Human desire to travel has led us to the highest peaks and the lowest trenches, and it has taught us a lot about the world. But not every time when we step into the unknown do we return with answers. Sometimes, we come back with more questions. Reddit user Type-0-negative invited urban explorers across the platform to share the creepiest and most mysterious things they’ve encountered in forgotten factories, abandoned hospitals, and all the other places their journeys have taken them, and the discussion quickly filled with chilling stories.
#1
I went into this abandoned chocolate factory. I loved that place, graffitti everywhere. I opened this closet just built on the side of outside wall. Homeless guy sleeping with candels all around him. I saw him another time.
Image source: doc_moses, jcomp / freepik (not the actual photo)
#2
I was exploring an abandoned hospital near my house with my buddies. The complex was huge, it had a college, living areas and a massive main treatment center. After several weekends of exploring the area we found lots of cool things: old surgical equipment, rooms blocked off and covered with radiation warnings, and massive machines we could only guess the purpose for.
One weekend we were way lost in the main area and found a back staircase in some random back room that went up to a floor that wasn’t marked on the floor plans or main stairways. The floor had no windows at all so we had to rely entirely on our flip phones screens on full brightness as flashlights. We went in the first room and the only thing in it was a human sized cage. It had a locking door and that little sliding thing on the bottom to put food trays in. There was only a small cot in it and a very small toilet.
We were a little spooked out and tried to pretend it was possibly something else, but then we went down the hallway and looked in each room and found only the same large cages in each room.
We quickly dipped out of there and unfortunately they have since torn down the complex.
I tried to do some research into it and the only thing I found was that there was also a mental hospital in the complex so it’s possible those cages were for the really far-gone patients.
Image source: gavindec95, Alexander Mils / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#3
I was going through an old storm drain tunnel thing. It was pretty large and you could walk through it without crouching. The walls started off with your general graffiti but as you got in further the tunnel got smaller and smaller until we were almost crawling. The graffiti changed further in. It started to get demonic with pentagrams and notes about Satan. The path was then blocked by a shrine looking thing with old flowers and it had a man made out of sticks like something out of the Blair Witch. We were about to knock it over to get passed it but right before we did we heard a rattlesnake go off in the dark right behind it. We booked it out of there real quick.
Image source: skanksmcoy, freepik (not the actual photo)
#4
Lincoln way, Clariton Pa. It’s a neighborhood of about 13 houses that all got mysteriously abandoned simultaneously. Everything in the houses is still there (clothes, furniture, dishes in the sink) like they all just left without packing. Look it up on Google and you can read about the “beast” that supposedly lurks and caused these people to move.
Image source: YinzerWorks, Google (not the actual photo)
#5
Walking down a street in Pripyat and a window falls out of one of the buildings and smashes in the undergrowth. It sat in its frame for 30 years and fell out as we were walking past it.
Image source: Rock_n_Roll_Outlaw
#6
Human bones. Police were called. Remains unsolved.
Image source: I_love_pillows, Gleb Lucky / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#7
How about a gravestone marked “specimens” behind what was a mental hospital that dated back to the 1800s? http://www.therustjungle.com/rustjungle/went-to-these-cemeteries-that-were-behind-what-was.
Image source: rustjungle, therustjungle
#8
A live goldfish in an inch of black water, in a slowly evaporating tank in an abandoned house. I took him home and he’s still alive over a year later.
Here’s a picture showing Wilson when I got him home that day and today, a little over 15 months later.
Image source: Coragypsatratus, Coragypsatratus
#9
I explored an abandoned brain trauma rehab center in my area. The most unsettling things in there were the dated wheelchairs of patients with the patient’s names on them throughout the building as well as one room at the end of a hall that had a seat with straps that looks like it was used to restrain patients. The hand rests of the seat had scratch marks as if the patients were clawing to get out which kinda creeped me out.
Image source: anon, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
#10
Explored an abandoned toilet factory. Found a room full of lung xrays. Then heard something walking on the tin roof above us and the creak of a door swinging open in another room even though we were all in the xray room. Very spooky. 10/10.
Edit: Just some clarification because I did some research after we got back and this huge factory (like seiously you probably gotta measure the square footage in acres) had some sort of health issue of workers i guess breathing in porcelain dust and they just up and left the whole thing. Other people had deffinitely been there before us. There was grafitti on the walls and some copper had been pulled out and some of the hundreds, maybe thousands of toilets had been smashed. If I ever need a hundred toilets for cheap i know where to go.
Image source: monkeysmouth, nutbazuka550402 / freepik (not the actual photo)
#11
There used to be an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan that my friends and I would explore on the weekend nights in 2003. It was four floors plus a basement (which included a morgue) and we explored every nook & cranny of that place. Judging by the most recent magazines in the 4th floor waiting room, it seemed to have closed in 1990. The previous institution just up & left everything Chernobyl-style (furniture, equipment, patient files…even found some reports!). By 2003, the place was broken and trashed by vandals while the building itself decayed. It looked worse than the hospitals in the Silent Hill games.
That’s not even the creepiest, most mysterious part.
I once entered a room and saw a mirror that wasn’t broken. Everything in this entire building was destroyed, except this one pristine mirror still mounted on the wall. I’ve never seen anything more out-of-place and I get chills just thinking about it.
