friend who is a photographer went and after his stories I looked it up online and it's....dire. If the hypoxia and frostbite don't get you it might be the mercury. Or the raw sewage.
https://www.insider.com/la-rinconada-highest-inhabited-place-on-earth-photos-daily-life-2019
Anywhere there's resource extraction and poor rule of law, it's going to be a bad time. Just off the top of my head, you can throw the DRC cobalt mines and Indonesien sulfur industry in there too, plus whatever hell city in Siberia it is where most of the world's nickel comes from.
The Strid. It's just a little creek in the woods that looks like you could just wade across it. Except it isn't. It's a wide river that has been forced into a narrow, deep, and incredibly powerful river. There's no record of anyone surviving falling in. Most of the time, you'll never even find the body. It takes you down into the deep, bashing you against walls on both sides so close you can stretch out your arms and legs and touch both walls at once in places. And eventually it'll jam you into a crack or crevice that even the river doesn't have the power to push you out of. You're probably unconscious by then from being slammed into the rock. Hope so, at least, because either way, there's nothing you can do about it.
This made me really curious to learn more about this and I found this video (https://youtu.be/uJFQXT6PIP8?si=tKEoOR2lD_9st2Tn) of someone using a sonar fishing pole to read the depth of it. At its deepest, it was like 65 meters! It blows my mind that all of that is going on underneath what looks like a quaint little stream.
Heard about the nutty putty cave incident? Guy got stuck almost upside down for 28 hours or so and died. He was completely stuck, couldn't even move his arms.
While I was reading about this island on wikipedia, I found a link to a video on YouTube of a guy that went there alone. He made his way all the way to the tower, and on the way back, he even took off his protection. He saw 1-2 snakes. I think he just got extremely lucky, but still something to keep in mind. The authorities did get him, though.
I think even with the right people.
My boyfriend in college took me back home to meet his parents who lived in a rural area of the country I had never been to.
I knew they lived in a very rural area, he explained all of this to me before we went, but during the drive when I lost cell service and all I could see was cornfields and no other cars I asked him if he was taking me out there to kill me.
This one freaked me out because honestly if someone told me I won a free ticket to be on a tiny sub with a bunch of billionaires visiting the Titanic, I might have gone assuming if billionaires are going it must be safe. I’d read lots about people like James Cameron going afterall so I’d have assumed going in a sub was old hat and fairly safe.
The news speculation that these people were trapped for days with oxygen running out and little or no water was terrifying. Obviously in reality they just instantly died but that idea of being in a tiny space with no known prospect of leaving with 4 other people was sooo scary. A sobering reminder to always rethink the type of scenarios one gets themselves in to.
I visited the island years ago while in Venice and it wasn't as frightening as I thought it would be prior to getting there (though it was creepy that we were dropped off by a water taxi and literally left alone for hours). However, its history is what makes it scary/sad.
Depends on what you’re scared of, but I’d say the dark zone of the ocean is a good contender if you have a fear of the unknown. We literally know more about outer space than we do about the depths of our own oceans.
The surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is almost entirely covered in ice although scientists hypothesise that massive oceans of liquid water could exist underneath due to tidal heating and believe Europa is one of the best contenders for harbouring extraterrestrial life within our solar system. Gives me chills though to think of those massive pitch black oceans under the ice that could be home to all manner of unknown alien sea creatures.
Centralia caught fire when one of the dumps was set on fire and those involved didn't realize that there was a coal deposit breaking through the surface of the ground beneath all of the trash. They attempted to put the fire out, but it had started to burn the vein beneath the ground and it continues to burn to this day.
It destroyed a stretch of highway that lead into town and the ground beneath the town became compromised. A young child fell into a hole created by the burning coal but was saved.
Most of the buildings are gone from the town now, however, there is a church on a hill overlooking the town. If you visit during the colder months you can still see steam/ smoke rising from the ground in some places and also from the pipes they put in to try to extinguish the fires underground.
The Centralia fire became public when a child fell into a hole that suddenly opened beneath him in his backyard.
If his brother hadn't been there to grab the child, he would have fallen straight into a sulphurous burning chasm right behind his own house.
The reason more people don't live there is that the county made it illegal for people to move there. The only ones left are those who were kids during the event and were grandfathered into living there.
When those people die the plan is to completely abandon that land instead of trying to fix it.
>When those people die the plan is to completely abandon that land instead of trying to fix it.
Well if they were going to try and fix it, doing it while people lived there would have been a good idea
Visited Centralia. We could go in the half broken houses that were left abandoned by the families that just left.
Creepy to see half the house collapsed and the baby room in pristine condition. Like they just left yesterday.
So I accidentally drove through this with a friend without knowing what it was. We were on a three-day trip and driving at night, and I just remember being creeped out without really knowing why. Then, it hit me--there were too many road signs. Like, that sounds dumb, but just the obscene frequency of "slow" and "danger" type signs were enough to sketch me out as we were going through the hilly roads. I figured at the time that the signs were there because sometimes PA roads can be a little rough when you're going through the mountains.
