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Oak Island, Nova Scotia. Canada.

The site of the world's oldest and enduring treasure hunt. Oak island was first excavated in 1795 and still holds strange secrets to this day. I'm doing this all from my memory, so if some of it is conflicting or imcomplete, it shouldn't be a surprise.

At the beginning of the dig, the diggers found neatly layed logs about every ten feet and this pattern continued for the next hundred feet. After 70 feet or so, water began to seep up into the pit and at some point, they dug a bit further and water flooded the so-called "money pit" to the point of 30 feet. No amount of pumping or bailing has managed to put a dent, so to speak, in the water level.

Apparently a few treasures were found there.....



which includes a metal plate, and then a bunch of chunks of metal and neatly laid rock. On the left of this picture, you can see the tunnel where the water comes from. There is a claim of finding parchment with writing that was made with a quil-pen, but I can't figure out for the life of me how 200-year old paper managed to survive water.

Whether this pit was man-made or if it is a sink-hole may or may be more fascinating that millions of dollars has been invested in finding the bottom of this pit. If this pit really was man-made,whatever is down there must have been extraordinarily valuable or sinister beyond belief.

I remember once as a kid (maybe 15 or 16) I was watching the Dick Cavett show and he had an Oak Island treasure hunter on. I was totally captivated by the story and have been ever since. I would think in this day and age someone would figure out how to get down there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle

This place always fascinated me.

Basically, a guy back in the '20's moves to the Homestead, FL area, and proceeds to build some stone **** that would make Egyptians proud. Precision fitted 10 ton stones that he dug up himself. After getting things like he wanted them, he promptly moved somewhere else, and took his stone castle with him.

He rebuilt it like it wasn't a problem at all. People asked him how he did it with no modern equipment. His response was that he "understood the laws of weight and leverage well." He also stated that he had "discovered the secrets of the pyramids"

Some people like to go a little crazy with the explanations. I've heard that it sat on a magnetic focal point and stuff like that. To be honest, a perfectly logical explanation has probably already been released on this that I'm not aware of, but I think it's an interested place regardless.

That Coral Castle is a good one. There's a few interesting houses in America. The one that always fascinated me the most is

Winchester House

The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known California mansion that was under construction continuously for 38 years, and is reported to be haunted. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester.

Under Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its "from-the-ground-up" construction proceeded around-the-clock, without interruption, from 1884 until her death on September 5, 1922, at which time work immediately ceased.[2] The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million[3] (if paid in 1922, this would be equivalent to over $71 million in 2010).[4]

The mansion is renowned for its size and utter lack of any master building plan. According to popular belief, Winchester thought the house was haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles, and that only continuous construction would appease them. It is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California

Deeply saddened by the deaths of her daughter Annie in 1866, and her young husband in 1881, and seeking solace, Winchester consulted a medium on the advice of a psychic.

There are about 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms, one completed and one under construction. The house also has 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. Winchester's property was about 162 acres (650,000 m²) at one time, but now the estate is just 4.5 acres (24,000 m²) — the minimum necessary to contain the house and nearby outbuildings. It has gold and silver chandeliers and hand inlaid parquet floors and trim. There are doors and stairways that lead nowhere and a vast array of colors and materials. Before the availability of elevators, special "easy riser" stairways were installed to allow Winchester access to every part of the mansion, to accommodate her severe arthritis. Roughly 20,500 gallons (76,000 liters) of paint were required to paint the house. Due to the sheer size of the house, by the time every section of the house was painted, the workers had to start repainting again.[citation needed]

The house also has many conveniences that were rarely found at the time of its construction, including steam and forced-air heating, modern indoor toilets and plumbing, push-button gas lights, a hot shower from indoor plumbing and even three elevators, including one with the only horizontal hydraulic elevator piston in the United States.

What fascinates me about many of these houses is how little they were sold for later on. This one was sold for a scant $135,000 less than a year after it was "completed."