Image source: firegecko5, wirestock / freepik (not the actual photo)
#12
When I lived in Rostov on Don, Russia a couple years ago, I got lost between some old apartment buildings on my way home, and I stumbled upon an alley courtyard area with an abandoned Soviet helicopter. It was totally covered with graffiti and had no doors, but it was quite cool. I have no idea what it was doing in a residential alley.
Image source: loopymae, aspsvz / freepik (not the actual photo)
#13
I came upon a house a good twenty minutes outside of my tiny town while looking for fishing spots once. It was a large 2-story, 4-bedroom farm house. It looked like the owners had just gotten up one day and left. All of their belongings were still there. Some dishes still in the sink. A skillet on the stove. In the closet I found tons of state fair ribbons dating back to 1912, among other things you’d probably want to keep. The beds were unmade, like someone had just thrown back the covers and gotten up. A bunch of church programs from the church I actually attended when I was a kid, with the name of a pastor I assumed was well before my time. There was an old typewriter on the desk with a paper in it with the word “The” typed out. Birdcage with a long-gone bird in it. Photographs still hanging on the wall. The door to the basement was locked, though, and I still sometimes wonder what was down there and why it was locked.
Everything was covered in a very thick layer of dust, though. You could see that animals had gotten in and left footprints and droppings everywhere (lots of raccoon prints).
It was all just insanely eerie being there. Like, it was clearly abandoned and had been for quite some time, but I still felt like I was intruding on someone’s home. I mean, I’ve explored tons of places, but this place felt different.
Edit: For those asking, this was in Iowa. I haven’t researched the history of the house or know who the prior owners were. I’ve pondered the worst, but one of my theories is that there was probably an old couple who lived there (there was a walker in the closet and one of those bathtub rail things in the bathroom) who were put into a nursing home or something. Maybe their kids just didn’t care about the house? The bird was pretty sad to see.
Image source: anon, AJ Wallace / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#14
I have a good one for this. Definitely scared me, and I’m not one to typically get on edge.
I had just got a new camera and wanted to go take some photos of our downtown area. Nice buildings and a riverfront, so seemed like a good place to practice some shots and see what o could come up with. A couple of buildings were shut down. Blared up windows on the first floor and chains on the front doors. One of the doors had enough of a gap, we could squeeze in so we did. The building was about 7 floors I suppose, totally empty on the bottom level. No dividing walls, and other than some columns/beams standing, there was one wall with metal stairs leading to the next floor. The second floor, which was not fully intact, had some planks that lead across huge holes, just an unfit place to be in. Well, decided to walk up to see what the second floor had. There were maybe 30 steps leading to the second floor. My friend started up first and I was behind him. We got up about 10 steps, and the sound of someone running down them was heard, “Boom, Boom, Boom”. We felt the vibration of the footsteps coming down towards us. The strange thing is, we could see the top of the stairs and no one was there. We turned and ran out, pretty scared. The only thing that I could think of that would explain the noises and vibrations felt would be the steps collapsing or coming unbolted. I know the sound was foot steps coming towards us, but have no clue what it was.
Image source: apellcjecker, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
#15
I was exploring a local abandoned mineshaft tunnel, as well as a few houses nearby. A few weeks later I strangely discovered that I was in some of Ted Bundy’s favorite Utah locations.
Image source: ConManJonMan, Peter Robbins / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#16
Beneath the streets of NYC there is a community of people living in abandoned subway stations with their own functioning economy and currency.
The Mole People of NYC.
Image source: anon, Levi Meir Clancy / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#17
An abandoned hostel in Singapore that my friends and I managed to gain access via a crumbling wall at the back – front gate had a guard. We were taking extra care going up as the railings for the stairwells were all missing and in one line, so at the fourth floor my friend in front jumps so hard it automatically spooks us all – basically in one of the rooms at the top it is completely strung up with red thread- like some massive bloody spider nest – really thin thread but so much of it it looked like the gaping maw of some bloody hell portal or something. We definitely left that room alone.
Image source: weirdnawesome, Feyza Yıldırım / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#18
I was exploring this old sardine factory.
Tons of caved in roof, cool washing room and then we smell this smell.
It was something rotten, so of course we have to find what it is.
After 5 minutes one of us has puked already, the girls are long gone and only 3 of us remain. We round a corner. We see a body. Me and the other guy jump back and our favorite weirdo kicks the body. It clangs.
Some guy filled a jacket and pants with broken sardine jars, genius.
Image source: Shicko93, Michał Franczak / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#19
Hi. Small time youtuber with a mild interest in urbex.
Me & two friends went out to this abandoned neighborhood. Now, that in it of itself can be pretty spooky, but while we were there, there was one particular house that left a lasting impression on us. Midway into recording, I was trying to set up a shot of me & friends doing a humorous improv in the kitchen. As I tried to get them over, there were a few crunches of glass, and one of the others approached me asking if I heard the crunching of the glass. We went to go investigate, but couldn’t find any immediate signs of people. At first, I presumed it was a small animal mucking about. Meanwhile, the other two were sold that it was ghostly activity and were afraid to step back inside.
This is where things got a bit strange for me. I went back in while they stayed out. I began calling out some crude questions. However, as I began to ask, I was cut off by what sounded like a sigh or whisper that was very different from my voice. I checked around, but as before, I was the only one anywhere near that particular area, and the nearby freeway noise would’ve drowned out any shouts they made from where they were.
