There’s this cave in Moorpark. You can see it as you drive into old town from the college. It’s on private property and I think there’s a house hidden in the trees, so I’ve never been to it. I’ve always been curious about it - how deep is it? Did people live in it? What’s the deal with it?! I’ve googled and there’s nothing about it online that I can find.
Do you have weird places near you that tickle at your curiosity every time you pass them? Have you ever given into that curiosity and discovered something interesting?
I own a circa 1760 colonial home west of Boston, Massachusetts. George Washington himself led an army right down our street and encountered the Balancing Rock of Holliston. All the troops they could summon tried to overturn the thing and Washington himself supposedly tried to lend a hand as well. Now, this is granite central for the U.S. and I have studied the thing myself so the physics aren’t that much of a mystery. It probably weighs much more than a fully loaded 747 but it is interesting that a glacier could leave something behind that is both that massive and yet appears to be as fragile as the balancing rock. They recently built an entire subdivision around it.
There’s sites around Cleveland that aren’t on any of the urban exploration Web sites tat I’ve curious about …
Tunnels underneath Euclid Avenue that formed the eastern portion of an abandoned subway system in Cleveland. (The tunnels west of the Cuyahogs are fairly well-documented.)
The abandoned Shaker Heights trolley station underneath Tower City. The station was moved in the 1980s, but apparently the old station remains.
Abandoned quarry sites along the “Heights” ridge in eastern suburban Cleveland.
Provisions for a subway underneath the Hope Memorial Bridge (The subway underneath the Detroit-Superior bridge is well-documented.)
Around the middle-class suburb where I live, one will find very large houses and small mansions scattered around otherwise mundane blocks lined with small Cape Cods. Apparently the developers intended for their subdivisions to be exclusive high-end developments, a very large or two was built, the Depression and WWII struck, and the remaining land developed afterwards with smaller tract homes.
There is a monastery that I used to drive by as a teenager. It creeped me out. For St.Louis people this would be around hwy 109 and St. Paul road. I haven’t been that way in years but something about the place still makes me shudder. And I can’t explain why.
The town of Stull, Kansas (roughly halfway between Lawrence and Topeka) has a cemetery which is allegedly the gateway to Hell. I’ve driven past it many times but have never gone in. Folks used to like to camp out there on Halloween, expecting the devil to appear or something.
Not near me now, but back when I was in NJ we drove by this spot more than once. It was pretty creepy. It was mysterious to us then, but now it just seems sad.
Well, there’s America’s Stonehenge up in Salem, NH. It used to be called Mystery Hill. Various folks have claimed that the site was built by Irish Monks, Druids, Vikings, Romans, Phoenicians, and early settler Walter Pattee. Everyone, in fact, except the local Indians, who are IMHO the most likely to have done it.Although Lovecraft Scholar S.T. Joshi doesn’t think so, lots of other Lovecraftians think that he based the scene of the climax of The Dunwich Horror on tthe site, and one of them’s gone to the trouble of publishing a book to prove it. Certainly Lovecraft did visit the site.
It’s less impressive after you’ve seen it, and realize that excavator/restorer William Godwin, who owned the site in the 1930s( he was convinced that it was ancient, and had written a book called “The Ruins of Old Ireland in the New World”) had rebuilt some of the stuff the way he thought it ought to be. He was the site’s Schliemann. I’m reasonably certain that there were interesting things here before he started, but not sure how much of what’s there is original.
My family lives a couple of miles from the “twin tunnels” of Downingtown, PA – they’re two tunnels that meet at roughly a right angle with a gap in between, and in this gap someone is alleged to have hung herself and still lingers in the tunnels as a ghost.
My brother and I call them the Blair Witch tunnels because they’re creepy as hell and require the use of headlights even on sunny days. I’ve never seen anything remarkable while driving through them, but they’d make a great location for a horror movie.
OP-If I were you (i.e. living in California), I’d head up to Winchester House. I’ve never been but I’ve seen it on TV and it looks way cool!
Essentially Sarah Winchester (as in, Winchester repeating rifles) talked to a medium who said that the spirits of all the dead Indians had it in for her. If she stopped building her house, she’d die.
There were countless staircases that led nowhere; a blind chimney that stopped short of the ceiling; closets that opened to blank walls; trap doors; double-back hallways; skylights located one above another; doors that opened to steep drops to the lawn below; and dozens of other oddities. Even all of the stair posts were installed upside-down and many of the bathrooms had glass doors on them.
As for places I know of…there was an abandoned farmhouse near where I grew up. Legend had it that the guy had killed his wife and the place went to seed after, like the hand of God had smote him or whatever. Out there in the country, with no lights and an ancient cemetery nearby, it was spooky. Some used to go parking out there b/c nobody would bother them. Most were a little too creeped out to do so.
Now it’s been torn down and there’s a spiffy new house on it. I don’t know if there’s any poltergeist activity or anything though.
And finally, in the spirit of urban exploration/urban spelunking/call it what you will, a resource of people who have dared to enter places that are off-limits. Not that I condone it, mind you, but…dayum it’s cool! Gary, Indiana has really gone to hell…
I’ve been to the Mystery Spot and the Winchester House. Both were pretty cool.
I haven’t been there, but there’s the so-called ‘Scary Dairy’ near CSUCI. It’s an abandoned dairy or slaughterhouse and is supposed to be really spooky. Of course, since CSUCI used to be Camarillo State Hospital, there’s supposed to be ghosts there too. I haven’t seen anything, but I’m a cynic.
My favorite mysterious place is Pasaquan. It was constructed from/around a 40’s farmhouse in the woods near Columbus almost single-handledly by a very strange man. All of the walls and sculptures are built from concrete. It’s a very interesting place to visit; I’ve been several times.
There are two shops over on 14th street advertize those carnival items like stuffed animals and party favors - only available wholesale. The items in the window displays look 20 years old, sun faded and covered with dust and the occasional dead insect.
One of them I have never seen open. I’ve seen the other one open but never seen anyone go inside. I can’t imagine the excitement of the shopkeep inside just waiting for that person to walk in and purchase twelve dozen stuffed panda bears or a case of powder blue polyester ties.
I’m just about 10 or 15 miles away from the Gurdon Light (Gurdon Light - Wikipedia). Basically, you can apparently look down the railroad tracks and see a light in the distance. :rolleyes: BFD, I think, but people around here get excited about it.
I’ve never been, I can look at lightbulbs at home, tyvm.
The Bell Witch Cave is less than an hour’s drive from Nashville. I won’t go there. You can read about the Bell Witch here.
I will bet that Bosda is also familiar with this one too. This one really makes people feel uncomfortable. I don’t believe in “evil” or bad witches, but I don’t like to reread about it.
