There is a whole Pandora’s box of secrets, stories and shocks waiting to be unlocked in the US – and we’ve got the key. Follow our round-up of the most mysterious place in every American state, featuring sites of unsolved crimes, locations loved by conspiracy theorists, extraterrestrial hotspots and hangouts popular with the paranormal. Are they strange, inexplicable or just plain spooky? You decide…
Alabama’s most notorious ghost town was also its first state capital, having risen from a patch of wilderness in 1819 to become a Civil War boomtown. But Cahawba (or Cahaba) lies at the confluence of two rivers, and it wasn’t long before persistent flooding forced the state government to relocate. By the turn of the century, the community had disintegrated, with residents driven out by fire and decay. Today, you can visit this frozen-in-time site, preserved as the Old Cahawba Archaeological Park. Here, you’ll find several eerie ruins, including the slave quarters of a mansion and an abandoned schoolhouse.
This stout little lighthouse was conceived in 1906 following a terrible tragedy; the SS Clara Nevada ran aground near Eldred Rock and subsequently caught fire, killing all but two aboard. When the old light became automated and unmanned in 1973, hazardous materials like asbestos, lead paint and diesel-contaminated soil were left behind on the outcrop, so no tours of Eldred Rock Lighthouse operate. The only way to catch a glimpse is from a passing ferry. The eerie tower still serves as a navigational aid to maritime traffic on North America’s deepest fjord today, and is also used to record weather readings.
Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre has collected its fair share of lost souls throughout its century-long history. The venue’s original owner, Harry Nace, is said to have been dispatched by a pair of mysterious gunshots and reportedly haunts the site, while a young ghost named Maddie acts as unofficial front-of-house staff. On select October evenings, ‘Haunted History’ walking tours venture deep into the ominous bowels of the theatre, and if you’re really keen to meet the resident spooks, sign up for a 90-minute Lights Out Investigation with paranormal investigators.
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There are numerous properties vying to be America’s most haunted hotel, but the Ozark Mountains’ Crescent Hotel is one of the most mysterious. Originally opened as a railway hotel in 1886, it was reimagined in the 1930s as a 'hospital' claiming to cure cancer. Founded by conman and former magician Norman Baker – who had no medical training to speak of – the hospital saw many patient deaths during Baker’s tenure, and their ghosts have since been spied throughout the building. After reopening as a hotel in 2000, the Crescent hosts regular ghost tours that lean into its unsettling history.
Sarah Lockwood Winchester was the wife of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, whose family invented the Winchester rifle. After his death from tuberculosis in 1881, Sarah bought what would become the Winchester Mystery House, which started life as a modest two-storey farmhouse. Supposedly plagued by the restless souls of those whose lives were taken by ‘the gun that won the west’, it is believed that Sarah lost herself in the designing and development of this eccentric seven-storey mansion as a means of escaping her torment and outrunning the ghosts. Dig into more of the house’s paranormal parables on a guided tour.
When celebrated horror author Stephen King stayed the night at the Stanley Hotel in 1974, it birthed one of the greatest scary stories ever told. This remote mountain resort is the real-life inspiration for The Shining, which follows a caretaker driven into a murderous frenzy by the spirits possessing a snowed-in hotel. So what was it about the Stanley that ignited King’s novel? The endless accounts of paranormal activity throughout the property likely played a part. It’s still a functioning hotel today, but avoid rooms 217, 401, 407 and 428 if you don’t want to share with uninvited guests.
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When Hurricane Sandy felled a tree on New Haven Green – chillingly, on the eve of Halloween – in 2012, a grisly discovery was found entangled in its roots. Human remains, plus coffin nails, were later found to belong to six different people whose burials dated back to the late 1700s. For almost a decade their stories remained a mystery, until New Haven Museum revealed in 2021 that the bodies were thought to have been laid in a burial ground on the green that was later moved, with these six individuals accidentally left behind. A small portion of the original cemetery is preserved in the Center Church crypt.