I came back out to ask if they were anywhere near me, and they said no. They were ready to leave, but I wanted to stick around a little longer, seeing if I could provoke whatever entity rested within that house. Unfortunately, my attempts were unsuccessful. Regardless, that house sits as one of my creepiest explorations yet.
Since I’m a little new to urbex, this may be subject to change in the near/distant future.
Image source: anon, Bruno Guerrero / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#20
I found a finger in an abandoned morgue.
Image source: donebythehands, Egor Litvinov / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#21
Old nuclear reactor on LI, couple friends and I were among the first to explore it, it was shut down in the 80s I believe, never fully ran but was completed.
I was the idiot who climbed inside the turbine in the reactor room, whether it was haunted, sleep deprivation, radiation or otherwise, I saw millions of rats.
All running towards me faster and faster yet never getting closer.
Another fun one was what one in our group dubbed the “physics ghost”
A red wheel used to open and close a water pump that spun, indefinitely, without power, and is still spinning today. This was in an old psych center that was closed decades ago.
Wheel just kept spinning..
Image source: MaxorMatt
#22
8 decapitated doll’s heads hanging from wires tied to pipes on the ceiling.
That wasn’t really the creepy part, though. The creepy part was that they were gone when I came back through that room on my way to the exit.
Image source: hamlet9000
#23
I once was alone in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere with my now husband, then boyfriend. We had been there several times before to play airsoft in the dark with friends, so we were pretty comfortable with the place, though it did have a very creepy vibe. That time, we were sitting near the edge of the big, open floor area where all the stuff used to be stored, making out with each other because why not.
It was the middle of the night and pitch black inside, and rain was pouring down on the metal roof. We were just doing our make out thing and not paying much attention to anything else, until we both heard it and snapped upright.
Footsteps. Very close footsteps, and very distinct even over the roar of rain on the roof.
My boyfriend quickly grabbed his flashlight and trained it on the direction the steps were coming from. Again, we were in a very open area that was only one level, and the flashlight was strong. We absolutely should have been able to see someone if they were close enough to hear them like that.
There was absolutely nothing where the source should have been.
We scrambled out the nearest window pronto. We never went back after that night.
Image source: 1223am
#24
I was in San Francisco helping out for an event for one of the beaches a few years ago and one of the side projects they had going on was clearing this wooded area that was a old bunker hill back before ww1 I believe for the machine gun posts. Needless to say the main bunker you had to slide through the small slit of the structure and it went down into a 2nd level was the only way in. So a group of people and me enter and go down into what can only be described as a dark hotel corridor with side rooms with a crumbling infrastructure. If this wasn’t creepy enough on the first wall was written in graffiti “Satan awaits”. S
o we enter go down to the basement type level and all the rooms are pretty far gone from age and weathering we come upon the room labeled 6 and this rooms door frame was graffitied clown esque design the only room with some type of graffiti besides the words upstairs so it’s pitch black we all have our camera flashlights on to see and this room has 3 voodoo dolls on the walls with each of them having a 6 in the middle of the body with the words on the right saying “until the light takes us” this sent everyone into a I don’t want to be here type vibe. So we finish up for the most part make our way down to the end of this winding corridor and at the end is a large metal door with a small peephole and the metal door wouldn’t open due to rust it was just freaking weird. Still have a slightly terrible video of the event.
Image source: DarrinsBot
#25
A huge abandoned apartment complex. Had to climb in from the roof and working our way downstairs bought us past at least 200 individual apartments. Every door was open or at least unlocked except the third floor end of the hallway C46. I have a lock pick set I’m pretty okay with and we camped out for at least 30 minutes trying to get in the room. Couldn’t get in so we left a little creeped out. Got outside to the truck, and checking out the building one final time, that room has a light on and it may have been the curtains or just my head, but it looked like someone was standing there. Probably just a homeless person but really freaked us out.
Image source: PMasterBland
#26
In the 100% boarded up, pitch black, air tight basement of a 50s era abandoned mental hospital infirmary I came across thousands of X-rays spilling out of drawers, covering the floors. The main patient rooms all had very creepy restraint devices in them as well. Super creepy because for so long that was considered treatment.
Image source: maaaaaat
#27
Back in the 70s, a friends dad was about to tear down a building, so we got the keys and went exploring. The building was an abandon radium lab that treated cancer with high dose radiation (probably from the 30s). Everything seemed to be as it was when abandoned. Files and files of patients with images of grossly deformed faces and bodies. I have always wondered if the radiation sources were still there, how exposed we were and if they just threw its all in the dump.
Image source: porkly1
#28
We were climbing a utility shaft behind a lecture hall that ran up the length of the building. At the bottom of the shaft were 2 or 3 boxes filled with these black and white pictures of mannequins. Some were out of focus head shots of the faceless mannequins, some pictures of them in compromising positions, and some just kinda generic looking shots. Creepy but w/e.
After climbing up 3 or 4 stories we found a mattress and blanket. On its own the mattress would be curious/sad, but the pictures below added a layer of creepy.
Whenever we’d explore around campus I always figured (facetiously) that I could live in one of these spaces if [things got hard]. I guess we found someone who was actually doing it.
Image source: thebigal1
#29
I live in Louisiana. Me and a couple friends were around the French Quarter and we found an abandoned bar. All the mirrors were cracked and all the beers were full of brown murky stuff. The building was old and creaked a lot as we walked. I remember one of my friends tripped and knocked over one of the mugs of brown stuff and we heard something make noises behind the wall of the bar/singing areas. We booked it out of there.
