Ten Most Haunted Places in the World: New Orleans to Poveglia

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America's Most Haunted - Farnsworth Inn

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In honor of Halloween, we at NowPublic are getting in to the spirit with a list of what we feel is the ten most haunted places in the world.

We've picked our top ten, do you have any other ideas?

1. The Paris Catacombs:

Located underneath the streets of Paris, the Paris catacombs were built when the city started to get so crowded that the only solution was to move the dead from the city surface, to underground. Millions of dead people were disinterred and their remains were placed along the passageways where they lie to this day. 

You can visit the catacombs today and walk the underground halls where the dead lay and people have experienced encounters that they say can only be the ghosts of the people laid to rest there. Some people have reported being grabbed or touched while others say they have caught ghosly shadows in their photographs.

The catacombs are so complicated though that to enter without a guide would be foolish, and some have apparently been lost down there forever.

2. New Orleans:

This is considered to be the most haunted city in all of the US, and its history includes murders, voodoo curses, duels and tales of Revolutionary War Pirates.

The city was such a cultural melting pot when it was first being settled that fights would break out easily and accidents would happen and murders would be plotted. Visitors have recalled seeing ghosts or feeling unsettled in various parts of the city with the LaLaurie House being one of the most haunted buildings in the city.

It was in 1832 when Dr. Louis LaLaurie and his wife Delphine moved in to the house in the French Quarter. They were very well respected and their house was admired by all who were lucky enough to visit. However, as much as Delphine was admired by all who met her, she was brutally cruel to her dozens of slaves that she had; even keeping her cook chained up in the kitchen so that she could call on them whenever she needed.

Rumours started to circulate that something was happening to the slaves as some would just disappear and the changeover would be rather rapid. When the authorities took the slaves away from the LaLaurie House, Delphine managed to get her relatives to buy them back for her.

In April 1834, a fire broke out in the kitchen and when firefighters looked through the remains they found a door in the attic with at least a dozen bodies all chained to the wall and operating tables, confined in cages, and dismembered with parts all around the room. Not all of them were dead at this point.

It appeared that they were all tortured so as not to provide a quick death, with some being cut open but clearly still being able to stay alive. It is believed that Delphine was responsible for all the torture. She managed to escape the city with her family and was never seen again.

The stories of hauntings and ghosts around this house continue to this day. Today the building is luxury apartments.

3. Waverly Hills Sanatorium:

This hospital in Louisville Kentucky, opened in 1910, was built to house tuberculosis patients when the area was stricken with an outbreak. It was expanded over the years to deal with early cases and late cases of the disease and is considered to be one of the most haunted hospitals in America as patients died there due to no cure for tuberculosis at the time.

One of the unverified horrors of the Sanitorium was the 'body chute', which some say was an enlosed tunnel for the dead to be slid down to the railroad tracks at the bottom of a nearby hill. This was done so that the other patients didn't see how many were dying.

Waverly Hills Sanitorium was closed down in 1961, but re-opened as Woodhaven Geriatrics Sanitarium a year later. It was at this point that rumors began to circulate of mistreatment of patients and strange experiments, and the tales of ghosts in these walls have continued for many years. Some say that they have seen a man in a white coat walking in the kitchen and they can smell food cooking. It is also believed that you can see patients jumping to their deaths from the fifth floor.

4. Ohio State Reformatory:

This is a historic prison in Mansfield, Ohio, built between 1886 and 1910, and is now a museum as it was closed down in 1990.

It is said to be haunted in the two chapels in the grounds, in the infirmary and in the solitary confinement cells. Over 200 people died in the prison and many have stated they've experienced ghostly figures of guards and prisoners begging for help. People have stated they've heard people running and cell doors slamming, and one report even states someone felt as if they were touched by a spider web, but it was a ghost according to their guide.

5. The Tower of London:

The Tower has been described as one of the most haunted places in all of Britain with a long history of very famous ghosts.

Since the Tower has been the sight of beheadings, murders, hangings and a prison, it is not farfetched to imagine how haunted this place must be.

Some of the ghosts sighted there include Thomas A. Becket, the two princes Edward V and Richard Duke of York in the Bloody Tower, and the most persistent ghost is that of Anne Boleyn.

She was beheaded on Tower Green on May 19, 1536 and is said to appear to people near the Queen's House close to the place she lost her head. Her headless body has also been seen walking the corridors of the Tower.

The Countess of Salisbury is said to haunt the halls as well, and she had the most grisly execution. She refused to put her head on the block and so the executioner chased her around and hacked at her until she was dead. Her ghost is said to relive the final moments of her death.

6. Unit 731 Experimentation Camp:

Located in Harbin, Manchuria, China, Unit 731 has been called the Asian Auschwitz, and at least 3,000 prisoners, mainly Chinese were killed here with a reported 250,000 others being part of biological warfare experiments.

Prisoners taken in WWII could be sent here to test biological weapons and were infected with diseases such as the plague, cholera and anthrax. According to one description of the camp, people were tested for the effects of grenades, limbs were removed without painkillers and even pregnant women had their babies cut from their wombs.

Parts of the building still remain, even though when Japan lost the war they tried to burn as much evidence of this camp as possible.

People have experienced paranormal activity here for years, with lights and apparitions being seen, voices heard and some people being spotted in the courtyards. Due to the tormented nature and murders that took place at this camp, this is not surprising.

7. Gettysburg

The site of the most deadly battle of the Civil War took place in 1863 here and as the legend goes, the soldiers saw the ghost of George Washington riding a white horse, and residents say they still see him to this day.

However, there were three days of intense fighting here where many soldiers lost their lives and people have said they have seen and heard the ghostly sounds of battle being replayed. The home of Jenny Wade is also said to be haunted here. She is the only woman killed during the battle and residents have claimed to have seen her ghost in her house just as she was before she died.

Ghosts can be seen charging each other in battle or standing by where they fell or their makeshift graves. A ghostly guard is said to still guard the National Cemetary as well.

8. Borley Rectory

Said by some to be the most haunted house in all of England, it is apparently built on top of an ancient monastery, and the legend tells of a nun who fell in love with a monk from Borley Monastery. They tried to escape but were caught and the monk was executed while the nun was bricked up alive in the cellars.

When the rectory was built in 1863, people have said over and over that they have seen the nun, who has cried and scribbled things on to the walls. Sometimes she runs down the hallways, perhaps looking for her lost love.

9. Poveglia

A small island located between Venice and the Lido, Poveglia was used to isolate plague victims during Roman times and during the three instances of plague in Europe. Authorities thought that they could separate the sick from the healthy so people were sent to Poveglia to die and then they were buried on the island as well.

Some say that over 160,000 people died here during the plague times.

In 1922, a mental hospital was built on the island and the main doctor supposedly tortured and killed many of his patients but was eventually thrown to his death from the bell tower of the church.

It is not open to tourists but those who now use the island for farming say that it is haunted by many ghosts of the people who died on this small island near the glorious city of Venice.

10. Aokigahara Forest (Suicide Forest)

This forest at the base of Mount Fuiji is the third most popular place in the world for suicides, after the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bloor Street Viaduct. It was made famous by the book Black Sea of Trees, where the two lovers committed suicide in the forest at the end.

By the 1950s, over 500 people had committed suicide in the forest and in 2002, 78 bodies were found in the forest alone.

People go there to see if they can experience any paranormal activity from those who have lost their lives there and some say that they've seen the ghosts of people still wandering through the trees. Most of those committing suicide are men with many in their 30s, due to the pressure of society and for some, the economic climate.