Described “by all who have been confined there as a perfect hell on Earth” (according to a Confederate prisoner), Fort Delaware was built in 1859 to protect the ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia, and played a significant role in the American Civil War as a Union-controlled prison. More than 2,650 people perished here, either as a result of disease or poor living conditions. The fort’s haunting history earned it a spot on the TV series Ghost Hunters in 2008, but you can try your hand at investigating spooks for yourself on a paranormal adventure tour.
Comprising over 1,100 tonnes of carved coral rock, this sculpture garden just outside Miami was the brainchild of Edward Leedskalnin, who spent 28 years creating the masterpiece single-handedly under the cover of darkness. As the man was short in height and had a slim physique, people were baffled as to how he could have done it. Aside from claiming he knew the secrets of the pyramids, Leedskalnin never shared the truth behind Coral Castle – and took the mystery to his grave in 1951. It was rumoured he had magical powers, but others believe it was his sheer strength of will that built the castle.
Savannah’s living oak trees are famously adorned with Spanish moss, a kind of foliage that dangles like ethereal tinsel from their branches. But the moss is mysteriously lacking in Wright Square, one of four original squares in the city dating back to colonial times. Used for public hangings in the past, it was here that Irish servant Alice Riley was executed in 1735 after allegedly murdering the tyrannical man she was indentured to. According to folklore, Spanish moss is said not to grow where innocent blood has been spilt – and Alice denied committing the crime to her last breath.
Kaneana Cave was sculpted into existence by the ocean. Once underwater, the cave now lies on a highway and is passed by thousands of people every week – but how many would dare venture inside? Native Hawaiians regard it as a sacred yet intensely foreboding place, believed to be inhabited by the souls of deceased chiefs and a shapeshifting, half-shark god named Nanaue. In ancient times, the Hawaiian people were forbidden from entering Kaneana (also known as Makua) Cave for fear of being devoured by Nanaue, who had an appetite for human flesh. Local storytellers say the cave has become a vessel for psychic energy.
The strange landscapes that now fall within the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve were formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity, which left behind a sea of fossilised lava flows and cinder beds that mimic the surface of the moon. Among the noteworthy features of this dystopian-looking wilderness are the gnarly trees caught in the crossfire when the ancient lava singed the earth, rendering many of their trunks skeletal and twisted. Hike the Devil's Orchard Trail to see some of them for yourself.
Recognised by UNESCO as the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, the Cahokia Mounds are all that remains of North America’s first major city. At its peak, Cahokia rivalled London for size and was home to some 20,000 Indigenous American peoples before becoming mysteriously deserted by 1350. War, disease and European colonisation have all been discounted as potential causes for the city’s abandonment, and stories of Cahokia are even absent from Native American folklore and oral tradition. So what could possibly have happened here that led to the city being erased from living memory?
Lying all but forgotten in an eerie clearing of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest, Stepp Cemetery is a small burial ground containing the graves of around 30 people, the oldest of whom died in the early 19th century. Hoosier folklore is lush with ghost tales and mysterious stories of the cemetery; the apparition of a woman in black has been reported here, possibly in mourning for the loss of her infant son, while claims of an obscure cult known as the Crabbites performing rituals at the site have also been documented.
The small and sleepy Midwestern town of Villisca was rocked on 10 June 1912 when eight people were found murdered in their beds at this property. No one was ever convicted for the senseless killings (six of the victims were children), though suspects have included the Iowa state senator at the time, a travelling preacher man and a former employer with a (literal) axe to grind. Over a century since that fateful night, the Villisca Ax Murder House is now open to the public; daylight tours are available seasonally, while bookings for overnight stays in the creaking timber house can be made year-round.
Named for a six-year-old girl who died while seeking medical attention from a physician who once lived here, the Sallie House is said to now be inhabited by her ghost. It is thought that Sallie was being treated for appendicitis on the day she died, and that the doctor, anxious to operate before the appendix ruptured, made his first incision before the girl was fully anaesthetised. It seems this might have given the spirit of Sallie a deep distrust in men; in 1993, a male owner of the house reported being mysteriously scratched on his chest and abdomen, but his wife didn't feel a thing.