Image source: Profoundpanda420
#30
Went to Chernobyl last week, and I mean as you would expect the whole place is pretty messed up. We were looking around an old daycare and a doll had been left rotting on a bed with its head rested on the pillow. Was made creepier by the fact that the rest of my tour group had moved on but I wanted to look around in the room some more, so I was just alone. Gave me the creeps.
Image source: dicksandwitch
#31
Probably get buried now but:
Me and my friends, after working the close shift at Maccy Ds used to drive over and go wandering around the grounds of an old Hospital that used to house mentally ill patients a long time ago. It was called Whittingham.
So this place was massive, and in the 60’s had gone through loads of controversy of ill treating patients, medical testing…basically all the bad [stuff] and between our friendship group these had turned into rumours and stories of haunted buildings and the like. They had built a new hospital next door, but the ground to this place were huge, abandoned and barely even guarded (this was around 1999-2001). Anyway, we used to drive over, park up and climb the fence.
Each time we would try and discover a new building or area. Quite often the floors would give way, or we would have to jump across big holes in the buildings. it was pretty dangerous. But there were wards, huge halls, massive old Victorian buildings with towers, an old church…just an amazing place to explore and scare the [hell] out of each other. Think creepiest place you can imagine and you’re probably on the right track. Like literally something out of a horror movie set.
I remember one time, we were walking across an old theatre room and a friend actually fell through the floor to the basement, hurt himself pretty badly but trying to get him out/find him was the worst. I have a million funny stories about this place but there are two terrifying times that will stick in my mind forever.
We were exploring one of the bigger, older Victorian style buildings and i had lost rock paper, scissors to climb through the window and try and open the door from the inside. I got the door open and we all went in, it was a huge mansion like building with those stairs that are split at the bottom and curve round to join together at the top. Torches on and in pretty much pitch blackness we went up them and right along this corridor, turns out this was a building of small wards. We walked into one and it was like a loop back round to the main corridor again. So we wandered down it and all the beds were just metal frames with nothing else, as we turned the corner there was one bed, however that had a mattress on it and it was just stained with blood. like a big patch. Was gross. One of my mates freaked out. He was pointing at the steps and there were drops of blood leading from the ward, we had just been in back down stairs. I would say that’s the most scared i’ve ever been, and when you’re already a bit panicky and you see this, we absolutely bolted. I don’t think we went back for a while after that one.
The other time i won’t ever forget is when we couldn’t get into this one building, so we found a basement door around the back, you know those creepy thin stone steps that lead underground with a wooden door at the bottom. We pushed our way in and were in some kind of underground corridor. it had all of the pipes on the ceiling running the length of it. i’m a big lad, and i was stooping a bit to get through this so you can imagine how it felt, tight, low ceiling and pitch black. We dared each other to go first and luckily i was right in the middle this time. safest place! Anyway, this corridor went on forever, we were obviously in the underground network of utility tunnels that joined the buildings. There were a couple of staircases leading off every now and then but most were blocked off so we just kept going. After a good few minutes of walking we came to the end where there was one metal door. It was one of those classic hospital/jail doors you see in films with the little window hatch at eye level. We pushed this open, quite literally scared as babies and inside the room was empty except for one thing. There was a single metal chair in the middle of the room fastened down to the floor and above it hanging down from the ceiling were two metal chains with those wrist wrap/tie things on the end. It may be the single worst thing i’ve ever seen. We all knew what it was and what had probably happened there. but to see it first hand, in this hidden underground room at the end of this corridor. It will never leave me, that image. This was too much.
Image source: Clownfeet
#32
I found an abandoned farmhouse near lake Lowell in Idaho, I was 16 and I probably trespassed but I found a machete next to what looked like a blood-sprayed door. I have pictures on my computer but I’m on mobile, will gladly share if anyone wants to see.
Also found six pack glass Dr Pepper in immaculate condition, took it back home and mom called it trash but sold it for a pretty penny behind my back. More upset about that honestly.
Image source: Cassie_1991
#33
I’m not sure if anyone will see this.
I spent my childhood on an old abandoned farm. The barns there were mostly run down buildings with little to explore. The most interesting thing about them was simply the animals that nested up in them. Except this one barn. It was larger than the rest and had all these little coves and crevices. Yet somehow, the upstairs was the creepiest. It seemed to loom over anything that stood by it and always gave off these dark vibes. It seemed mysterious and untrustworthy, and for some reason my father felt the need to board up it’s windows sometime before I was born. The floors were unstable enough to collapse at any moment and I wasn’t allowed up there, but I went anyways.
There was a tiny narrow staircase that lead to the upstairs. The steps themselves crackedd with every step. When I reached the top of the stairs there was writing on the wall that said “Home sweet home”. There was writing on the door leading to the living quarters with the writing “Finkville”. The rest was pitch black with nothing living there with the exception of a large nest which I’ve never seen occupied. There was writing on the walls of men’s names with arrows pointing to the nearest room. There were glass bottles all over the place covered and filled with dirt and dust. I found a few strange artifacts one of which was a weird license plate nailed to the floor for some odd reason. One thing that always perplexed me was a small torn piece of fabric with a flower pattern on it that I can only imagined belonged to either a table cloth or a women’s dress.
