Throughout history, people all over the world have wondered about ghosts. Whether the culture thought the supernatural forces were benevolent spirits of their ancestors or malevolent, tortured souls looking for vengeance, belief in ghosts has persisted well into modern times. Whether you agree that such forces exist or not, it can still be interesting to take a closer look at the world’s haunted places. With some locations, it can be difficult to deny just how unsettling and otherworldly their backstories can be.
The World’s Haunted Places: Kuldhara, India
Modern perceptions of the world’s haunted sites in Western culture tend to revolve around death and destruction. However, this isn’t the case everywhere. Kuldhara is a village located in Rajasthan, India, that has been abandoned since the late 1800s. Initially, the village was a prosperous settlement populated by a number of incredibly wealthy families. Legends state that the daughter of one of these families was pursued romantically by a corrupt minister. Though the girl and her family denied the man, he threatened the entire village with high taxes if the woman was not handed over to him in marriage.
The minister gave the people a warning and sent his men the next day to collect the girl or the taxes. To the surprise of the soldiers, the entire village had been completely abandoned overnight. Some variations of the story state several other villages nearby were also deserted. The sudden disappearance of the entire population caused Kuldhara to be marked as a haunted location and left abandoned for centuries. In the 2010s, India put emphasis on making the site an attraction for tourists due to the popular stories surrounding it.
Pluckley Village, United Kingdom
The term “ghost story” is often used as a way of describing any tale that is clearly fantastic and untrue. Due to the bizarre nature of human beings, however, fake stories about ghosts can often trigger a larger belief in spirits. Such was the case of Pluckley Village in the United Kingdom. Though locals had never mentioned having been plagued by large numbers of unruly spirits, the village developed a reputation for ghosts thanks to the Guinness Book of World Records. An entry from 1989 gave the town the title of “most haunted village in the world.”
Once the book was published, people flocked to the small town in droves to hunt ghosts and soak up some supernatural energy. This began to make many locals annoyed, especially as opportunist neighbors and shop owners began to make up their own tales in to increase the numbers of tourists. Though the record book hasn’t included a “world’s most haunted places” category since 2008, the Pluckley Village still sees endless visits based on the initial claims. In fact, there are several documentaries and television specials focused specifically on the “haunted” nature of this spot.
Babinda, Australia
In the picturesque region of Babinda, Australia, is a hidden body of water that has come to be known as Devil’s Pool. Local legend says that the pool received its name from an old curse. The story says that an Aboriginal couple visited the pool together often as part of their romance. After a tragedy killed the man, the woman placed a curse on the water. Over the decades, dozens of people have died at the pool while swimming or after falling from rocks. Whether these deaths resulted from a curse or natural slipping and drowning hazards is anyone’s guess.
If the world is as haunted as some people claim, then it stands to reason most people are rubbing elbows with ghosts wherever they go. Still, diving into some of the more haunted locations of the planet can provide interesting insight into the real reasons that these places developed their reputations.