Be warned, they're not very pleasant to look at. These places aren't the sets of horror movies. They exist in the world and will amaze you. Are you brave enough to see them?
Hanging Coffins, Sagada, Philippines
If you want to visit the dead in Sagada, Philippines, you'll have to look up, not down 2 meters. The people of this region are known for burying their dead in coffins attached to rocks. The tradition dates back thousands of years: carve your own coffin, die, and ascend to your ancestors. Many of the rock coffins are hundreds of years old, and each one looks completely different, as they were intentionally crafted by the person who now lies within them.
Capuchin Catacombs, Palermo, Italy
Of all the catacombs in the world, from Salzburg to Paris, none is as eerie as the Catacombs of Sicilia dei Cappuccini (Capuchin Catacombs). This eerie space was created in the late 16th century, when the cemetery at a Capuchin monastery became overcrowded. Religious people were originally intended to be exclusive residents, but once the natural mummification processes occurring in the space became known, it soon became a status symbol for locals to earn their final resting place there (in their finest clothes, of course).
As a result, the underground tombs currently contain approximately 8,000 bodies, divided into separate corridors, including one for religious figures, one for professional men, one for children, and even one for virgins. The corpses are displayed like a museum exhibit, dressed to the nines and arranged in grotesquely realistic poses. Sounds fun?
Snake Island, São Paulo, Brazil
Located approximately 90 miles off the coast of São Paulo, Snake Island, also known as Snake Island, is one of the most dangerous islands in the world. The place earned its nickname due to the insanely high density of golden lancehead vipers—some studies report an average of one to five snakes per square meter. When sea levels rose about 11,000 years ago and separated Snake Island from mainland Brazil, the newly isolated snakes underwent a dramatic evolution to adapt to the changing environment. Without any ground prey on the island, the snakes learned to hunt in the treetops and strike birds from the air. And because they couldn't stalk the birds and wait for the venom to take effect, their venom adapted to become five times more potent, capable of instantly killing its prey.
The Brazilian government prohibits the public from ever setting foot on the island (as if you wanted to).
Sedlec Ossuary, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic
The incredible Sedlec Ossuary is a small chapel located beneath the cemetery's Church of All Saints, renowned worldwide for its eerie décor. In the early 1300s, the abbot of Sedlec Monastery reclaimed holy soil from Jerusalem and scattered it throughout the church cemetery, and suddenly everyone wanted to be buried in this sacred ground. But overcrowding set in, requiring the exhumed bodies to be dug up to make room for fresh corpses. In true "waste not, want not," fashion, the abbots decided to put the exhumed bones to good use. A local Czech woodcarver named František Rint was tasked with organizing the collection of over 40,000 human remains in a visually impressive manner—and he clearly succeeded.
The osseous structures include four candelabra, a family coat of arms, and several streamers of bone cascading from the ceiling. The most stunning exhibit is probably the church's enormous chandelier, which contains nearly every bone found in the human body (plus a few creepy cherubs for good measure).
Aokigahara Forest, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
This seemingly serene forest at the foot of Mount Fuji has an extremely harrowing history. Popularly known as the "Suicide Forest," Aokigahara is the second most popular suicide spot in the world (after the Golden Gate Bridge) – in 2010 alone, 247 people attempted suicide here, 54 of them successful.
Some blame this phenomenon on the forest's association with demons in Japanese mythology. Others point to the dense trees, which muffle sound and make it very easy to get lost. Many travelers even mark their path with ribbon or rope to make it easier to find their way back.
This, combined with the scattering of clothes and letters throughout the labyrinthine forest, gives Aokigahara a terrifying Blair Witch-meets-Palace-at-Knossos atmosphere that will chill you to the bone.
Vejo Rönkkönen Sculpture Garden, Parikkala, Finland
Veijo Rönkkönen was one of Finland's most renowned contemporary folk artists during his lifetime, but he was also a recluse, refusing to display his works in public spaces. Instead, he built his collection of nearly 500 concrete figures in his backyard, creating his own personal sculpture garden. The largest display on the property is a group of about 200 statues in various yoga poses. While there's something distinctly unsettling about the sculptures (they're all supposedly self-portraits), they're nowhere near the most sinister pieces in the garden: Rönkkönen's collection includes numerous eerie individual statues, from a nun lurking behind bushes to a cloaked man with long, outstretched arms.
The wicked grins (complete with real human teeth) and dark, sunken eyes of these figures are just what the doctor ordered... provided you have the desire to never sleep peacefully again.
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