Image source: DemonicWolf227
#34
Fifteen years ago I was in the Air Force and got assigned to provide mobile security to missiles launch facilities located in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska. Riding around in a Humvee for 12 hours a day 4 days a week in the middle of no where go pretty boring so we would often go into the many abandoned houses located within our patrol area. One was unlike the rest. It was a red brick ranch style house that looked like it was built in the 70’s and was in decent condition on the outside for it sitting there with no one living in it. I passed the place everyday I worked so I was pretty confident it was abandoned but I still waited a few months before entering.
One night my curiosity got the best of me so I decided to stop by and check the place out with my team. It was 1 am so we had to use our mag lights to light our way. We never went into places that were locked so I was excited to see the back door wide opened and the front unlocked. We also looked in the windows before entering to ensure the place was indeed vacant since we had to carry our weapons on us. Upon entering it was a normal abandoned place. [Stuff] scattered everywhere dusty as hell. We explore some then find out the place has a basement. Open the door and slowly make out way down into the abyss shining our lights around and something catches the eye of one of the guys. He points his light at it freaking out.
It is a human figure standing there with their back towards us wearing a cowboy hat. The is no movement and then I noticed that this person isn’t touching the ground so I point my light up to see that a rope is around their neck and they are hanging by the rafters. We start freaking out wondering what to do. So we get closer to ensure it is indeed what we think it is before alerting authorities. I get with in range to knock it’s hat with my M4 and and meet with a burlap sack. Someone thought it would be funny to hang a scarecrow on the rafters. Well it did a good job at scaring.
Image source: SauceQue
#35
There was this beautiful, old abandoned house down the street from me when I was a kid, and I always wondered what had happened there. It was this huge farm house right in the middle of an over grown field covered in ivy and weeds. Friend and I walked up one day and went inside – there were obviously squatters there at some point since there was clothes strewn about and boxes of old food containers. There was this staircase that spiraled up 3 stories in the center of the room and clothes were laid across at the top as if to dry. The stairs weren’t in good condition, so we stayed on the first floor – it looked to have had a fire at some point but only in a few rooms. They were completely black and destroyed.
All the windows were boarded up so no light was coming in through them, and I was using my camera to flash and take pics. On one flash we thought we saw somebody, quickly looked at the camera and ran out swiftly. On the camera was an outline of a dark person, it was probably a shadow, but it totally creeped us out.
Image source: halibot
#36
Was exploring an abandoned school, and went to the gym to find little angel statues hanging from a chain.
Could make a nice phone wallpaper..
Image source: Kyle2_6e
#37
So me and my friends decide to go into a huge creepy house. There’s a barn like building in front of the house which you have to walk by before getting inside the house and keep in mind the barn like structure door was closed when we first walked by it. Anyways we make our way in and there’s holes i’m the floor and trash all over the place from squatters, so we keep making our way through the house and i find a pick axe just laying on the floor. I decide to grab incase any ghost trying to fight but anyways we keep going and get to the stairs and the entire flight of stairs had nails sticking out of them. These nails weren’t from old planks that covered them and later taken out, these nails were all sorta new and were not bent in anyway.
All of a sudden we hear a noise coming from the barn like structure and we freak and dip right away. When we were running out that door that was closed from before was no wide open. It couldn’t have been from any of us because we all stuck together. As soon as we saw that we booked it even faster.
As soon as we hit the street all of us are freaking out and then we notice a women running up the street. We were already freaking out enough and she comes to us and asks us “were you guys in that house just now” and we weren’t gonna lie so we told her “yeah” and she starts saying “oh my god oh my god, please please stay out of the house” we asked her why and she responded with a blank face and just said “it’s very dangerous house stuff has happened in there”. We then proceed to ask her what happened and she said “i can’t tell you guys but all i can say never go back in that house ever again, bad stuff will happen to you” we all started to freak out even more. she then told us we needed to leave immediately and right when she said that a loud noise came from the house. right when we heard that we booked it for my car and have since never returned.
all i can say that was one creepy night.
Image source: apk20
#38
Oh, one that I can answer!
Down in Florida, there is an abandoned hotel on an island that hasn’t been touched in YEARS.
I broke in and got some pictures, and I’ll share them if there is interest.
In the pictures, you can see that the hotel was clearly abandoned overnight and on a whim because there are still flat screen TV’s on the wall, glasses of water on the tables, news papers that were being read, all kinds of weird things.
It was creepy because it looked like this hotel experienced the rapture and everyone just upped and left.
Image source: unidentifies
#39
Found an old circular surgical saw in a pathology ward in an abandoned hospital! This place still had a white board with patients names and organs that they had taken from them. Super weird.
Image source: 21mtho
#40
Needless to say, the basement of a funeral home from the mid 1800’s. there was a sub-cellar with a large ‘jail’ cell, i say that because the iron bars for the door where over an inch thick and the lock was tremendous. It was all by itself and I got the willies imagining what they kept in there.
Image source: Ottsalotnotalittle
#41
Explored an abandoned old Catholic girls boarding school once. Had to climb a fence, jump on the roof and through a bathroom window on one of the top stories. Worst thing I saw was in the bathroom on the way in. Blood all over the bathroom and splattered all up the mirror and toilet and there was a headless pigeon in the middle of the bathroom. Found out that the local goths threw parties there.
Image source: anon
#42
I used to live really close to the grounds of a psychiatric hospital that was built in 1916 and abandoned in 1996. My family moved to the area in 2003 and my brothers and I would explore it and we found all sorts of neat eerie [things] like the morgue, hidden underground tunnels, an old shock therapy machine. The most unsettling part of that hospital though was the children’s ward. Opening that door and seeing a bunch of old dolls staring back me really creeped me the [hell] out.
