photo by DAVID ILIFF
For this, my last entry in my Paranormal Places and World Hauntings column, I researched the most haunted places on earth. Disturbing and gruesome don’t begin to describe what I learned. Gleaning information from a number of “Top 10″ articles and photo-shows, as well as several individual sites, here are the five areas I think warrant this dubious honor:
Paris, Italy — The Catacombs 
Over two centuries ago, in order to make way for its burgeoning population, a segment of Parisian inhabitants were relocated. Millions of dead, decaying bodies were yanked from their “final” resting places and dumped throughout the underground passageways first created hundreds of years earlier when Rome ruled the known world. Now a profusion of broken bones, skeletal remains and fleshless skulls stare unseeingly at the thousands of visitors who stroll through the eerie catacombs on a daily basis. And yes, tales of modern-day ghostly encounters and paranormal photos abound.
Mount Fuji, Japan — Sea of Trees The Aokigahara Forest has a unique feature — a ground comprised of volcanic rock. It also has the depressing distinction of being one of the most popular places for suicide in the world.
With rocky caverns that freeze and ice over every year, and a reputation for hosting marauding monsters, ghosts, and sinister predators, the “Suicide Forest” attracts thrill-seeking adventurers, scavengers, and those who no longer wish to walk this earth. Sadly, suicide numbers have grown in recent years, and many of these troubled souls continue to “walk” before us after abandoning their earthly bodies.
Manchuria, China — Unit 731 Experimentation Camp Usually I think knowledge is a good thing, but occasionally I learn of an atrocity so disturbing it shifts how I view our very humanity. Unit 731 affected me this way because it’s so very tragic, and yet, until I went looking for scary, haunted places, I’d been completely ignorant of it.
During World War II, experiments were conducted on prisoners in this camp, ranging from intentional infectations of cholera, bubonic plague and anthrax, to live dissections (vivisection), to other unspeakable, unthinkable acts. According to modern-day visitors, ghostly apparitions frequent the site, their voices still crying out, protesting the horrors their physical bodies endured.
Rome, Italy — The Coliseum 
In the pits below the Coliseum, away from the public’s watchful, cheering gaze, existed a whole other world. Prisoners waiting for death, animals groomed to attack, gladiators trained to fight…
Countless lives were extinguished in the guise of entertainment. It’s suspected entire species became extinct, as man battled animals and other men for supremacy. Visitors and tour guides today have been touched and pushed, have heard sword fights, whispered words and anguished weeping. Specters of ancient Roman citizens have been seen crowding the seats, goading on non-existent fights. Cries still ringing out, those of men, elephants and lions, phantoms of the long ago two- and four-legged warriors forced to fight still protesting their fate even now, centuries later after the Coliseum they were chained to has long crumbled.
Oswiecim, Poland — Auschwitz Concentration Camp In all my research, the one thing that stood out is so relatively tiny: a bird.
Unlike the Parisian Catacombs or the Sea of Trees forest, or Unit 731 which I’d not heard of until this week, the horrors of Auschwitz were familiar to me. The basics were taught in school, a day or two in World History class, a chapter or two during American History. I read the Diary of Anne Frank when I was near Anne’s age, saw Schindler’s List when it came out. But not until discovering how — to this day — the birds refuse to sing in the trees surrounding Auschwitz, did I ever stop to think of the spiritual inhabitants, those whose bodies and lives were stolen from them far, far too early and tragically. Those individuals whose spirits have chosen to remain.
The overwhelming anguish which saturates the now abandoned camp affects not only visitors to the historic site, but also nature. In addition to the photographic evidence which gives proof of the ongoing paranormal activity occupying the camp, the natural environment within and adjacent to the camp fails to thrive, as the deadened atmosphere pervades everything, even now, over six decades later.
When I conceived of doing an article on the most haunted places, I had no inkling of the emotional or educational journey it would take me on. A huge thank you to both Michelle and Mandy for being such gracious hostesses, and inviting me to contribute here at Raven Blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts, and I wish both readers and fellow authors/blog contributors much success and happiness.
If you’d like to enjoy some decidedly lighthearted paranormal activity, I invite you to check out my upcoming release, Sex & Solar Flares, in which a fearless fairy attempts to seduce a stuffy scientist. Available July 16th, from Ellora’s Cave.
~ ~ ~
Larissa Lyons considers brownies an official food group and has a penchant for Roaring Rogues and sexy cowboys.
Her latest two releases, Sex & Solar Flares and Rein Me In will be available later this year. Read more at her website.
~ ~ ~