With its imposing Tudor Gothic architecture, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium has the power to make your skin crawl before you’ve even learned its history. Serving as a tuberculosis hospital for 50 years during the 20th century, the facility could hold up to 60 patients at a time – and it’s possible that many of them never left. Notoriously haunted by what could be thousands of lost souls who succumbed over the decades to the disease, the sanatorium opens to the public on selected nights for themed haunted house experiences and paranormal tours. Room 502 is rumoured to be a particular favourite of the departed…
When a deadly hurricane tore through the towns near this swamp on 29 September 1915, blame was laid on a local woman known as Julia Brown, whose funeral had taken place that same day. Urban myths would have Julia – a real person – remembered as an evil, swamp-dwelling voodoo queen who cursed the towns with a song that said one day she would die and take everything with her. But modern voodoo priestesses believe Julia was more likely a healer, and that her song was a warning rather than a curse. Regardless of what you believe, Manchac Swamp can’t fail but be haunted by those lost to the squall.
There’s a strange irony in somewhere that's supposed to bring light being so entrenched in darkness. Lying six miles (10km) off the coast, Boon Island Light was established in 1855 – but not before a devastating disaster struck. Four crew members perished in 1710 when the Nottingham Galley, a British merchant ship, was wrecked on the rocks. The 10 remaining survivors were then forced to cannibalise their dead crewmates and faced 24 days without rescue. You can take a personal boat to the inhabited island today, but it remains a dangerous crossing.
In the Battle of Antietam in 1862, which lasted for 12 harrowing hours, 23,000 Civil War soldiers were killed, injured or presumed missing. It is remembered as the bloodiest single day in the history of America. Now the site of the skirmish has been recognised as a national battlefield and is open to visitors – some of whom have claimed to see images of men in 19th-century military garb vanish before their very eyes. Most ghost sightings seem to centre on a patch of ground known as ‘Bloody Lane’ (pictured), where 5,000 people lost their lives.
It’s one of America’s most enduring murder mysteries. Over a century later, nobody knows whodunnit, but that hasn’t stopped history vilifying Lizzie Borden. Accused in 1892 of seeing off her father and stepmother with a hatchet, Lizzie was later acquitted of double homicide, but was nevertheless shunned by the world. A nursery rhyme written about her goes: "Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother 40 whacks; When she saw what she had done, She gave her father 41." The disturbing house where the crime took place still stands today – you can join a guided ghost tour, or even stay the night.
Built for the mysterious Freemasons, Detroit’s Masonic Temple is a maze of 16 storeys and more than a thousand rooms (complete with secret passageways if the rumours are to be believed). There’s a widespread urban myth that the architect of the building, George Mason, grew too ambitious with the project for his own good; after overspending on the temple’s construction and rendering himself bankrupt, it is said he leapt from the roof and plunged to his death. In reality, Mason died at home as an old man – so who is the ghostly figure alleged to be stalking the stairway?
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On the south shore of Lake Harriet lies an ash tree with a mysterious inhabitant. According to local folklore, this is the abode of Thom, a friendly elf that Minneapolitans have adopted as one of their own – he even has a pin on Google Maps. Just inside Thom’s adorable door and around the trunk of his supposedly enchanted tree, adults and children alike leave letters and gifts for the tiny creature, such as crystals, coins, flowers and books. If you’re lucky (and believe in magic), you may even get a response.
Built across three different periods, the McRaven House has been called the ‘time capsule of the South’ for its varied architectural styles and the histories embedded in each distinct section. The first part of the house predates the state of Mississippi itself and was once home to the notorious Andrew Glass, a highwayman of the Natchez Trace. The second was where Mary Elizabeth Howard (wife of Sheriff Stephen Howard) died in childbirth in the 1830s. Glass and Mary are just two of the spirits said to be active here; McRaven hosts tours by candlelight, ghost hunts and other eerie experiences for those brave enough to discover more.
This obscure phenomenon, often described as an orange ball of light, has been occasionally spotted dancing above the borderlands between Missouri and Oklahoma. According to local lore, the mysterious orb was first spied by Native Americans along the Trail of Tears in 1836, and now sightings are typically reported along a stretch of Route 66 nicknamed the Devil’s Promenade. Both paranormal and scientific investigators have been trying to find the source of the Spook Light for years, but no definitive conclusions have ever been drawn.