Edit: this site has some great pics of the place if anyone is interested The Old Whitby Psych.
Image source: anon
#43
Was exploring an abandoned canal boat tunnel, named Netherton Tunnel, now this this is long as hell and was used to transport canal boats from the early 1900’s, anyway every time ive been there ive always felt the sense of being watched, even when going with different people and probably 7-8/10 times ive been ive seen eyes coming towards me from within the tunnel, now as i thought i was going crazy the first time i returned with different friends over many different occasions and have seen the exact same eyes in the darkness. Even friends who have had no idea about them made jokes saying it kinda looked like eyes.
Safe to say i probably wont go again.
Image source: Jooordon
#44
A plastic bag of human remains, in the Havana Necropolis, this past week.
Image source: cpeterkelly
#45
I was exploring Coco Chanels old mansion now on the market for $3.8 million ! and we found a strange tunnel which went on for ages, it seemed to go right under the house and beyond but cant find any info on it. It’s was full of bones as well and we got it all on video too.
Image source: EverythingScotland
#46
Graffiti under a really old bridge. It said things like “These things happen for a reason.” and “You are the reason that I’m doing this.” There were also other notes but I forgot what they said. We got out of there real quick. Also, there was a mural of Harambe.
Edit: This place was also in a not so good neighborhood.
Image source: anon
#47
I explored an abandoned women’s juvenile prison. I turned a corner, and at the end of a long, dark corridor, there was a person just standing there, looking at me. Scared me. Then, I realised he was a cardboard cutout and I knocked him over.
Image source: SemiAwesomeness
#48
A hayloft full of angry bees and a very well-used mattress at an abandoned zoo.
Image source: anon
#49
Literally last night me and my friends were exploring a somewhat newly abandoned hospital (about a year, so there’s no power or people but it’s not run down or anything.) We picked a helluva spooky night to do it though, thunder, rain and it was pitch black.
We were trying to find a way in and we went down this open corridor, we’re testing out all the doors and the last one is graffitied with “Come Find Me ;)”
Noooppee.
Eventually security showed up and we bolted.
Image source: UrbanExplorinUrMom
#50
My friend and i were exploring an abandoned mill or factory in chicago. We had taken some good lsd and were searching for this 150 or so foot tower with a ladder going up it with entry from the waterfilled dark basement. I had a headlamp on and as we were going through the basement we ran into a homeless gut who scared the [hell] out of us. We apologized for walking around his home and he brought us to the tower which we used rope to access. My friend climbed the tower and then we went and had the strangest afghani dinner i have ever had.
Image source: avibomb
#51
I am from Germany but live in Shanghai, I went to explore one of the abandoned bunkers (many have been refurbished but some are just abandoned in the city) I did not see anything creepy per se but the moment I stepped in I had an intense feeling to just get out of there, like primal instinct to just run, I forced myself to explore for a bit and once I entered one of the last rooms I just automatically turned and sprinted out of there, no clue why, the whole place felt wrong but that room in particular made me just leave.
For those living in Shanghai and interested the address is Hunan Lu 2888.
It’s a compound now but if you go in the section called the Forest should have a fake waterfall, the entrance is behind the waterfall if you go around you can’t miss it, last time I checked it was flooded but they drain it in the winter, check it out of you want, I still don’t know why my brain just said run.
Image source: datascream11
#52
I’m out urbexing at a somewhat near to me abandoned mental asylum with some friends and my lame sister. The place was on a large grounds on a hill with a really good view of the CBD in my city (its a pretty big city too). My sister and one of my friends chickened out but a group of 5-6 still went in. After exploring for a bit we come to this door which is stuck between being closed and open on the hinge (like when you not quite shut the door enough). My friend and I push on the door to try and open it to no avail. The next thing I hear is this absolutely massive bang come from the other side of the door (its hard to describe exactly what it was but bang hits most the beats) and we absolutely run for it. After getting out of the main area and back to near the fence we see the cops have rocked up (apparently a person near the place dobs people into the cops regularly) but luckily they didn’t see see us come out and we were let off with a warning (and my sister + friend covered for us).
Funnily enough if it wasn’t for that bang we probably would’ve been in there a lot longer and gotten busted.
Image source: anon
#53
Whilst exploring an old hotel/resort kind of place perched at the edge of a cliff I found that someone had filled 3 or 4 of the guest rooms floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall with books and set them all on fire, probably in an attempt to burn the place down. One of the very few surviving books was The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe, which I held onto.
Image source: mottled_n_bottled
#54
Back when I was in high school my friend and I would frequent this burned down house a couple blocks away. Most of it had already succumbed to the weather when we got around to exploring it as it was pretty close to the beach but you could noticeably tell that the windows and the walls looked like they were bashed outwards. My friend told me that a family used to live there and the kids on the upper floor had to push the bed out of the window to escape. [Eventually the house was torn down after Hurricane Sandy but I saved a couple of pics including this half-burned doll on the ground.
Image source: TempestEdge
#55
When I was a kid, I lived just down the road from what used to be a small museum. It was on the side of a large university that we used to explore daily.
One day, we noticed a man going into the museum. It was the only building on campus we hadn’t found a way into, and we realized this might be our only chance. As the man walked through the door that he had just unlocked, we snuck up and slid a large stick between the door and its frame. When he had vanished from sight, we giddily entered the museum.
