While the world is quite a big place, we like to think that we know everything about it. But the truth is, we don’t. Because of the way our brains are wired, we can only retain so much information at once. But with that said, acquiring knowledge of things we don’t know is made easier today with the use of computers smartphones and virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa. Though even in the age of the Internet, there are certain locations with numerous mysteries that still have yet to be solved. In fact, some of these places are so notorious that people are both drawn to and afraid to go to them.
Such places include the Bermuda Triangle, where many disappearances are said to happen and have happened over the course of many years. There are even towns that were said to exist that are no longer around for unknown reasons, and famous monuments where several people vanished off the face of the Earth never to be seen again. It is places like these that make certain people superstitious, attributing the disappearances to ghosts and similar beings. Even aliens are considered as a possible explanation. But whether these suspicions are true or not, people have left the places listed here and sometimes continue to do so.
25 Mesa Verde - Pueblos of Mystery
In the Four Corners, which is a region in the Southwest that consists of the southern parts of Utah and Colorado as well as the northern parts of Arizona and New Mexico, lies the Mesa Verde National Park. A long time ago, it was the home of the Ancestral Puebloans who built numerous dwellings into the cliffs that surround the area.
But for various reasons, they are no longer in Mesa Verde.
Since then, according to colorado.edu, numerous theories for this seemingly sudden migration have been posed though recent evidence shows that they migrated further south to places like Arizona New Mexico and the Rio Grande.
24 Roanoke Colony - Lost and Never Found
Also known as “The Lost Colony,” this strange phenomena occurred back when the New World was just getting settled by the Europeans. Founded in 1585, the English colony was situated on Roanoke Island (hence the name) off the coast of present-day North Carolina.
However, they weren’t quite prepared for living there as their supplies were desperately low, forcing the colony’s governor to head back to England for more.
He was detained for three years and by the time he returned, the colony’s entire population was gone. The only clue left was a single word carved onto a tree: ‘CROATOAN’.
23 The Flannan Isles - A Lighthouse with No Operator
Up in the northwestern part of Scotland lie the Flannan Isles, which are also known as the Seven Hunters due to the number of islands in this small cluster. While there is nothing special about them, other than consisting of rocks and grass, a famous lighthouse resides on one of these islands.
The reason for its fame is that in the year 1900, the lighthouse’s three keepers mysteriously vanished and were never seen again.
Since then, the islands have been abandoned by the former residents after the lighthouse became part of an automated system of lighthouses starting in the 1970s.
22 Suvla Bay - The Missing Platoon
In the midst of World War I, a battalion of British soldiers attempted to march onto Suvla Bay in Turkey (then known as the Ottoman Empire). But due to a series of miscommunications, the landing didn’t go as well as expected and the commander who led the attack was dismissed for his incompetence.
Yet one of the lingering mysteries from this failed battle was a single platoon that went missing. It is said that a strange cloud covered the hillside, which the English soldiers walked through and weren’t seen afterward by either the Turkish or the British for that matter.
21 Hoer Verde - “There is no salvation”
Located somewhere in Brazil, this little village of 600 residents suddenly became empty when a group of travelers arrived in 1923. But what makes this disappearance more puzzling was that none of the villagers’ belongings had been taken nor their food.
The other thing that had been left was a message scrawled on a blackboard which said, “There is no salvation”.
In the time since, several theories have been proposed to explain the residents’ sudden departure from being threatened by guerrillas (since many countries in South America were in political upheaval due to America’s interference) to being abducted by aliens.
20 Urkhammer - Buried and Forgotten
Within the state of Iowa, there was supposedly a town that once existed known as Urkhammer. Though no one speaks of it today, it had apparently been an average Midwestern community until 1928 when all the residents suddenly vanished.
Several witness reports that followed from passing tourists of the empty town eventually led to this incident being published in some of the local state newspapers, but the stock market crash of 1929 soon drowned this story out. Then when the Dust Bowl hit, Urkhammer was left in a disheveled state and quickly forgotten, with no traces remaining of it.
19 Anjikuni Lake - Where is Everybody?
In the far northern region of Nunavut, Canada, there are several lakes including the Anjikuni Lake (or Angikuni Lake). While it is notably barren in terms of geography, this place had once been the home of a small village of Inuit people who are native to the region at large.
In 1930, though, a fur trapper who typically visited the village had reported to a local paper that he found the place to be completely abandoned upon arriving there with no one in sight. Yet pots of food were left behind, along with the village dogs which had seemingly starved.
18 Ashley - The Town That Never Existed
Originating from a Creepypasta story, which are horror stories told on the Internet, this unusual account of a town that vanished doesn’t have the best credentials in terms of authenticity.
Yet given its popularity on the Internet, it has led to some interesting speculations about whether this town might’ve actually existed and been forgotten like Urkhammer, or if it's not real.
The story goes that in 1952, there was a large earthquake reported that wound up hitting this small community of 700 in Kansas. But when it was over, no one was around except for a fissure that was apparently 1,000 yards in length.
17 The Bennington Triangle - Missing Persons in Vermont
Located in the southwestern part of Vermont, this landlocked triangular area is notorious for a string of unexplained disappearances that occurred there. From 1945 to 1950, five people vanished in this area ranging from an 8 year-old boy to a 74 year-old woman to even a man that disappeared on a bus.
To this day, there’s no definite explanation for the vanishings as hardly any traces of the missing people were recovered in the area, leading some to suspect they might’ve been the victims of a serial crime. But no definite proof of this has come to light.