Winchester's beliefs and her reported preoccupation with warding off malevolent spirits. These spirits are said to have directly inspired her as to the way the house should be built. The number thirteen and spider web motifs, which had some sort of spiritual meaning to her, reappear around the house. For example, an expensive imported chandelier that originally had 12 candle-holders was altered to accommodate 13 candles, wall clothes hooks are in multiples of 13, and a spider web-patterned stained glass window contains 13 colored stones. The sink's drain covers also have 13 holes. In tribute, the house's current groundskeepers have created a topiary tree shaped like the number 13. Also, every Friday the 13th the large bell on the property is rung 13 times at 1 P.M. (13:00) in tribute to Winchester.

I was going to come here to post the Winchester House, and see you got there first. Very interesting story there imo.

cool stories

I too am deeply interested in Oak Island. But I think whatever was actually buried there was only about 10 - 20 feet deep - probably up to the first platform of logs. Everything else is likely romanticized. The number of digs there have probably destroyed whatever little evidence actually existed. Plus, in the years since, they've altered the landscape so much, that the location of the original hole is actually in dispute. But there are people still seeking funding to go digging there again. Not too long ago, I remember reading about someone who believed it part of a much larger triangle of finds or something.

Dudleytown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudleytown_(Cornwall)

http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/dudleytown.shtml

Propaganda Village and more about propaganda village plus how the DMZ is the "world's oddest tourist trap.

Yep, you guessed it. The tour guides are America's Red White and Blue defenders, but after doing two tours in the Desert, I grant them the priveledge.

Kijŏng-dong is an abandoned city on the North's side of the DMZ. It is called "Propaganda Village" it used to blare kind words to beckon the South Koreans to the North. After this didn't work, it just started blaring anti-Western rhetoric.

Although the War ended about 60 years ago, the North and South are still in stiff competition. The first competition was whom could raise the highest and largest flag. NK won that one with a 600lb behemoth.

The newest competition is who could create the best tourist destination. The North seems to win hands down, since you can listen to the bs that the North tells and actually buy anti-American literature. Tourists may also sit at the table where the myriad fruitless meeting between NK and SK happen. The NK soldiers run up to the windows and take snap-shots of all the visitors.

Although no one is allowed to enter Kijŏng-dong, it is suspected that there are no actual residents in the town. A skeleton crew of cleaners sweep up the place every so often, and the lights are electronically timed to turn on and shut off. It is even suspected that the buildings don't even have room.

Read the links to find out about SK's so-called "Freedom Villaige" and Reunion Road.

The Joshua Ward House in Salem Mass. Has tons of history and is reputed to be haunted. Here is a pretty famous pic from there.

http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfa...ickedwitch.htm

There has been various "Woodhenges," or Wooden Stonehenges, recently discovered throughout the world.

Ohio.

Formally called Moorehead Circle but nicknamed "Woodhenge" by non-archaeologists, the site was once a leafless forest of wooden posts. Laid out in a peculiar pattern of concentric, but incomplete, rings....

This year archaeologists began using computer models to analyze Moorehead Circle's layout and found that Ohio's Woodhenge may have even more in common with the United Kingdom's Stonehenge than thought—specifically, an apparently intentional astronomical alignment.

But the model revealed that the alignment is such that, during the Northern Hemisphere's summer solstice—the longest day of the year—the sun appears to rise in the gateway, as seen from the center of the circle, Riordan said.

In much the same way, and on the same day, the sun appears to rise alongside Stonehenge's outlying Heel Stone, casting a beam on the monument's central altar.

There are a few other "Woodhenges" in Indiana and even right next to Stonehenge. I stumbled across this while I was making today's post, but I am going to save today's post for next time.

Chahokia Pyramids.

The world's Third largest pyramid is right her in the U S of A, in Illinois.

There is actually a whole messload of pyramids and so-called "mounds" to be found along the Mississippi that hold an eerie resemblance to the Egyptian Pyramids. Chahokia was abandoned in the 1400s. Like seemingly every other society on earth at that time, the Chahokians established a strict Caste system. Like today, the rich lived up high, looking down on the poor. This may have caused much strife.

Many of Cahokia's original mounds were destroyed by modern farming, road building and housing developments. The remaining 80 mounds still hold many ancient secrets because archaeologists have dug into fewer than two dozen. Among these, Mound 72 stands as one of the grisliest archaeological finds in North America.

