Most Haunted Places in the World for a Good Scare

If these past few years have taught us anything, it’s that life can be scary. Like really scary.

And for those of us who can’t get enough of the world’s horrors, there are plenty of haunted places to explore. These are scary places where cries are heard, spirits spotted and visitors have been known to disappear.

Intrigued? Check out the world’s most haunted places — if you dare.

Leap Castle calls itself the world’s most haunted castle, and there are at least seven sections of the fortress believed to house spirits. Built on a Druid site once used for initiation ceremonies, some of the spirits include Elemental, an apparition of a decaying face who brings with it the distinct smell of death whenever it visits.

There’s also It, a small, sheep-sized creature summoned in the early 1900s by a resident occultist, as well a murdered priest, who was stabbed by his brother in a rivalry over clan leadership. And let’s not forget the Red Lady who has been spotted walking the premises with the ghosts of two little girls.

Should we go on? Visitors to the castle have experienced mists, sounds and even a ghostly touch, and the site has appeared on Ghost Hunters.

Romania’s Hoia-Baciu Forest is said to be the most haunted in the world. After all, known as the Bermuda Triangle of Romania, where a shepherd and 200 sheep are said to have been “swallowed” alive. A 5-year-old girl also went missing here and reappeared five years later, unaged and wearing the same clothes.

The forest’s trees grow in counter-clockwise spirals, and the spot with the most paranormal activity is centered around a circle where nothing grows. Visitors to the forest often leave feeling fatigued, while others have seen UFOs, and ghosts and orbs have been photographed. 

Between 1850 and 1941 in cities along the West Coast, strong men were “shanghaied,” or taken hostage and sold into slavery aboard ships heading back to Asia. Not many official records of this activity exist, but it was particularly prevalent in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland (Oregon) and other cities. 

In Portland, the operation was conducted via underground tunnels in the city’s business district and old Chinatown neighborhood. This tunnel system covered several miles and was originally built to move goods from the Willamette River to downtown. But it’s also where much gambling, prostitution and drinking took place during Prohibition. And it’s here where men who had a little too much fun and passed out would be taken and forced into several years of hard labor.

Tours of a portion of the haunted tunnels are still offered today, where you have the chance of seeing, hearing and feeling strange presences. 

The Paris Catacombs is an underground network of tunnels and cemeteries that contain a mere 6 million skeletons. The former limestone mines were converted to a massive graveyard in an effort to eliminate the city’s overcrowding cemeteries in the late 1700s.

Today, the catacombs are one of Paris’ most popular museums — albeit a morbid one. They’re so popular, in fact, that those interested in visiting are recommended to book tickets at least eight weeks in advance.