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To the unknowing, Montana’s Flathead Lake looks perfectly serene. But for over 130 years, rumours have swirled about a legendary beast hiding in its biting depths. Sightings of the Flathead Lake Monster (not unlike the UK’s Loch Ness equivalent) have largely described the mythical creature as an enormous sea-serpent with steel-black eyes, but evidence of its existence is little more than anecdotal. The legend of the deep-dwelling creature, as alive today as it ever was, is thought to have originated in the culture of the Kutenai, an Indigenous Montana tribe.
Home to what has been labelled the world’s largest collection of verified haunted artefacts, the Museum of Shadows might be one of the most possessed museums ever created. Reports of visitors being physically touched, seeing spirits and hearing disembodied voices in the building are not uncommon, and a resident poltergeist has also been caught misbehaving on camera. The Omaha venue offers a range of experiences for those plucky enough to partake, from ghost tours enhanced with paranormal investigating equipment to the Sit Challenge, where you’ll spend 10 minutes alone in a completely dark room to monitor otherworldly activity.
Few places in America are shrouded in as much mystery as Area 51. Though it’s officially served as a military aircraft testing facility since 1955, the US government didn’t come clean about Area 51’s existence until 2013. Chatter about the site’s real purpose long predates this admission, starting during the Cold War era amid theories of faked moon landings and alien-operated laboratories. Accounts from former employees have done little to quell the rumours; no official documentation connects them to ever working at Area 51 and salaries were paid in cash. You obviously can’t visit, but it does fall on the Extraterrestrial Highway (Route 375), known for supposed UFO sightings.
It was once the site of raucous parties frequented by stars of stage and screen. Now it’s slowly crumbling into obscurity, along with the name of the woman who owned it. In its prime the grand pile belonged to Madame Sherri (born Antoinette Bramare), an eccentric costume designer famed for dressing the women in Broadway production Ziegfeld Follies. Used purely for entertaining, the castle was largely funded by Madame Sherri’s wealthy friends; when the money dried up, so did the parties. Having lost her crown and her castle, Madame Sherri died in poverty in 1965 and her legacy lies in ruins.
Many an urban legend whispers through the trees in this sinister coastal forest, which covers over one million acres. However, it is one particular fable that darkens hearts most of all. The Pine Barrens are said to be the domain of the Jersey Devil, born in 1735 as the 13th child of a woman named Deborah Leeds. Cursed with cloven hooves, leather wings, a forked tail and the head of a goat, the demonic child killed its mother before fleeing into the Barrens, where it has allegedly left a trail of slaughtered livestock ever since.
Before 1947, Roswell was a fairly unremarkable city. But ever since a sheep rancher claimed to have discovered the remnants of a crashed spaceship on his property, the place has become synonymous with aliens. The debris was initially written off as the remains of a downed weather balloon. But then, 50 years after the story of the flying saucer first broke, the US military published a report linking the ill-fated craft to a top-secret atomic espionage mission named Project Mogul. Still, many people from Roswell and beyond didn’t buy it, and the city embraces its extraterrestrial association with a UFO festival each year.
Fed by the waters of Shale Creek in upstate New York, Eternal Flame Falls is named for the tiny flickering flame that burns at its base, seemingly impervious to the cool temperatures and cascades that surround it. It’s believed that the light is kept aglow by natural gases that seep through the rocks, though some question marks remain as to its true source and what keeps it alive. Though it can burn for a day or more once lit, sometimes the flame snuffs out. So be sure to pack a lighter if you come here.
In 1590, the governor of Roanoke Island sailed to England’s first New World colony laden with supplies for his people, only to find the island completely abandoned. He’d been gone three years, so anything could have happened to the 100-plus residents in that time. The only clues left behind were the words CROATOAN and CRO carved into a post and tree trunk respectively – could the community have relocated to Croatoan (now Hatteras) Island? A storm prevented the governor from investigating. Whether the settlers were attacked, assimilated into Native American tribes, wiped out by illness or lost at sea trying to get back to England, the answer remains a mystery.