The first thing we saw was a large dinosaur skeleton, probably a reproduction, but all ours to view none the less. We started walking down a dark hall way when my friend grabbed my wrist. I tried to swat her hand away before she whispered: “we have to leave, now.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to see what she was looking at-A man, probably the man who had just entered the building, was standing in a large, lit bathroom with the door wide open. He was in front of a mirror, with his completely bare back to us. The man was completely naked, not even a sock on him, standing erect in front of the bathroom mirror. I stood in shock for what felt like an eternity, until suddenly, his eyes met mine in the mirror, and he grinned.
Needless to say we hightailed it out of there as fast as our legs could manage. We stopped exploring the university after that, and I never told a soul what we had seen.
Image source: FigFiggy
#56
I encountered the same type and colour of children’s toy in multiple diverse and hard to reach locations. My guess is someone drops those on purpose on these spots to confuse others. But it is still kinda weird.
Image source: Xtruder
#57
Not urban, per say, but I live on a farm next to a forest with a couple of abandoned cabins in it.
One is more in the middle of the woods by a little pond, and is more recent. I could only tell because somehow the window got broken in and I poked my head in to see what was inside and there was an old stove and refrigerator that looked like they had barely been used, two mattresses stored against the wall, an old little TV set, and an old Cleveland Cavaliers sleeping bag that a raccoon got into and tore up. But I recognized the logo, it was from, like, early 90’s. Found out later the cabin is still owned by some dude in Columbus who got sick back in the mid 90’s and just was never able to go to his little vacation spot again after that.
Even FURTHER into the woods, as in farther away from my house, but technically closer to the road, is another, older cabin. Not even a cabin, really, it’s just an old abandoned house. At some point a tree or something fell on it, and half of it is just gone, but there’s still a little picket fence around it. I never went inside because the floor was mostly rotted out and there didn’t seem to be anything in the rooms besides old wallpaper. The only creepy part was the basement, which seemed oddly deep. Like, too deep. Couldn’t even see the bottom, it was blacker than black down there. I’ve never gone to the trouble to go there again, but I always fantasized that there’s either some sort of buried treasure or a portal to hell down there.
Also there were just tulips growing all over the place. Tulips don’t grow wild here, so I’m guessing that whoever lived there had a flowerbed and all of their tulips just stayed and multiplied after they left for whatever reason.
Image source: driku12
#58
Not traditionally creepy.
But me and a few friends were hanging out in the office section of a pretty large abandoned high end clothing factory. Just drinking beer and enjoying the view.
Anyway, suddenly we heard sirens and decided to bail. As we walked down the stairs, we looked down a hallway leading to the workshop area, and we saw a man crossing it heading towards the ground level exits on the other side. We just kept on our way, and werw greeted by firemen and police on our way out.
Turns out that a pyromaniac had started a fire that ended up burning everything but the office section. Thanks to us spotting the guy, he was caught less than 400 m away.
Image source: Doublepirate
#59
Once me and a few friends decided to explore an abandoned university in our area, and we found a few very odd and peculiar things. We found an old piano, which still functioned and my friend decided to give me some chilling music as I walked around. I found a few doors that seemed to lead to a random room, and with the aid of a crowbar, we managed to get one open. We went in, and everything was dark and velvet, with some very very sexist and revealing g posters on the walls. There were sofas, and tables, seemingly untouched, and a balcony. I have those posters at home now. The mind really boggles at what kind of a room that was.
Also, one time I climbed into an abandoned church. It wasn’t too old, but old enough to be creepy at night. I climbed in there with one friend, and looked around a lot, in draws to hallways to behind picture frames. Eventually we found a cellar door. The most beautiful phrase in the English language. Who am I to resist? We opened the door (which had multiple locks) and went down the cellar steps to find ourselves in a room plastered with children’s drawings and bibles, as well as chairs. And the walls. The walls were plastered in Jesus fear propaganda. From Jesus loves you so live back, to confess your sins, these posters were pretty much EVERYWHERE. Those stairs and the locks on the door gave us a really bad vibe about that room, it honestly felt like a punishment room. After a few hours of exploring, we decided to find the bell tower. We found ourselves a hallway which was locked, but seemed to lead to a residency area (where the priests used to sleep). We climbed from window to window, bypassing the door, and crept down the hall. Suddenly, we both fell silent, dead stop. We could both hear breathing coming from the room closest to us. Straight up turned heal and climbed out.
Image source: _AnonOp
#60
A massive pool of not quite dry blood. (We assume, it sure looked like it, no one wanted to check).
No drag marks or drops leading away from it.
Seconds after we saw it we heard a thud and possible footsteps down the hall, everyone freaked out and we legged it out of there.
It was in a old abandoned hospital, we knew homeless people lived there but we never actually saw them.
Image source: K1ttyK1lljoy
#61
My SO was 8 months pregnant and we were still at our old apartment. We were taking a walk down our street, which was a dead end street, with a few abandoned apartments and house. She had the bright idea to explore one.
So we go up this short set of stairs that turns around the building, and see a door that is busted in. We start to enter when, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, is a giant stuffed rabbit. Or someone in a rabbit suit.
I turn to my SO to give a “wth” but I swear she was just a cartoon smoke outline. I never knew a pregnant woman could run that fast.
