- 2 days ago
Brace yourself for a fascinating journey that unravels the mysteries of human ambition and showcases the mesmerizing allure of these contrasting marvels.
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00:00I've made a list of some of the creepiest abandoned projects in the world.
00:04There's everything from ghost scrapers to bygone amusement parks.
00:08Fancy a tour?
00:09If you've ever seen Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island,
00:12you know how eerie islands can be extremely creepy.
00:16Even though this abandoned place looks like the set of a horror movie,
00:20it's as real as it gets.
00:22The so-called Hashima Island lies nine miles from the city of Nagasaki.
00:26It's been abandoned for almost 50 years.
00:29You see, when humans leave buildings unoccupied and unattended
00:33in deserted areas for quite some time, nature usually takes over.
00:37Judging by the looks of it today,
00:39I would have never guessed that Hashima Island was a hub for undersea coal mining.
00:45All the coal extracted from the area would be shipped to the rest of Japan
00:49to fuel the country's swift industrialization process.
00:52But mineral resources are finite, we know that.
00:55So, when the coal reserves started to empty,
00:58there was not so much for people to do around the area.
01:01Which leads us back to today.
01:03If you're feeling adventurous,
01:05you can take a boat ride from Nagasaki to Hashima Island
01:08and experience this dystopian sci-fi city firsthand.
01:12You'll tour empty apartment buildings overtaken by grass
01:16and be served away from any possible collapsing buildings.
01:19Sounds like a great idea for a Sunday.
01:22What do you say?
01:24This is what I like to call Disney, but with a dark twist.
01:27In 2014, a group of developers thought it would be a great idea
01:32to build a luxurious villa of Disney-like castles
01:35in the middle of a Turkish forest area.
01:38Hmm.
01:38They were aiming for upper-class Europeans
01:41who had something from 375,000 to 500,000 euros in their pockets
01:47to invest in the endeavor.
01:49Since it was built near a town known for its hot springs,
01:53the owners of these luxurious condos
01:55could even enjoy their own jacuzzis filled with rehabilitating waters.
01:59The thing is, the public didn't love the idea.
02:02Some started to complain that the architecture was far from the classic Ottoman style of the region,
02:08while others thought the company cut too many trees to build this fairytale town.
02:13In the end, the developers accumulated so many fines
02:16that it had to declare bankruptcy, and the project was abandoned.
02:20They didn't tear the castles down, though,
02:23so it just looks like a twisted live-action Disney movie over there.
02:27Now, skyscrapers are neat, but have you ever seen the world's tallest ghost scraper?
02:33The Golden Finance 117 was supposed to be
02:36the centerpiece of the Golden Metropolitan Scheme,
02:39a sprawling man-made town owned by billionaire Payne Soutang.
02:44The mini-city would be a residential and commercial hub
02:47minutes away from downtown Tianjin.
02:52It would be filled with French and Italian-style manors,
02:55a polo club, and even a wine museum.
02:58The developers were certainly aiming to attract the super-rich.
03:02The 128-floor building was envisioned as the mini-city's crown jewel.
03:07And I mean that literally,
03:09since the top of the building would be shaped like a diamond.
03:12Construction started back in 2008,
03:15and it still hasn't been finished.
03:16The overall project was estimated to cost 10 billion US dollars.
03:21But because of several unfortunate events,
03:24it never fully materialized.
03:26Some say that the project was probably doomed from the start,
03:30since the people who could afford to live somewhere like that
03:32wouldn't want to pay so much to live in a second-tier industrial city.
03:37Oh, and as you might remember,
03:39there was a big economic recession back in 2008
03:42that really slowed things down.
03:44Still, this enormous ghost scraper
03:46was the fifth-tallest building in the world at the time.
03:50Now, if you had to pick three words synonymous with utopia,
03:54what would you choose?
03:56I'd say things like happiness, peace, and abundance.
04:00This meant-to-be utopian city
04:02couldn't be further away from these qualities, though.
04:04Welcome to the Mojave Desert, located in California.
04:08Can you see the city grid on the sandy ground?
04:10These lines are the remains of a utopian city
04:14that never made it to its final stage.
04:16This town was supposed to be called California City.
