If we admit it, we’re all a little bit fascinated by death. Our morbid curiosity makes us gawp at road traffic accidents, binge watch Dexter or CSI and has us all oddly intrigued by serial killers. Most of us though, wouldn’t want to stumble across a dead body at the beach, trip over a cadaver in the woods or find ourselves at a real life forensic crime scene. But there are places around the world where dead bodies just lay out in the open. Some are strewn on mountain tops – where it’s too dangerous to retrieve their corpses and some are made into creepy shrines – where we can pray to god that our bodies will never be added to that shrine.
If you’ve got a touch of necromania, morbid fascination with death or a ghoulish glint in your eye – you’ll want to check out some of the places on our list. Face your fear of death, stare a skeleton in the hollow eye socket or touch some decaying bones. The choice is yours. Some of the places where you’ll find dead bodies are seriously remote, others are places you can add to your vacation itinerary. Most of them are probably haunted. You have been warned. Oh, and one other warning, all of the images you’re about to see contain dead bodies in various spine-chilling poses or states of decay.
15. It’s Someone’s Job To Gather Maggots At The Tennessee Body Farm
There are around half a dozen ‘body farms’ in the USA where bodies are left out to rot. The purpose? To study decomposition and how bodies might be affected by raccoon and coyotes. We’re guessing they’ll be ‘affected’ by getting eaten, but that’s just a hunch. Other countries, such as the UK, get their data from rotting pigs – but that can’t tell them how things like diabetes or cancer affect decomposition. So in the US dead bodies are laying out in the open so researchers can collect maggots from the corpses to see what’s going on during the decaying process. In Tennessee the bodies lay out on a 2.5 acre plot and are posed in different scenarios, including underwater or in cars to simulate a crime scene.
14. Indonesians Dig Up Their Dead Relatives For A Festival
You could be forgiven for thinking this is a behind the scenes shot from The Walking Dead. But as Norman Reedus isn’t broodingly clinging to a crossbow, it’s safe to say this really is as grim as it looks. Every 3 years Indonesians exhume their relatives and take them on a parade. The ritual is thought to strengthen the bond between life and death and men, women and children are dug up for the event. Known as the Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses or Ma’nene, the festival celebrates life and is thought to bring good luck. It also seems to bring sunglasses to the corpses … Celebrated in Tana Toraja, the corpses on the parades are also dressed in caps and fashionable clothes out of respect.
13. Bodies Swing From The Trees In Japan’s Suicide Forest
If you take a hike in Aokigahara Forest, Japan, there’s a good chance you’re going to bump into a corpse or two. Between 50 – 100 dead bodies are found in the forest each year, but the corpses are only cleared away once a year. The remote location and dense woodland makes it too time consuming to patrol. But as it’s Japan’s most popular suicide spot, you would think people might check it a bit more often. Aokigahara Forest is not only littered with bodies, but also the possessions of the dead. Abandoned cars, suicide notes and chilling signs pleading with people to change their minds. One reads: “Please think about your parents, siblings and children. Don’t keep it to yourself. Talk about your troubles.’
12. Hang Out With Six Million Dead Bodies In Paris
The world’s most romantic city has a depressingly dark side. The bones of six million dead people are stuffed into over 4 miles of underground tunnels in Paris. It’s got a whole ‘city of the dead’ thing going on right beneath your lovestruck feet. Obviously the tunnels are haunted – because, well, six million dead people. It’s just basic math. If you’re feeling in the mood for a seriously macabre twist to your Paris vacation you can take a tour through some of the tunnels. Expect bones: Millions of them. Creepy skulls are built into walls made of bones and as an added bonus you’ll see some famous dead people. Though tbh, famous or not, they all start to look the same when you’re faced with thousands of hauntingly chilling eye sockets.
11. Be Horrified By The Smoked Corpses of Papua New Guinea
In a remote part of Papua New Guinea you’ll find corpses in various states of decay. But they’re smoked so maybe lay off the hickory smoked BBQ before you visit. Bodies lay out in the open, some with hair, muscle and skin still attached to their grotesque skeletons. Smeared with red clay, the corpses cut a distinctly horror film vibe as they lay on bamboo scaffolding, holding them up like the Hollywood-style prop skeletons you might find on a ghost train. Except these are real skeletons, and many documentary makers have tried to find out just why these bodies were smoked and laid out in such a gruesome manner. But with many different tales of why and how the bodies got here – these corpses may never reveal their dark secrets.
10. Use Dead Bodies As Landmarks When You Climb Mount Everest
There are around 200 dead bodies on the snowy peak of Mount Everest. Most of those are concentrated in the cheery sounding ‘rainbow ridge’ – except the name has a grim reason behind it. Named because of the brightly coloured jackets the dead bodies are wearing, the corpses can easily be spotted laying out in the snow. While some bodies are recovered, it’s simply too dangerous to retrieve most of the corpses – people have died trying. The most famous way-marker is ‘green boots’. A dead man wearing green boots lies in a cave which every single climber must pass in their quest to reach the peak.
9. Take A Stroll Among The Skeletons At El Conchalito Beach
There’s a beach at Baja California Sur in Mexico where bodies just lay out in the open. And as you walk barefoot through the sands there’s a good chance you might stub your toe on a spine or trip over a tibia. Creepy. The barely buried bodies tend to surface just after hurricane season, but finds are made throughout the year. Local residents have been having their days at the beach ruined since 1981, when the dead guys started showing up. The reason the bones are red? Back in the day, the ancient civilization that buried the bodies dug them back up, painted them in different colors and buried them again.