TL;DR- Me and pregnant SO went in abandoned apartment a few doors down. Saw either a giant stuffed rabbit or someone in a rabbit suit. Didn’t stick around to find out.
Image source: -The-Wolverine-
#62
While walking through an abandoned insane asylum I found a whiteboard with instructions on how to restrain a violent patient. The place was filled with medical pamphlets and patient records. Always an interesting trip.
Image source: pixelated_vision
#63
There’s an abandoned elementary school I found, and during my exploration I came across a Father’s Day card that a student wrote to their father, who was either absent or had passed away. Super depressing.
Image source: NC_DE336
#64
I find shopping carts wherever I go. It’ll be a place where the nearest store isn’t for miles and there’d be at least two shopping carts there. I found one in a tree once too. How the [hell] does that happen?!?
None of these places were abandoned stores by the way :p.
Image source: cryptidman117
#65
There used to be an old abandoned church at the top of this hill in a cemetery that’s walking distance from my house. We went to the basement of the house late one night and found mannequins and boxes and boxes of merchandise from a department store in Florida. (We live in the upper Midwest). It was torn down last week unfortunately :(.
Image source: milesperhour425
#66
Finally one I can answer: I was in Nafplion (?) in greece. Well it was very cool, but there are a few abadoned houses. Like 1 big house and 1 hotel. We also found an abadoned tunnel. But let’s continue; When we climbed up to the hotel we had much fun on the roof and we made pictures because you could see the whole city. We checked everything, except the underground. When we wanted to visit it, we found a new bottle of water. No dust, nothing. We already checked this stairway. Eventually we had the guts to go past all of this trashed things and explore the basement/underground. We found many mattresses and it looked like someone lives there. That was creepy and we just ran away because we heart something! I’ve got some other stories, but I doubt someone will actually be interested in my adventure.
Image source: ConFectx
#67
There was an old pain factory near where I grew up. Me and friends often visited, I lost my virginity in that building.
There were plenty of rooms full of weird stuff, cool old lighters that looked valuable, carpets and paint and stuff. We broke through the plasterboard to access locked rooms.
When I ran away from home at 16 I lived there for a few days. We had moved away from the area so it took me half a day to walk back. I boarded myself up in one of the ground floor rooms and dragged bits of carpet in to sleep on and under. On day two I woke to hear some older kids banging about and trashing the place. I made sure the room was secure because I was an alternative kid and the area was full of kids who would kick the [hell] out of you for wearing baggy pants. They tried to kick the door down as i sat silently at the other side. They eventually gave up but I didn’t sleep that night.
I ended up living with a family friend for a few weeks before moving into a hostel. The factory was burned down a couple of days after I left. If my friends didn’t help me I might have died in that place.
Image source: silverbackjack
#68
I live in Kodiak AK and there is this place known as Bunker Hill. Mainly just a place to go party that’s an hour out of town. There is an entrance into a large bunker and it goes down 3 levels. We use to set up a generator and blast music to have a little “mini-rave” in the first floor, and an “activities” room on the second floor. The third floor is inaccessible due to the metal door being welded shut. One night I was sitting outside the bunker on the cement railing, hammered as all hell, and wound up falling backwards into the brush. Turns out that there was a large hole with a ladder, about 5×5 that was covered with brush. I rolled about 15-20 feet down it and found an open entrance to the third floor. It was tiny, and all we found was a really old Shasta grape soda can. I still have the can in my work locker.
Image source: RoscoeHancock
#69
I once found a house in the middle of a lake that seemed to have been abandoned as-is years ago. There were plates and newspapers (dated 13 years ago) on the table, the bed was unmade, there were shoes and clothes on a chair. It was pretty small, must have been a couple’s summer house or something, but it definitely gave you the creeps.
Image source: mikailovitch
#70
In Florida I once discovered an abandoned old school. Place and closed in the 50’s and been used by the town periodically as a storage unit and a Halloween haunted house. They had boarded up most windows but there was a ply board you could slide sideways and crawl through.
It dropped me down into the basement of his three story building. Into what seemed like a literal Silent Hill. A rusted out boiler room with fake supplies all over the place. And then it turned out homeless folks had been using the place off and on as well so every time a bag moved I was getting really nervous.
There was a bunch of creepy graffiti and stuff but that initial entrance was the scariest part of the night for me. Went back a few more times since the place was huge.
Image source: -Greis-
#71
There is an abandoned meat plant near my childhood home that I decided would be a great place to take photos for my intro to photography class in college. From the front the place didn’t look that big, and looked like two – three rooms total. Then I open the door on the side and find a huge building with multiple walk in freezers, an entire office area with shelves and shelves of documents, a huge open room with broken down cars in it, and in the back a holding area and loading dock for live animals for when it was still operating. This place was huge and took me about 3 hours to explore fully, going room to room getting my bearings of the layout.
The creepiest part of the whole thing was the feeling that this place was still used in some capacity either by homeless people or kids up to no good. There were couches and food wrappers/liquor bottles everywhere. At one point I swear I heard something or someone moving a few rooms over and I hid behind a pallet for longer than I like to admit listening and holding my breath. I like to tell myself it was just a squirrel or animal. After that I slowly made my way back to the front of the building and went home.
I did go back a few more times, with a flashlight and a pocket knife, but nothing worth noting happened. I spent a good amount of time looking through all the stuff the company left behind when it closed, like old documents and equipment.
Image source: derek_the_deliman
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