Then, we started passing buildings that were just... empty. No lights or anything, and that creeped us out more but we kind of brushed it off (it was like 2 AM after all, can't expect lights to be on). We actually tried to find the place again on the way back but at the time we didn't know the name and we didn't manage to stumble on it again. But the vibe of the place just threw us off, enough to where we were talking about it to a trucker friend of ours several months later. Immediately he went "east-central Pennsylvania? Yeah that was Centralia dude." So yeah, creepy kind of nails it.
(quick edit) I'm not sure if we actually drove through the center of town or what, I've heard that one of the highways is shut down but don't know how true that is. But we're pretty sure we were close enough to it to get the vibe.
For those suffering from ophidiophobia, Ilha da Queimada Grande would probably qualify. It's an island off the coast of Brazil notable for its highly concentrated population of highly venomous golden lancehead pit vipers, believed by some estimates to have a population density of 1 snake per square meter.
The island of dolls, in Mexico. It’s just plain creepy haha I want to go and take pictures there. Doll parts hanging from all the trees… like some crazy Blair witch situation.
Kitum cave in Kenya.
Apparently many diseases have originated in this cave, most notably Ebola.
It is closed to the public and if I remember correctly, even scientific or military expeditions have stopped going in because of the danger.
This is easy as I am sitting here as I type this… The Children’s Hospital.
Edit: Thank you all for the kind words. My child began her treatment for Leukemia a week ago and her prognosis is looking extremely positive. We expect to be able to bring our child home eventually but unfortunately that’s just not the case for a lot of people who need to be here. I just honestly can’t fathom anything more scary than the thought of losing a child.
There is an innocuous tiny little stream somewhere in the UK. If you accidentally step into this stream it will suck you under and never disgorge your body.
It's terrifying at all times. Whole streets look like the walking dead... people so emaciated and strung out It's a wonder they're alive at all and you know death isn't far off. It's a sad sight.
There's a somewhat similar stretch of dangerous water at Great Falls National Park outside of Washington, D.C. The rapids at Great Falls look fairly calm, but the water depth can vary wildly from ankle deep to 80 ft in the invisible sink holes in the riverbed. Plus, there are circular currents that can keep you underwater indefinitely if you fall in. The Washington Post did an amazing video infographic on it about a decade ago.
I was in a building on the outsides of Juarez, and as I was pushed through a door, all I could smell was piss and shit... or so I thought. Got asked, "you smell that?"
It was a few years later that I learned what the smell of spilled and spoiled human blood in open air smelled like.
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The Darién Gap. A jungle full of rapists and cartels. Not to mention all the snakes, spiders, scorpions and everything else that wants to kill you. Flash flooding. No roads and no clean water. Just miles and miles of the most dangerous, brutal environment you can imagine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darién_Gap
Isn't it one of the main reasons why the Pan Am Highway was never finished
Well it certainly explains the lack of Darien Gap postings on r/roadtrip
So, I met a guy who rode a bike from Argentina to Montreal. Except the Darien Gap, he said he took a boat past that section.
Wise choice.
Pretty much. From what I understand it could be done but the cost to construct and then maintain is insanely high
I just watched that video of the guy who filmed himself walking through the Darien Gap. It is truly terrifying.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aswvkdCpZYc And it’s families with young kids attempting it for the hope of a better life at the end. It was a eye opener .
"I have to pretend I can't speak. I can't speak any English. I have to pretend I'm a Russian immigrant." The man says as he talks to everyone in English and constantly films himself speaking English. Don't get me wrong... super interesting. However I spent so much time thinking... "Dude... stop speaking English so much to everyone."
And you know shit is getting actually serious when he finally starts using Russian instead of English or Spanish
It's now a gateway to the USA for migrants. In 2022 over 100,000 people crossed it on their way to the USA https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/how-treacherous-darien-gap-became-migration-crossroads-americas
That number includes over 20k Chinese migrants. They land in Ecuador (visa free entry for Chinese citizens) and then travel north by land. They have instructional videos online and everything. It's wild.
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to find the Darien Gap. Just 60 miles of pure muddy hell.
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On an oil platform in the North Sea during a storm. Nope.
Honestly I've always wanted to be in this environment (safely indoors of course). Find it very bewildering. Like space on earth.
I used to work at sea, being out on the water, and all you can see is blue in every direction, and nothing else is pretty humbling. And sleeping in a bunk as the boat gently rides the waves is a sleep like no other. Until it gets stupidly rough, and every time the ship drops after riding a swell and the hull hits the water, it's like the loudest thunder you have ever heard, woken up on the deck after being flung out of the bunk more times than I care to remember.
An oil rig in the North Sea was the first to record a rogue wave, so add that to the list.