8. Snap A Selfie With A Dead Dude In A Box In London
A famous English philosopher had very specific ideas about how he wanted his body treated after he died. Most of us opt for a standard grave, perhaps even a quirky song or two at the funeral, but Jeremy Bentham wanted something different. Keep in mind that this guy was so set on his idea he carried glass eyes around in his pocket ready for when he died. He requested that his body would be dissected by his friends during a lecture and then put on display – after he’d been sewn up. And that’s where you’ll find him. Fully preserved, smartly dressed and sat in a box at the University College of London. His head has been re-modelled in wax to avoid any grisly decaying matter being on show – but it’s definitely his dead body on display in that cabinet. Fun fact: His severed head is kept in a safe as it’s too grim to be on display.
7. Wander Among 8,000 Dead Bodies in The Capuchin Catacombs
The largest collection of mummies on earth isn’t where you’d expect to find it. Sure, Egypt has its fair share of preserved corpses, but the Capuchin Catacombs in Italy contain around 8,000 skeletons and mummified bodies. Some are laid out to rest, others are pinned to the wall or hanging by their necks in grim poses. The dead are arranged in various musty corridors and grouped into categories. There are corridors for virgins, children, doctors and monks. What’s more sinister than a set of dark corridors filled with dead bodies? The mummification process. Each one of these bodies was left on a shelf to ‘drip’ until all of their body fluids had gone.
6. See A Revolutionary Russian Up Close
Lenin died over 90 years ago, but he’s still looking remarkably good for his age. This Russian revolutionary is on display to the public in a cool, dark room in Moscow. His tomb is open for visitors on certain days of the week, meaning that next time you’re in Russia you can pop in and check out his youthful looks. His anti-ageing secret is apparently due to embalming and injections of a mystery substance. What’s not clear is whether this treatment is ongoing … and whether someone is in charge of injecting a dead body regularly to keep it fresh.
5. Take A Tour Of Austria’s Creepiest House – It’s Filled With Skulls
When you think of Austria you might imagine The Sound Of Music, skiing, beer festivals and good clean alpine air. You probably don’t imagine a creepy house filled from floor to ceiling with skulls. Oh, and did we mention that they’re painted? Hundreds and hundreds of empty eye sockets glare back at you from every shelf of Hallstatt Charnel House, and there’s a good reason why they don’t look too cheery. They’ve all been dug from their graves to make way for someone else. Way back in the 1700s Austria started running out of grave space. So, they dug up some bodies to make way for new ones. Seems fair enough, but did they really have to trot out their arts and crafts skills with the painting? Though most of the bones are ancient, there’s one very recent addition. A woman asked for her skull to be laid to rest here. She died in 1983 and her skull was added in 1995.
4. Touch A Dead Man’s Finger In Ireland
Any necromanics out there may regret not visiting St Michan’s Church in Ireland sooner. In days gone by visitors were encouraged to shake the hand of a well-preserved mummy that’s laid out in the church’s basement. These days you’re only allowed to lightly touch his finger – in case his hand falls off. The mummy is one of four corpses fully laid out in the basement – and their coffins have no lids. In another crypt the caskets are so old and decrepit they are falling apart. Which only adds to the creepiness of this place, because where the caskets have broken down you can catch a glimpse of the arms and legs of the bodies inside.
3. Visit A Polish Chapel Made Out Of Bones
On the outside St. Bartholomew’s Church in Czermna, Poland, looks like a tiny, but ordinary place to get your pray on. Step through the doors and it quickly turns into a house of horrors. The bodies of 3,000 people decorate the chapel’s walls. Skulls and bones are everywhere – with just enough space left for the altar and Jesus on the cross. The bones are under the floorboards, on the ceiling and even on the altar itself. If 3,000 skulls on the church walls aren’t enough to satisfy your necromania, don’t fret: there are another 21,000 bodies buried in the chapel’s basement.
2. Chill Out With Ötzi the Iceman In An Italian Museum
It’s fair to say that Ötzi’s not looking at his best here. Though that’s what being dead for over 5,000 years will do for your looks. Moisturize guys, you never know when your mummified corpse might end up on display! And that’s what’s happened to Ötzi. He’s a glacier mummy from the Copper Age found by hikers 5,300 years after he was murdered in the mountains. Now he’s holed up in a special cold cell at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. You can go take a peek at him through a window and check out what Ötzi looked like before he was killed.
1. Uncover The Mystery Of Skeleton Lake
There’s a beautiful frozen lake in the Himalayas that hides a grisly secret. When the lake in the Nanda Devi national park thaws, the melted ice reveals a whole bunch of dead bodies. Over 300 people have been removed from the lake so far, with some skeletons still laying in the place where they died. And although scientists have thoroughly examined the corpses, no-one’s really sure what happened here. What they can agree on is that all the people were killed in the same way – blunt force trauma to the head. So far the theory goes that in 850 AD a group of two different nationalities were caught in a deadly hailstorm. But the facts may never surface. Unlike the hundreds of bones that keep appearing – some still with flesh attached.
Sources: forbes.com, dailymail.co.uk, bbc.com, smithsonianmag.com