Whether it be the presence of mummified corpses or a tragic and traumatic death in the area, some of these cemeteries – the ones in this list – are made immensely more creepy and scary. Some have vampires roaming their grounds, looking to suck the blood out of you or local animals. Some have spirits of the dead murdered in traumatic circumstances roaming the grounds, wailing at the top of their ghost lungs. (And there’s even a restaurant where you can dine among the dead.) Turn the lights off to up the creepiness factor and dig into this list of the 25 freakiest cemeteries that will creep you out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc66_OHGf5w With the closest human settlement being a gas station 20 miles (32 km) away, the area can be pretty freaky after dark. Some people report hearing disembodied voices, seeing apparitions wandering the streets and approaching them, and hearing screaming from the area. (More of a fun fact than a creepy fact: despite its distance from central Paris when it was built, the cemetery’s marketing team devised a clever strategy to bring in revenue, moving the bodies of famous French citizens such as Molière and Pierre Abélard to the grounds. The response was just as planned – Parisians began applying en masse to have their remains also buried alongside the famous corpses.) The soil was carted in and placed on top of existing graves whose tombstones were risen and placed on the top layer of soil. In all, the cemetery has twelve layers of graves with tombstones (12,000 visible though there may have been 100,000 burials) packed as tight as sardines on the surface level. The epidermal layer of skin was then peeled off and herbs rubbed on the body. After many months (years, sometimes) of mummification, the body would be interred in a wood coffin in a nearby cave. A Philippine National Culture Treasure, the Fire Mummies of Timbak Caves were looted but returned many years later. The government keeps locations of the mummies a secret so you may just wander upon a graveyard while exploring caves in the Philippines. The local sheriff crushed Corey over two days by piling stones upon his chest. Every sheriff since then has died of a heart attack in office or left office due to heart troubles. Corey’s ghost is said to roam the Howard Street Cemetery before any major tragedy hits Salem. After expansion and the creation of an ossuary could not contain the massive amount of burials, woodcarver František Rint was hired in 1870 to order the bones. He artfully arranged the skeletons, even creating a massive chandelier and a family crest from the bones. Though ghosts are said to haunt the premises, they aren’t said to do many hauntings – rather, they’re playful ghosts. Police officers have found evidence of black magic rituals (which may have increased the hauntings and spiritual activities of the area). Bachelors Grove Cemetery is officially closed but numerous holes in the chain link fence give graverobbers and curious visitors a way into this scary graveyard. The statues of the saints from the San Sebastian ruins were brought over but are not as highly regarded, even having been turned around for many years as the citizens were angry the saints didn’t protect their original home. The mix of Catholicism and local Mayan religions makes this city and graveyard creepy yet fascinating areas to visit. After a homeless man broke into the mausoleum of George MacKenzie (persecutor of a Presbyterian group against the king‘s desire for them to change religions), visitors to the cemetery and mausoleum especially have reported being cut, bitten, or blacking out (170 cases from 1990 to 2006). Deciding not to remove the graves, the restaurant‘s owner encased around a dozen graves in iron grills throughout the restaurant. Waiters begin the morning by cleaning the graves and adding fresh flowers to them. This strange and slightly creepy restaurant may be the only place in the world you can dine with the dead. Truly embodying the “city for the dead” moniker, the Recoleta Cemetery has massive tree-lined blocks with smaller streets branching out towards individual mausoleums. One of the creepiest mausoleums is that of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak; found dead during her honeymoon, Liliana is buried in a vault made to copy her bedroom. A statue of her is even at the door in full wedding dress attire. To get the bodies to fit in the barely meter-long (3 feet) coffins, their bones would be broken and the bodies stuck in a fetal position. As the body was carried to the mountainside, family members and mourners would scramble to touch it as the fluids are believed to pass on the skills and talents of the deceased. Today, most people of the tribe are not buried in the Hanging Coffins style, though some elders are keeping to tradition.