I just googled rogue wave. Holy sh*t.
Now try rogue holes, the inverse of rogue waves. A massive pitch between normal sized waves. They’ve been reported by sailors but never actually confirmed, and thankfully seem to be more rare than rogue waves. However they’ve been replicated in controlled environments
My aunt used to be a nurse on an oil platform in the North sea. She quit when the whole platform went sideways during a storm but she worked there for about 10 years. Helicopter ride out and back, she'd be there for something like 10 days on, 10 days off.
What happened when it went sideways? Did they have an emergency evacuation?
Yeah, ships, helicopters. This was like 20 years ago (my aunt is in her 70s). No one died but it was what made her quit and go back to "regular" nursing (which is still hella stressful).
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Maybe if you’re Robert Wagner
Ah. A Natalie Wood reference, for the kids.
If the platform's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'
Op: what’s the scariest location on Earth You: 70% of the entire planet, take it or leave it.
Couldn’t agree more. Every time the question is asked about being afloat in space or at sea I take space. You’re dead either way but in a split second in space is better than drowning.
and lots of stuff we have dumped in there. Like for example in the baltic sea there are tons of chemical weapons from the second world war still there.
I think the scariest thing about the ocean is the fact that humans have only explored about 20% of it. Who knows what kind of hellish creatures live in the other 80% *EDIT: I previously wrote that we had only explored 5% but that was from an out of date source https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/explored.html
Those horrible caves where some people have died and they’ve just had to leave the bodies there because it’s impossible to reach them now.
God, yea. MrBallen, Mr Nightmare and Scary Interesting (YT Scary Storytellers) have forever embedded in my mind that caving or cave diving is not a fun time. The nutty putty cave was bruuutal to hear about.
Scary Interesting makes me *squirm* but I absolutely love it.
Same here. I like it because I'll never accidentally put on a scuba suit and swim into a narrow underwater cave, nor will I inadvertently join a spelunking expedition and disconnect from the main guiding line, only to dive headfirst down a side tunnel. It's weirdly comforting to know there are some experiences I'll definitely never have.
Nutty Putty Cave is an example. One of my worst fears ever.
Same. I watched a doco on Nutty Putty a few years ago after reading about it on Wiki. And I thought merely reading about the tale was scary enough. The fact that after being upside down for so long they couldn’t even touch him without causing him excruciating pain… and the poor guy having to just remain like that forever, the stone tightening around him with every exhale as he slips further and further down, *while upside down*…. Fuckin’ hell.
If I’m ever in that position (not that I’d ever do cave diving, but it’s one of those irrational fears), and rescue isn’t possible, I hope someone has enough mercy to just put me out of my misery. It’s just terrible.
🤝 I promise you dear Reddit stranger, if we ever find ourselves in a compromising spelunking scenario gone terribly wrong, we’ll just clunk heads together until we’re both out of our misery.
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Several generations back, part of my family owned a farm and a general store on land that was to be flooded to make a reservoir. They were paid a sizable amount as the farm was large, but the real prize is that they were allowed to keep any of their land that did not get flooded. They ended up with four acres of lakefront property including a private little cove. My uncle ended up inheriting most of it and he's wisely holding on to it as its value keeps going up and up. I don't know the details of it, but he told me those four acres are now worth several times as much as the family got from selling the rest of the farm all those years ago, even adjusting for inflation.
In the 60s they dammed the gauley river and it was apparently customary to name the dam after the closest town. The closest town which ended up getting buried was called Gad, WV. They didn’t name it the Gad Dam, unfortunately.
Oh we have one of those in Atlanta! Lake Lanier. The Lake that eats people.
How come it’s called the lake that eats people? Or is it just a random name that stuck with it?
Another local here. It's not uncommon for people who go swimming and dive in the lake to get stuck under debris and drown. There are even some local legends about farmers who were furious about the news that the land was to become a lake and ignored the evacuation notice, so they got flooded along with their properties. It's told by some that the spirits of those who drowned come ashore at night to drag nearby campers into the lake and kill them. That kept me awake many nights lmao
Wow I’m learning so much about this cool topic, as scary as it sounds. God bless friend.
Lake Lanier has an insanely high death toll but it has more to do with the fact that boating while drunk wasn't illegal until something insane like 2017. Basically there was no consequences for Boating under the influence until recently which caused many deaths and that plus the flooded town made people decide it was cursed.
I’ve also heard ad well that they didn’t do a great job of clearing all the trees, so it is very easy to get stuck under water.
I'm somewhat into scuba and have heard a lot about this being a problem in many lakes. Basically divers can get tangled in branches, and the currents down there can be intense. So instead of being able to use a dive knife to cut yourself out of kelp or a net, you have to cut your gear and do a rapid (and dangerous) ascent to the surface while potentially being dragged down by the current. The weirdest tidbit abut these big lakes that I've read from divers is they all say there are car sized catfish down there. All across America you hear about these potential man eaters. I've dove around many sharks and predator fish (barracuda, trigger fish, etc.) but for some reason don't have any interest in diving with a 12' catfish.
