A church decorated with bones, a turn-of-the-century torture chamber, ghost lights in the-middle-of-nowhere Texas, a Voodoo Queen’s grave and a hotel so haunted that the ghosts are caught on tape are among the scariest things we’ve seen out on the road. Scroll down if you dare…
The Creepy Human Bone Church in Bohemia
Human bones from tens of thousands of people adorn the walls and ceiling, in inexplicable formations. Stacks, pyramids, signs, crucifixes, candelabras and decorations surrounded us, all made from the skeletons of the long deceased. Strings of skulls and femurs of the dearly departed hang like garlands over the arches and doorways.
We simply gaped in amazement. Then we noticed the creepy centerpiece of this macabre masterpiece, a massive chandelier containing at least one of every bone in the human body. It’s hard to say how long we stood staring, time seemed to come to a grinding halt inside the tomb.
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The Human Bone Church of Sedlec, Czech Republic
Turn of the Century “Spa” Torture Chamber
At some point in Hot Springs’ history, someone decided that the healing water springing from the ground wasn’t good enough. Nope, tools – really scary tools – were necessary to supplement the healing powers of the hot springs. We had stumbled upon what looked like a Frankenstein movie torture chamber.
Mortified by the collection, we still had to look. Good God, that one has an electric plug! We don’t even want to think what a long glass tube with a 120 volt plug out the back could be used for. David actually started getting a queasy feeling deep in his innards. Things were skrintching up a good bit. Orifices were tightening in a precautionary manner, with the hope of preventing any unwanted insertions.
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The Hot Springs Torture Chamber
The Marfa Ghost Lights
The first public account of the spook lights was in the July 1957 issue of Coronet Magazine, but the article claimed that they had been reported as far back as the 1800s. People have described them as glowing spheres floating above the ground or high in the air. They can vary in color from white to yellow, orange or red and zip around in a strange manner, sometimes merging into each other or splitting apart to form new balls. They are known to hover, or shoot around at high speed and disappear and reappear.
During the day, it’s just a big open space in the middle-of-nowhere Texas. But at night, we shot this.
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The Marfa Ghost Lights
Haunted New Orleans & The Tomb of a Voodoo Queen
St. Louis Cemetery #1 dates back to 1789. The cemetery holds several of New Orleans’ earliest dignitaries, both famous and infamous.
The most storied resident, Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, attracts hundreds of pilgrims to her tomb everyday. The believers draw three Xs on the tomb or leave offerings, always in threes, of candles, flowers, dolls, coins, even cigarettes and cigars, in hopes of having the famous priestess grant their petitions. On occasion, the sacrifices will include chickens. The more urban of the worshipers have been known to offer up a bucket of KFC, perhaps believing chicken comes like that in its natural form, to fulfill the ritual’s requirements.
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Haunted New Orleans
The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs
High atop a hill in Eureka Springs is the Crescent Hotel, billed as America’s Most Haunted Hotel.
When the hotel took a stint as the Baker Cancer Cure Center with Norman Baker at the helm, its fate was sealed. Baker was a former vaudevillian with a magic elixir, no medical degree and a fondness for experimental surgery. We could only assume that many of the apparitions are the haints of unlucky patients that suffered under his “treatments.”
The hotel’s website has some of the scariest ghost stories, photographs and recordings we’ve ever heard. Here’s just one:
“Recently my brother and I spent the night in “Theadora’s” room. We were up in the room with a tape recorder and were asking some questions. We captured a voice on tape.
I asked if i was saying her name correctly. Theadora. Directly after there was an answer. We didn’t hear it until reviewing the tape later.
The voice on the tape is of a woman saying the name Theadora.”
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Eureka Springs
The Remote Chapel of Ease
Down a lonely road, through a thick growth of live oaks so heavily draped with Spanish moss that they darkened the afternoon sky, we came upon The Chapel of Ease on St. Helena’s Island in South Carolina.
The Chapel’s mausoleum was broken into and raided by Union soldiers during the Civil War. Repairs were made, but the next morning the bricks had all been removed again and neatly stacked next to the broken entrance. Local authorities assured everyone that no one had been allowed near the cemetery that night, supernatural forces were suspected.
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The Chapel of Ease
YOUR turn: Which place is the spookiest? Would you go to any of these places? Would you spend the night? Where’s the scariest place that you’ve ever been?