Under it were found the remains of a tall man buried about the year 1050. He died in his early 40s and was laid to rest on about 20,000 shell ornaments and more than 800 apparently unused arrows with finely made heads. Also in the grave were a staff and 15 shaped stones of the kind used for games.

"Clearly, some really important leader is buried in there," Pauketat says. Interred with him were four men with their heads and hands cut off and 53 young women apparently strangled. Their youth, 15 to 25 years, and the fact that they were all women, suggests human sacrifice. People that young did not die of natural causes in such numbers.

Nearby, researchers found more burials and evidence of a charnel house. In all, 280 skeletons were found. About 50 lay haphazardly in a single deep pit, as if tossed in without honor. Some have arrowheads in the back or were beheaded, evidence of warfare or perhaps a crushed rebellion.



and here is another interesting site that may be a tad over-the-top with mysticism (It's called survive2012.com for crying out loud), but it is still an interesting guide --or list-- to other structures that many people may have never expected to find in America.

American Pyramids

Etowah Mounds of Cartersville, Georgia, USA



Poverty Point, Louisiana, USA




Miamisburg Mound, Ohio, USA



Los Guachimontones in Mexico

I think this is the coolest looking pyramid on earth:

It feels a bit lazy to write about a lake today, but Lake Toba is argued by scientists to have a significant history. Lake Toba is a Super Volcano that erupted about 70,000 years ago. According to the Lake Toba catastrophe theory, the Toba supervolcano nearly wiped out all **** sapiens, and possibly wiped out all the neaderthals. Shortly after the eruption, ash was blown throughout the sky, blocking out the sun dropping the global temperature by several degrees. It is suggested that only 10,000 humans, or, 1,000 mating pairs were left on the earth. This may be why the Neanderthals went extinct. Scientists also suggest that this even was followed by a 1,000 year nuclear winter.

I guess the event is more interesting than the actual place, but the idea is quite frightening and may be the reason we ultimately go extinct or see a technological darkness. For all the suppositions about humans killing ourselves off, there is plenty in nature that can wipe us out as well.

The last supervolcanic eruption is Krakatoa which erupted in 1815. It is believed to have caused the so-called "Summer without a winter" in 1816.

Krakatoa:


We also have a supervolcano right here in America: called Yellowstone....

i live in san jose and went there when i was younger. its a very creepy place. also in the bay area: Alcatraz is creepy at night and the mystery spot in santa cruz - http://www.mysteryspot.com/ is cool.

Same thing is found in Oregon:

http://www.oregonvortex.com/

Very interesting thread daveT. I got a little excited for some reason when I saw you'd started a new thread because your threads are always colorful. Your pics in this thread are very interesting. Almost like book illustrations. Well done.

+1. You have an eye for interesting places, OP.

Ghadames is commonly called "The Jewel of the Desert." It is located in Libya, and you have to be careful about the information found about this city.

The "facts" generally run like this:

There is evidence of settlement herein Palaeolithic and Neolithic times (about 10,000 years ago).
19 BCE: The Roman garrison Cydaus is established, but the Romans find this a difficult post to maintain.
4-5th centuries: Cydaus becomes an episcopate under the Byzantine empire, and, consecutively, 4 bishops provide service here.
There is evidence of settlement herein Palaeolithic and Neolithic times (about 10,000 years ago).
19 BCE: The Roman garrison Cydaus is established, but the Romans find this a difficult post to maintain.
4-5th centuries: Cydaus becomes an episcopate under the Byzantine empire, and, consecutively, 4 bishops provide service here.


and then this:

1986: Families permanently abandon the old town for modern houses.

What actually happened is that Qadaffi forced all the families out... with the military.

Ghaames is a city in the middle of the Sahara Desert. This place is like no other in the world. Ghadames is a covered city. The individual houses were built with three floors. The bottom was for cool storage, the second floor was for the family, and the roof was for the women to congregate. In between the houses covered alley ways that prevented the inhabitants from going into the sun.







This is the entrance.

I first read about Ghadames in this article by Michael J Totten. Although a small portion of this article is dedicated to Ghadames, his experience in Libya is very informative. I definitely suggest reading this one.

The Catacombs - interesting, creepy - sorry I don't know how to post pics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

Yeah, spooky. Not a place to do acid.