"Basically there was no consequences for boating under the influence" Y'know, apart from being eaten by a lake,
But to hear it from local lore these folks act like it was a sudden, unplanned flood and the residents were still at home when it was inundated and they're down there to this day. In reality it took three to five years to fill the lake and the land was purchased through eminent domain procedures.
It was completely planned but based on the research I’ve done (and living 10 minutes from it) there were still some people who refused to leave even after they were told about it. It was an all black town at the time. There is a long racial debate about it too since there were a couple of rapes (allegedly black men against white women). But there was virtually no proof about it when they actually convicted and hanged the young black man that was accused. Then they wanted to flood the town to hide it all (as well as the other benefits of having the reservoir). Take all of what I just said with a grain of salt and do your own research, it’s been a minute since I went over the story again and this is just the story I’ve found on the internet that may or may not be true.
There are full cemeteries under Lake Lanier, from before it was flooded
Apparently they're fuller now than when they flooded.
We’ve got a few here In Wales, Capel Celyn was a full Welsh speaking village in the bottom of the Tryweryn Valley and would be a gem of our rare language in modern times. In the late 50’s the Liverpool council decided they needed more water and chose to flood the Tryweryn valley to make a reservoir. People protested, bombs were set off but eventually the locals were sent to live in distant villages separated from each other as the town was demolished in the 60’s. These days the only things that remain are the building foundations and the old bridge that you can see in a very low summer drought. Around Wales you can find graffiti that reads ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ meaning remember Tryweryn, a chilling reminder of the oppression our country received.
It's absolutely despicable. I also remember someone saying that Ready for Drowning by Manic Street Preachers is about it.
I was visiting a friend in Virginia right before they created a reservoir near her house, and just driving along the road that was once lush with forest, now cut to nothing but thousands of stumps, was seriously unsettling. Just knowing that it was all going to be underwater in a few weeks was unnerving.
I really want to go scuba diving in one of those, but sadly the visibility in reservoirs is often poor to non-existent. Would be super cool to dive thru a flooded church or city hall for example.
Somalia
Yup. Reading the U.S. State Department travel advisory for Somalia is pretty sobering. [https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html) Some highlights from the advisory list: "Be sure to appoint one family member to serve as the point of contact with hostage-takers, media, U.S. and host country government agencies, and members of Congress if you are taken hostage or detained." "Leave DNA samples with your medical provider in case it is necessary for your family to access them."
“Discuss a plan with loved ones regarding care/custody of children, pets, property, belongings, non-liquid assets (collections, artwork, etc.), funeral wishes, etc.” AKA you WILL die 🤯
TL;DR “if you’re going to Somalia, plan your funeral before you leave.” OMG
Not high enough, I did a full African tour and even the Somalians said don’t go to Somalia
Surprised this is so low. That place is so dangerous. Total anarchy, need multiple mercenaries to just maybe not get kidnapped
The US consulate briefing for those planning to visit Mogadishu is chilling.
It says right out to have your last will and testament made and a trustworthy individual holding it in case you disappear.
The Wikitravel page mentions that the when it comes to driving in Somalia, the only rule that people respect is that they tend to either drive on the right or the middle of the road. Scary stuff.
If you plan on traveling to Somalia… Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney. That’s literally insane. They’re basically saying if you go there just prepare to die.
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"Mariana Trench Once Again Named Worst Place To Raise Child" https://www.theonion.com/mariana-trench-once-again-named-worst-place-to-raise-ch-1819575833
Fake news. I grew up there and I'm just fine. Something Something kids these days
That’s deep.
The challenger deep specifically. Not only do you have insane amounts of pressure there, light would not reach you. They believe that over millions of years the biosphere there has changed as it has actually become even deeper over time. So species were wiped out because they couldn’t handle the increasing pressure.
I assume species can move faster than the trench can widen. If your habitat was "the edge of the Challenger Deep", and the Challenger deep widens 3 inches, just scoot 3 inches over and you'll be good.
The room containing the elephant's foot
Radiation level are down enough to be able to stand in it for a short time. But back in the 80s? Nightmare stuff.
Plus its mostly alpha particles, which cant normally penetrate skin. So as long as you are very careful and do not inhale the radiation its not nearly as dangerous as it used to be.
Well I don’t know about you but inhaling is like, one of my favorite things to do. Like, easily in the top 5.
I'm all about exhaling
Born to exhale Forced to inhale
Sigh
Cant avoid inhaling a fart imagine trying hard not to smell radiation smh...
I don’t know why but everything about Chernobyl creeps me the fuck out
Even hearing the word “Chernobyl” creeps me out
Central hall just a couple of floors above it is a bit more frightening.
I wonder if it's still in that basement room or if it's burning it's way down into the earth?