16 The New City Complex - New Jersey’s Demon Alley
In the West Milford township of New Jersey, there was once a small community called the New City Complex. Residing along Route 23, this place was built by the City of Newark Water and Reservoir Plant to house the facility’s workers.
But then in 1992, the whole complex was abandoned despite no signs of burglary or anything that would clue anyone in on what happened leading it be called “Demon’s Alley”. Like Ashley, Kansas, this story originates from a dubious source namely Weird NJ, a magazine that publishes local legends, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t truth behind the legend.
15 The South Atlantic Anomaly - An Electronic Disappearing Act
Several thousand kilometers above the Earth’s surface lie the Van Allen radiation belts. Residing along the magnetic fields, they absorb particles that come from solar winds and cosmic rays which in turn protect the Earth from the worst effects these events can cause.
But around the Atlantic Ocean in the vicinity of Brazil, one of the radiation belts comes unusually close to the Earth’s surface thus creating the South Atlantic Anomaly. Here, 10 million volts worth of energy is present which has been proposed as a possible explanation for the crash of Air France flight 447 where 228 passengers disappeared.
14 Aruba - A Magnet for Troubled Teens
While the Caribbean is a popular vacation spot in general, there is one small island that is both popular for tourists and notorious due to some disappearances that occurred there. This island is Aruba, which belongs to the Netherlands and thus everyone living there is Dutch.
But this tropical paradise soon received wide attention in 2005 when a teenage girl named Natalee Holloway went missing there after she didn’t arrive on her return flight back to the United States.
An extensive search was made in the years that followed, which petered off after 2012 following new evidence regarding her disappearance.
13 Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Cases Gone Cold
Between the states of Tennessee and North Carolina, these pristine mountains lie along the southern part of the Appalachian Mountain area. Since they are part of a national park, they naturally get a lot of tourists and many of the towns that reside nearby in both states benefit a great deal from the tourism these mountains get.
However, the mountains are also where three unusual disappearances occurred that still haven’t been solved to this day.
The earliest one recorded was in 1969 when a 6 year-old boy went missing there, and then the latest one happened in 1981 to an elderly woman.
12 Superstition Mountains - Gold Fever
Out in the desert wilderness of Arizona near the city of Phoenix reside the Superstition Mountains (also known as the Superstitions). Though when the Spanish originally came through, they called them the Sierra de la Espuma which means “Mountain Range of the Foam”.
These particular mountains are not only known for their legends among the Apache people, who believe the entrance to the underworld lies somewhere in them, but also for the numerous disappearances that have occurred over the years. Though some of these are attributed to those who’ve tried to seek out the Lost Dutchman’s Mine full of gold.
11 Pecos - The Road of No Return
Not to be confused with Pecos, Texas, this small village in New Mexico lies close to Santa Fe near the Pecos River (hence the name). While it’s a popular place for outdoorsy types who like to hunt and fish, it's also known for several disappearances that have occurred as recently as 2009 when a 61 year-old man went missing on a hunting trip never to be seen again.
This has even led people to refer to the area around the town as the Pecos Triangle, with roads supposedly haunted by supernatural beings and where UFOs can apparently be spotted.
10 Pyramid Lake - Saltwater and Fishermen
Near Reno, Nevada, a saltwater lake resides called Pyramid Lake, named after the pyramid-shaped rock formation jutting out of it. Resting in the Paiute reservation, it was one of the tribe's main fishing grounds as the lake is home to some species of trout.
But then this seemingly beautiful lake got the attention of the media and the Internet when two men went missing there, leading to some speculation about what could’ve happened to them.
This even includes the idea that they were dragged underwater by malevolent spirits known as Water Babies, which originate from a local Paiute legend.
9 Highway 16 - Tears of Emptiness
Also known as Yellowhead Highway, this stretch of road is located in the British Columbia area of Canada. Starting in Winnipeg and ending at Graham Island, it consists of a lot of wilderness combined with a scattering of small towns.
But there is one section of the road that has been nicknamed the “Highway of Tears” due to the large number of disappearances that have occurred there since the 1960s.
While there hasn’t been a clear explanation for them, the two consistent factors are that the people who disappeared were young women and many of them were of aboriginal descent.
8 The Nevada Triangle - Up and Away
Consisting of vast stretches of desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, this triangular area in the Silver State has made headlines in recent years due to a disappearance that occurred in 2007. The victim was an aviator/adventurer named Steve Fossett, who flew into the Nevada Triangle in a small plane and was never seen again despite the massive search for him.
But he’s not the only one as many others have disappeared before him, and the area’s close proximity to Area 51 has led some theorists to speculate the presence of UFOs in the Nevada Triangle and even ghosts.
7 Yosemite National Park - Spirited Children
One of the most popular national parks in the world, Yosemite is renowned for its beauty and wide array of wildlife, including grizzly bears, which notoriously hang around the campsites.
But it is also known for a multitude of disappearances, 45 of which haven’t been found to this day.
There are even stories about children that were spirited away from where they originally were only to end up in completely different sections of the park with their clothes missing, which has been attributed to the supernatural beings that supposedly occupy the area, from ghosts to nature spirits of Native origin.
6 The Alaska Triangle - Harsh Northern Winds
Located in the southern part of Alaska, this area consists of a large stretch of wilderness that hasn’t been completely explored due to its icy mountains and tundras making it unsafe for travel.
On top of that, many people have disappeared here leading some to call it “Alaska's Bermuda Triangle”.
In fact, some of the disappearances became big news, such as when US House Majority Leader Hale Boggs disappeared in 1972 as his plane was flying over the area. This led to a huge search with no results, leading Congress to pass a law requiring aircraft to have emergency transmitters.