The Stanley R Mickelsen Safeguard Complex opened on 1 October 1975, the first of a proposed 12-part anti-ballistic missile defence system. Just 24 hours later, Congress voted for its decommissioning. Costing nearly £5 billion ($6 billion) at the time to build, fragments of the site remain today as a monument to its failure, including this concrete pyramid which was used to house the radar. According to a 2021 TikTok video, some conspiracy theorists believe the pyramid could be the headquarters of the Illuminati.
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Some of America’s most hardened criminals are said to have been incarcerated in the cell blocks of Ohio State Reformatory. But by 1990, the infamous prison had closed amid reports of overcrowding and inhumane living conditions that cost both inmates and staff their lives. The building rose to notoriety again in 1994; it was the filming location for cult prison movie The Shawshank Redemption, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Today, tours of the abandoned complex dig into its pop-culture credentials, as well as secrets of the supernatural forces said to be at work here.
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After over a century of serving as a lead and zinc-mining town, Picher was largely evacuated in 2006 following a decade of health concerns regarding its youngest residents. In the 1990s, a local teacher registered cognitive issues among a number of her pupils; tests later diagnosed 34% of children in Picher with lead poisoning. The town, mostly abandoned since and now partially demolished, became a toxic wasteland dotted with decaying buildings and discarded toys. A creek running through the settlement was even stained red with noxious water bleeding up from the mining tunnels beneath it.
Local Indigenous Americans have been known to refer to it as the 'Forbidden Grounds', on account of their horses refusing to pass through. To others, this seemingly gravity-defying glitch in the matrix is named the Oregon Vortex. The vortex, a circular area centred around the crooked House of Mystery (pictured), has been welcoming curious tourists since the 1930s. Here, reports of people growing suddenly taller and objects rolling upwards abound – but is the phenomenon really inexplicable? False perspectives and magnetic forces could be at play, but no single theory appears to have all the answers.
This fortress-like prison opened in 1829 and pioneered an especially brutal form of solitary confinement, where prisoners were fed through holes in their doors, masked whenever they needed to leave their cells and prevented from communicating with anyone – even contact with guards was minimal. After decades of cruelty, Eastern State was shuttered in 1970 and ultimately abandoned, but it now welcomes visitors for both day and night tours, plus special Halloween events. Patrons have claimed to hear disembodied laughter and pacing footsteps here, while ominous shadowy shapes have also been reported.
Despite getting a modern revamp, new management and a change of name, this historic hotel can’t hide from its haunted and macabre reputation. Originally opened in 1922 as the Biltmore Providence, it was a popular Prohibition-era hangout known for hosting tumultuous gatherings, some of which ended in murder. The building’s connections to mysterious suicides and gangland crimes have made it even more notorious. Has the hotel’s rebirth been enough to exorcise these ghosts of the past? You'll have to spend the night to find out...
Beginning life as a hotel in 1809, the current Dock Street Theatre stands on the spot where its predecessor is believed to have been destroyed by fire in the mid-18th century. Having been converted back into a performance space in the 1930s, the venue has accumulated a fair quota of ghost stories in its time. One of the most talked-about paranormal residents is Nettie Dickerson, a courtesan at the original hotel. Legend says Nettie's death came on a stormy night in Charleston, when she was standing on her balcony and got struck by lightning.
It's the most famous mountain in North America – an imposing monument to US political history, depicting the chiselled profiles of four of the nation's presidents. But did you know Mount Rushmore is hiding something behind the face of Abraham Lincoln? There lies an unfinished secret chamber, intended by sculptor Gutzon Borglum to be a museum space where the meaning of the rock-hewn heads could be shared with visitors down the decades. Alas, it never opened to the public and remains sealed shut.