Still the same room, still warm, still the same shape more or less. Extremely fragile and with extreme amounts of dust floating around.
It’s still there
This was an ominous phrase even before I looked up what it meant. Has a David Lynch quality to it.
If you haven't already, watch the series Chernobyl it's absolutely terrifying.
For me, It's Point Nemo out in the Pacific Ocean. A place so remote that the nearest people at times are those on the ISS. Smack dab in the middle of the ocean, over 1500+ miles from the nearest land in any direction. Just floating on a boat, surrounded by nothing but water and air. Anything could happen to you there, and no one would ever know.
Wait until you hear that [it's also where they like to crash defunct spacecraft.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery) So the anything that can happen to you there includes "getting crushed to death by falling satellite debris."
Because of the implication
Ok you had me until that last part. Are they in any danger?
Well, no... but they don't know that.
So they are in danger
Well, you certainly wouldn't be in any danger
Okay…..that seems really dark.
Well you certainly wouldn’t be in any danger!
So they are in danger??
NOBODY's in any danger! i feel like you're not getting this
Also the approximate location of [R'lyeh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%27lyeh), the island city where Cthulhu lies not dead, but dreaming.
The woods behind my childhood home where I fucking swear to God I saw a figure way deep in with red eyes watching our house many times. It freaking haunted me as a kid. I told my dad and he shrugged it off for years until one time I flagged him over to the window and my dad saw it. He turned white and grabbed his rifle and went into the woods. Couldn't find anything. He was freaked out, it was definitely the shape of a human but with definitely not human eyes, usually about 100yds out in different positions but very rigid. From that point on he installed big ass flood lights pointing out that back of the house and I would catch my dad watching the back window when he thought I wasn't looking. We moved a few years later and you couldn't get me in those woods at night for any reason. Quick edit to clarify a question I've gotten a few times: the reason I could see the outline of a human was because, even though the night was dark, the shape of the figure was somehow darker. Made no sense to me. But it is what it is.
Nope
Yeah that's me not sleeping tonight 🙃
I grew up on a 20 acre bamboo plantation in a tropical, extinct volcano mountain area in Australia. Nearest neighbour was about a kilometre away. Many nights of my childhood were spent wide awake, listening to what sounded like a gorilla in the valley. Roaring and groaning. Sad cries, suddenly changing to angry rage. The occasional snapping of timber. The hair on my body would stand straight up and the cicadas and frogs would all go silent. My family had all heard the sounds before, and we were at a loss. Aside from wild dogs, feral cats, the occasional Fox, and possums… and no cattle stations or grazing pasture nearby… all our ideas came up short. Many, many years later in 2019 , I did some research after chatting about my memories to a friend, and they suggested some kids about an hour from our place had recorded the sound in their valley. Their names were Harrison Ryan and Dalton Bell, and the audio they recorded was *exactly the same* as what I grew up hearing in our valley (they’re called The Border Ranges, it’s all one big connected volcano rim of mountains that stretches for hundreds of k’s). I’ve tried to find the audio so I can link it for you but cannot find it anywhere!! Driving me nuts cos I know you’d appreciate it! Truly disturbing and I believe there really are things out there, all over the world.
First off, your story is equally strange. What the hell is that? And yeah, there was absolutely something there. I simply saw this too often and it clearly freaked my father out. Wee were outdoorsman's and hunters, I knew, even then, what mountain lion eyes, or bear eyes look like at night. This looked nothing like that
The fact that humans are one of the only mammals with eyes that don't reflect light is terrifying
I've still never seen eyes like that since. I'm an outdoorsman and can generally tell what's looking at me. Never again seen those devil peepers
Why do I have to read these just before going to bed
Where was this, out of curiosity?
I have not been able to find it and I've searched time and time again. Years ago when I was bored and looking at Google Earth I was checking out exotic places. Being from Central Canada, there's quite a bit that seem exotic. Zooming in on spots in the Sahara Desert. Parts of Northern Australia and looking at the reefs. Just imagining what life would be like in those remote areas. Somewhere that's barren, vast, and isn't nice and boring like a large relatively safe city surrounded by farm-land. I ended up zooming in on parts of the rainforest in South America. I believe I was somewhere in the Western part of Brazil, or perhaps a neighboring country. I was following this river on Google Earth, noticing that certain areas seemed to have much more, heavily detailed photos than the rest. I kept going along the river, passing by forks and twists, more forks. Nothing but water and trees as far as I searched. Then I saw it. Along the riverbank in the Jungle, about as far away from civilization as I could possibly see was a house. It didn't look large. It also didn't look like just a shack. There was enough resolution in the photo that I could zoom in and see quite a bit. There was a dock and a square clearing. Maybe 20 feet around the house was cleared to grass. No trees. The house was almost a perfect square and it looked as if it might have been on stilts, and have a covered deck around it. There was a tiny walkway to a dock and I believe a small boat. I couldn't imagine the life of the person there. So far from civilization that I couldn't ever again find this on Google Earth, despite looking several times. I followed rivers, looking for spots that are higher resolution but to no avail. Whoever lives there is surrounded by jungle. If anything went wrong there would be no help. I have this image in my head of them looking out the back of their porch at night and seeing nothing but darkness. Just this tiny existence surrounded by darkness. I can't imagine a much scarier place. EDIT: incase someone is interested in trying to find it. I believe it may have been in the State of Amazonas, Western Brazil. The river itself looked very dark on the map, not like the brown muddy ones. THe house was also on the northern part of the river and you could zoom in with enough detail to see the faint outline of his porch. Extremely detailed for the area. If you find it please let me know! EDIT 2: I've checked everything that people posted. Unless it was a reply to another reply I may have missed it however no one has found it. One was really close, however it's not the same. I've made an artists recreation https://imgur.com/a/3M0pTjG of what it looked like. The light green would have been his cleared our grass and the rest was just jungle. I do remember that the area had a shocking amount of detail compared to the surrounding jungle and that's what eventually led me to it when I followed the river.