Sunken City in India:





Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old.

The vast city - which is five miles long and two miles wide - is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

To put this in perspective, Ancient Egypt began around 3500BC, and the first settlers around the Nile arrived about 5000BC. This place in India may be 9000BC.

Mega: The sunken city of Cuba.



In the summer of 2000, a team of researchers led by Paulina Zelitsky and Paul Weinzweig discovered what appeared to be the submerged ruins of an ancient city (the "lost city of Cuba") covering more than seven square miles. The site, known as MEGA, lies just a few miles off the western tip of Cuba (click the image above to view the approximate location) and is now more than 2,100 feet below the surface. Some experts believe the city might have been built on a land bridge that once connected Cuba to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and that this narrow strip of land collapsed due to a huge earthquake.

Some of the structures are reported to be more than 1,312 feet (400 meters) long by 131 feet (40 meters) wide and made from giant blocks of granite weighing several tons each. Other structures appear to be pyramids similar to those built by the mysterious Olmec civilization of Veracruz, Mexico. Still other structures are stone monoliths bearing symbols and inscriptions of unknown origin. Dr. Manuel Iturralde-Vincent, a Cuban geologist who has studied side-scan sonar images of the structures, describes them as "megalithic elements protruding from the sea floor, with a very peculiar aspect and geometric shapes."



Yes, this is being taken very seriously. NatGeo is even in on this one, since they are paying for expeditions. It is suggested that this one is from 12,000BC, which is far older than people thought humans ever been on this side of the world. The theory is that this place was sunken by a massive earthquake.

Sunken city in Japan:





Submerged stone structures lying just below the waters off Yonaguni Jima are actually the ruins of a Japanese Atlantis—an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago.

That's the belief of Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan who has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years.
....

"The largest structure looks like a complicated, monolithic, stepped pyramid that rises from a depth of 25 meters [82 feet]," said Kimura, who presented his latest theories about the site at a scientific conference in June.

But like other stories of sunken cities, Kimura's claims have attracted controversy.

"I'm not convinced that any of the major features or structures are manmade steps or terraces, but that they're all natural," said Robert Schoch, a professor of science and mathematics at Boston University who has dived at the site.

"It's basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges, particularly in an area with lots of faults and tectonic activity."


Similar to Oak Island, I don't know what to make of these ideas. Perhaps there is something to it, but it is good to see that there is a skeptic side to this as well. Perhaps it is all natural stone.

However, the Indian city is the most convincing since the divers have found human remains, pottery, and other artifacts in the ruins.

Unit 731 was a Japanese prison camp where grizzly experiments were performed on human subjects, including men, women, and children, during the Second Sino-Japanese War and WW2. Most of the experiments were done on Koreans and Chinese.

* Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in different positions.[11] Flame throwers were tested on humans.

* To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied[11]. Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare

* Prisoners were subjected to other torturous experiments such as being hung upside down to see how long it would take for them to choke to death, having air injected into their arteries to determine the time until the onset of embolism, and having horse urine injected into their kidneys.

* being placed into centrifuges and spun until dead, having animal blood injected and the effects studied, being exposed to lethal doses of x-rays, having various chemical weapons tested on prisoners inside gas chambers, being injected with sea water to determine if it could be a substitute for saline and being buried alive.

* Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.[16] Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.[11] Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.[11] Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.

Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.[11] Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.



Following the Wikipedia link to vivisection shows a more complete picture:

* Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.[12]

* Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.[13] The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.[14]

* Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.[15]

* Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.

* Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.[16]

* Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.[16]

* Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.

Other joys of this place included tossing babies in the air and shooting them, like skeet shooting.

Ultimately, the Japanese dropped infected fleas, clothes, and other dirty chemicals on mainland China, infecting the Chinese with bubonic plague, cholera, etc.

If you really feel the need to continue learning about this place, you can watch this 5-part series on youtube. The Horror of Unit 731

Unit 731 is now a war museum. The Japanese are fairly honest about what happened during that time. But alas, there are still deniers that this stuff really took place. I guess that some people simply cannot accept that people can do such harm.

jesus ****ing christ

makes me realize again how much I hate humans. have been to some KZs in Germany and France and it always makes me think for weeks. holy crap.

Think I'll pass.