The Bells have gone down in history as America's most haunted family. Interactions with a malevolent witch were first documented at their farmstead in 1817, with reports of strange sounds and odd animals in the yard. The legend goes that encounters grew gradually more torturous; the Bells' youngest daughter Betsy was supposedly beaten unconscious at the wraith's hand. When patriarch John Bell passed away, his death was attributed to the workings of the Bell Witch, making Tennessee the only state to credit supernatural forces with a human death. Today, tours and paranormal investigations escort visitors into the witch's cave and to a replica of the Bells' cabin.
A mystery spanning 140 years, the ‘Ghost Lights’ of Marfa is a phenomenon with equal power to fascinate and terrify. Ethereal, glowing globes of multi-coloured light have reportedly been seen floating in the night sky above this dusty town since 1883 – and nobody knows what causes them. Conspiracy theories have ranged from UFOs to the souls of deceased conquistadors haunting the Chihuahuan Desert; either way, the story of these baffling lights attracts hordes of hopeful visitors to Marfa each evening. Their appearances are unpredictable – the basketball-sized orbs form fewer than 30 times a year, typically just after sunrise or sunset.
Consistently topping lists of America’s strangest and spookiest places, Skinwalker Ranch made headlines in the 1990s when its owners, the Sherman family, went public about several chilling incidents they’d experienced. Plagued by sightings of predatory creatures that defied identification and grisly deaths of animals on their property, as well as instances of mysterious lights hovering above the land, the family sought the services of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). After also witnessing the weird orbs and having their equipment tampered with, NIDS claimed it was the work of “pre-cognitive sentient intelligence”.
Though the official name of this New England landmark is the Gold Brook Covered Bridge, it has become synonymous with the tragic tale of a young woman known only as Emily. In local folklore, Emily waited on the wooden bridge for her lover as the two had made plans to elope. But more and more time elapsed, and the man didn’t show. Emily, filled with despair at the realisation that he had abandoned her, took her own life right here. It seems that death hardened Emily’s broken heart; her ghost allegedly lashes out at passing cars and unsuspecting pedestrians.
Who exactly is the female stranger lying buried in the grounds of St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria? Her identity has never been unmasked; legend dictates that she arrived in Virginia by ship with her husband shortly before her untimely death aged 23. Gravely ill when she disembarked, the unnamed woman was treated by a doctor sworn to secrecy by the couple – she hid her face behind a veil for the whole appointment. The woman’s tombstone marks her passing on 14 October 1816, having been interred silently and without ceremony by her husband.
This rusting bicycle, seemingly devoured by a tree, has been the subject of many fables in its time. In one version of its origin story, the bike was left leaning against the trunk by an island boy who went off to war and never returned. This touching tale even inspired a children’s book called Red Ranger Came Calling. It might be fiction, but it’s still the closest anyone has ever got to the truth about the bike absorbed by a tree. While some doubt the science of a tree growing around an object in this way, others believe it’s entirely possible.
Among the stripped bones of Lake Shawnee Amusement Park, there lies an incredibly dark history of land feuds and bloodshed. Before construction began on the attraction, the land belonged to a Native American tribe who were ousted in the 18th century by a family of white settlers. The communities engaged in a bitter vendetta, with lives violently taken on both sides. When the theme park was later established, a series of tragic accidents and deaths led to its abandonment in the 1960s. Now the annual Dark Carnival event (held on every weekend in October) highlights the allegedly cursed remains.
Dickeyville Grotto was the unusual handiwork of Father Matthias Wernerus, a German-American priest who created the monument as a show of faith and patriotism. He served as the pastor of the Holy Ghost Parish from 1918 to 1931 and built his masterpiece in the church grounds. Made from stone, mortar and various other objects from all over the world, the grotto preserves fossils, shells, crystals, coal, petrified wood, moss and more within its colourful walls. It has to be seen to be believed and is open year-round for you to quench your curiosity.
Devils Tower stands among the Black Hills and has been a site of sacred significance to the area’s Native American peoples since ancient times. Different tribes have their own retellings of how Devils Tower came to be: in Sioux culture, it was created when the Great Spirit helped two boys escape the clutches of a giant bear, with scars from its claws forming the unique surface of the rock. The tower’s true origins remain somewhat mysterious – it’s even been connected to alien invasions – but it’s most likely just a product of geology.
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