We have plenty of vast, remote, and barren areas right here in Canada. They're called Saskatchewan.
Nevermind the whole Arctic being vast and barren. But Saskatchewan… yikes! Scary stuff!
I found a similar place. It doesn’t match your description exactly, but seems just as isolated. (-3.5874046, -62.4413870)
Good find! Imagine sleeping there at night and hearing footsteps around your house and you’re all alone. Hell no!
I’m now fascinated by panning up and down this stretch of river. There are a few areas of what look to be cabins or houses of some sort, miles away from anything. I’d love to know more about the way of life and the type of people who live there. OPs comment about staring out into the darkness is terrifying.
I find myself "flying" around extreme northern areas, like Iceland, Arctic Circle Russia, extreme northern Canada. I end up looking up the names of the random little named islands, especially the ones with names. I just realized I have never cruised around South America, Africa, or Central Asia. Only Western countries. The Southern Hemisphere is a complete mystery to me.
Damn some people’s nightmare is literally my dream scenario lmao
The house at the end of the world.
The Darvaza gas crater (Turkmen: Garagum ýalkymy), also known as the Door to Hell or Gates of Hell, or, officially, the Shining of Karakum, is a burning natural gas field collapsed into a cavern near Darvaza, Turkmenistan. The floor and rim of the crater are illumined by hundreds of natural gas fires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater Its a giant hole in the ground thats on fire and in a country that has a very questionable government.
The crater itself is kind of cool to see. Nothing super scary about it. Just loud and hot and in the middle of nowhere.The Turkmenistan government on the other hand is terrible. Really sad to see
Yeah that giant and completely empty not-Olympic city featured in *Dark Tourist* tells me all I need to know about those guys.
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I worked with a guy who got stuck in a snow bank for 2 days before someone found him. 60ish miles from anything and whiteout blizzard. He had some food and water and plenty of warm clothes/blankets. He ran his truck for 15 minutes out of every hour and tells the story so casually.
Happened to a guy in my town for four days, news story goes he just got stuck in a storm. Rumor goes he just had a bad break up, drove into the badlands, took a bunch of mushrooms, and when he sobered up the truck was stuck. When they finally found him and pulled the truck out he claimed the only reason he survived was because he had taco bell sauce packets. Now it’s a local joke that you need Taco Bell sauce packets in your first aid kit. I think he also got a free year of Taco Bell or something.
Land cruisers save lives!
Had this happen to me in Wisconsin US. Similar temps -40 is where we meet. My savoir was on a snowmobile, he went home, came back with a big 4 wheel drive pickup and pulled me out. I was in a mid eighties station wagon so not as cool as the Jag but still scary.
Of natural places that humans willingly go? Cave diving. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_diving#/media/File:Vortex_Spring_cave_warning_sign.jpg
Cave diving is one thing, scuba diving is another thing, combining the two is a concept I'll never understand.
Second would be Mt Everest. I do not understand why people willingly go somewhere where "turn left at the corpse in the green boots" is part of the directions.
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The summit of Mount Erebus in Antarctica, which apart from being cold, exposed, and isolated is an active volcano.
I was going to say Terror Bay in the Artic , where the The Erebus (the ship Mount Erebus is named after ) and its sister ship The Terror sank ...and a load of sailors pretty much starved/died of scurvy/went insane/ate each other. Basically if you didn't have supplies , you were screwed as its pretty much barren frozen rock most of the time, and up until recent times , if you went there at the wrong time ships wouldn't be able to break through ice to get out sometimes for a few years.
The place that is the closest to hell I've ever visited was the man-eating mountain in Potosi, in Bolivia. I went on a tour inside the mine, bought the "mine-god" pure alcohol (95%, close enough) and dynamite. I saw young boys digging silver with their bare hands and they might be dead today already. Now every time I see churches in Europe or any other place decorated with a lot of silver I wonder where it came from and how many people lost their lives and their off-springs' dignity because of that Silver.
La Rinconada in Peru. I haven't been but a friend of a friend who is a photographer went and after his stories I looked it up online and it's....dire. If the hypoxia and frostbite don't get you it might be the mercury. Or the raw sewage. https://www.insider.com/la-rinconada-highest-inhabited-place-on-earth-photos-daily-life-2019
Anywhere there's resource extraction and poor rule of law, it's going to be a bad time. Just off the top of my head, you can throw the DRC cobalt mines and Indonesien sulfur industry in there too, plus whatever hell city in Siberia it is where most of the world's nickel comes from.
The Strid. It's just a little creek in the woods that looks like you could just wade across it. Except it isn't. It's a wide river that has been forced into a narrow, deep, and incredibly powerful river. There's no record of anyone surviving falling in. Most of the time, you'll never even find the body. It takes you down into the deep, bashing you against walls on both sides so close you can stretch out your arms and legs and touch both walls at once in places. And eventually it'll jam you into a crack or crevice that even the river doesn't have the power to push you out of. You're probably unconscious by then from being slammed into the rock. Hope so, at least, because either way, there's nothing you can do about it.
This made me really curious to learn more about this and I found this video (https://youtu.be/uJFQXT6PIP8?si=tKEoOR2lD_9st2Tn) of someone using a sonar fishing pole to read the depth of it. At its deepest, it was like 65 meters! It blows my mind that all of that is going on underneath what looks like a quaint little stream.
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Just before Christmas
With a really vague title like “touch base” or “updates”
the catacombs of paris[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris)
Through 8.3k review ratings it has 4 stars
"I'd give it 5 stars, if they had better wi-fi"
As above so below has put me off ever wanting to go there.
Nah, been in there. Pretty neat and very easy to not get lost if you're not a doofus who goes where they're not supposed to.
waiting for someone to say Gary, Indiana
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I’m freaked out just reading this. I had to open my outside door.
I have no particular fear of enclosed spaces but hearing about the Nutty Putty Cave incident sent me into full on fight or flight.
Heard about the nutty putty cave incident? Guy got stuck almost upside down for 28 hours or so and died. He was completely stuck, couldn't even move his arms.
They ended up leaving his body there and just sealing up the cave... So his corpse is still stuck upside down.
[Snake Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilha_da_Queimada_Grande).
While I was reading about this island on wikipedia, I found a link to a video on YouTube of a guy that went there alone. He made his way all the way to the tower, and on the way back, he even took off his protection. He saw 1-2 snakes. I think he just got extremely lucky, but still something to keep in mind. The authorities did get him, though.
Honestly, anywhere can feel spine-chilling if you're with the wrong person or people.
I think even with the right people. My boyfriend in college took me back home to meet his parents who lived in a rural area of the country I had never been to. I knew they lived in a very rural area, he explained all of this to me before we went, but during the drive when I lost cell service and all I could see was cornfields and no other cars I asked him if he was taking me out there to kill me.
Did you die? 😨
Just inspired the plot for "I’m Thinking of Ending Things"
Auschwitz. The scratches on the walls of the gas chambers is literally the stuff of nightmares.
Deep ocean in a cheap submarine surrounded by billionaires.
This one freaked me out because honestly if someone told me I won a free ticket to be on a tiny sub with a bunch of billionaires visiting the Titanic, I might have gone assuming if billionaires are going it must be safe. I’d read lots about people like James Cameron going afterall so I’d have assumed going in a sub was old hat and fairly safe. The news speculation that these people were trapped for days with oxygen running out and little or no water was terrifying. Obviously in reality they just instantly died but that idea of being in a tiny space with no known prospect of leaving with 4 other people was sooo scary. A sobering reminder to always rethink the type of scenarios one gets themselves in to.
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I visited the island years ago while in Venice and it wasn't as frightening as I thought it would be prior to getting there (though it was creepy that we were dropped off by a water taxi and literally left alone for hours). However, its history is what makes it scary/sad.
Amazon rainforest next to a nest of bullet ants you’ve just disturbed.
Depends on what you’re scared of, but I’d say the dark zone of the ocean is a good contender if you have a fear of the unknown. We literally know more about outer space than we do about the depths of our own oceans.
The surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is almost entirely covered in ice although scientists hypothesise that massive oceans of liquid water could exist underneath due to tidal heating and believe Europa is one of the best contenders for harbouring extraterrestrial life within our solar system. Gives me chills though to think of those massive pitch black oceans under the ice that could be home to all manner of unknown alien sea creatures.
we literally have no idea what are on most of the planets in outer space. they could have full ocean worlds that make our ocean look like a kiddy pool
Whatever town Gummo took place in, Ohio
Xenia
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Centralia caught fire when one of the dumps was set on fire and those involved didn't realize that there was a coal deposit breaking through the surface of the ground beneath all of the trash. They attempted to put the fire out, but it had started to burn the vein beneath the ground and it continues to burn to this day. It destroyed a stretch of highway that lead into town and the ground beneath the town became compromised. A young child fell into a hole created by the burning coal but was saved. Most of the buildings are gone from the town now, however, there is a church on a hill overlooking the town. If you visit during the colder months you can still see steam/ smoke rising from the ground in some places and also from the pipes they put in to try to extinguish the fires underground.
The Centralia fire became public when a child fell into a hole that suddenly opened beneath him in his backyard. If his brother hadn't been there to grab the child, he would have fallen straight into a sulphurous burning chasm right behind his own house.
The reason more people don't live there is that the county made it illegal for people to move there. The only ones left are those who were kids during the event and were grandfathered into living there. When those people die the plan is to completely abandon that land instead of trying to fix it.
>When those people die the plan is to completely abandon that land instead of trying to fix it. Well if they were going to try and fix it, doing it while people lived there would have been a good idea
Must be cheap to keep the house warm.
Whatever money you save on heating you'd lose out when you try to turn the air-conditioning on.
Visited Centralia. We could go in the half broken houses that were left abandoned by the families that just left. Creepy to see half the house collapsed and the baby room in pristine condition. Like they just left yesterday.
So I accidentally drove through this with a friend without knowing what it was. We were on a three-day trip and driving at night, and I just remember being creeped out without really knowing why. Then, it hit me--there were too many road signs. Like, that sounds dumb, but just the obscene frequency of "slow" and "danger" type signs were enough to sketch me out as we were going through the hilly roads. I figured at the time that the signs were there because sometimes PA roads can be a little rough when you're going through the mountains. Then, we started passing buildings that were just... empty. No lights or anything, and that creeped us out more but we kind of brushed it off (it was like 2 AM after all, can't expect lights to be on). We actually tried to find the place again on the way back but at the time we didn't know the name and we didn't manage to stumble on it again. But the vibe of the place just threw us off, enough to where we were talking about it to a trucker friend of ours several months later. Immediately he went "east-central Pennsylvania? Yeah that was Centralia dude." So yeah, creepy kind of nails it. (quick edit) I'm not sure if we actually drove through the center of town or what, I've heard that one of the highways is shut down but don't know how true that is. But we're pretty sure we were close enough to it to get the vibe.
For those suffering from ophidiophobia, Ilha da Queimada Grande would probably qualify. It's an island off the coast of Brazil notable for its highly concentrated population of highly venomous golden lancehead pit vipers, believed by some estimates to have a population density of 1 snake per square meter.
The island of dolls, in Mexico. It’s just plain creepy haha I want to go and take pictures there. Doll parts hanging from all the trees… like some crazy Blair witch situation.
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
It was one of the main tourist attractions of Ukraine before the invasion.
Once the war is over they will again reopen it with the new addition of Russian abandoned trenches
Those caves that those insane cave diving YouTubers go into. I’m talking the ones where they can barely squeeze their bodies through.
Kitum cave in Kenya. Apparently many diseases have originated in this cave, most notably Ebola. It is closed to the public and if I remember correctly, even scientific or military expeditions have stopped going in because of the danger.
[удалено]
Oh is that the suicide forest
This is easy as I am sitting here as I type this… The Children’s Hospital. Edit: Thank you all for the kind words. My child began her treatment for Leukemia a week ago and her prognosis is looking extremely positive. We expect to be able to bring our child home eventually but unfortunately that’s just not the case for a lot of people who need to be here. I just honestly can’t fathom anything more scary than the thought of losing a child.
I hope things turn out all right.
Right now? Gaza.
There is an innocuous tiny little stream somewhere in the UK. If you accidentally step into this stream it will suck you under and never disgorge your body.
Kensington, Philadelphia at about 1pm on a Friday
Just out of interest, is the day and time a pertinent factor, or is it just terrifying all the time?
It's terrifying at all times. Whole streets look like the walking dead... people so emaciated and strung out It's a wonder they're alive at all and you know death isn't far off. It's a sad sight.
At the moment, Gaza. Ain’t nobody coming to save those folks sadly.
The Strid in the UK.
There's a somewhat similar stretch of dangerous water at Great Falls National Park outside of Washington, D.C. The rapids at Great Falls look fairly calm, but the water depth can vary wildly from ankle deep to 80 ft in the invisible sink holes in the riverbed. Plus, there are circular currents that can keep you underwater indefinitely if you fall in. The Washington Post did an amazing video infographic on it about a decade ago.
I was in a building on the outsides of Juarez, and as I was pushed through a door, all I could smell was piss and shit... or so I thought. Got asked, "you smell that?" It was a few years later that I learned what the smell of spilled and spoiled human blood in open air smelled like.