04:20The utopian town was envisioned by Nate Mendelsohn,
04:23a university professor who studied a lot about urban planning.
04:27The project began in the late 1950s
04:30when he bought over 80,000 acres of land in the desert.
04:34He thought of a place where families would thrive.
04:36At the time, housing was affordable,
04:38and the town came equipped with leisure options
04:41such as a golf course, swimming pool, and recreation fields.
04:45Some people did buy lots over there,
04:48but the project was interrupted.
04:50That's why, if you're driving outside of L.A.,
04:52you might see a small island of houses,
04:55which is a tiny fraction of what California City was supposed to be.
05:00What European country would you say is filled with abandoned places?
05:04If you said Spain, then you got it right.
05:08Let's name a few.
05:09What was once planned to be a luxury resort is now a graffiti haven.
05:14The place started to be built in 1969,
05:17but just a year later, construction halted.
05:20In Ibiza, you'll also find something called the Festival Club.
05:24You see, Ibiza wasn't always the party place it is today.
05:27This club opened its doors in 1972.
05:30But two years later, Spain lived through a big oil crisis,
05:34and fewer and fewer tourists went to visit the island.
05:37The club was eventually abandoned,
05:39and today, visitors come to check out the graffiti art.
05:43The exterior of the houses is in perfect shape,
05:46which makes it hard to believe that all these houses were left to their own love.
05:50According to the explorer who found them,
05:53they've been abandoned since 2008.
05:55Again, that terrible year of recession.
05:58The company that built it went broke in the final quarter of construction of the condo,
06:03and abandoned the project at its very final stage.
06:06What a sad ending!
06:09Now, in Miami Beach,
06:11you'll find a luxurious abandoned hotel that once hosted a Beatles concert.
06:16In the late 1950s,
06:18it was the go-to spot for celebrities such as Frank Sinatra.
06:21Today, the Deauville Resort has already been demolished.
06:25It was shut down in 2017,
06:28after a fire damaged some of the building's structures.
06:31For a while, they decided to leave the hotel as it was,
06:34with its furniture and memorabilia still inside.
06:37Let's see what it looked like.
06:39The main entrance and lobby gave out a lot of 1950s vibe.
06:44The kitchen was still equipped with dishware and cutlery.
06:47The bathrooms had stalls and hair dryers available for use.
06:50And one could find electronic room keys thrown all over the floor.
06:55The hotel's main ballroom was where the magic used to happen.
06:58In 1964, the Beatles played a concert there
07:02that drove thousands of unticketed fans to stand outside,
07:05waiting to get a glimpse of the stars.
07:08The Deauville might have been a huge part of American cultural history,
07:11but today, it's nothing more than an abandoned site.
07:16Now, there is no doubt
07:18that some of the most interesting abandoned places in the world
07:21were once amusement parks.
07:23Amusement parks are usually filled with so much laughter and joyful times.
07:27But not these ones.
07:29Nary Dreamland was meant to be Japan's Disney World,
07:33but the project failed with time.
07:35Today, Nary Dreamland is nothing but a dream.
07:38If you were visiting it before it was taken down,
07:41this is what you would see.
07:43Your heart would beat faster than usual
07:45when you passed a fog-covered roller coaster.
07:48Was that meant to be the Matterhorn?
07:50Yep.
07:51Everything about this place said you shouldn't be there.
07:54But you're too curious.
07:55Tossed on the park's floor,
07:57you would see reels of tickets and disfigured stuffed animals.
08:01Fancy walking through an empty diner?
08:03It's bizarre how the tables and stools were left in place.
08:07Walking through what was once a gift shop,
08:09you would see empty shelves and an old-school cash machine.
08:13Now, are you as disturbed as I am after watching this?
08:17Yikes!
08:18If you've ever wondered what it feels like to walk on diamonds,
08:22head straight to the town of Nödlingen in Germany.
08:26It seems like a typical fairy tale village
08:28with cute houses and red roofs.
08:30But its walls and streets are actually studded with over 72,000 diamonds.
08:36You'll need a microscope to see them,
08:39but they're definitely there.
08:42When the first people came to live here,
08:44somewhere around the 9th century CE,
08:47they were positive they were settling down in a volcanic crater.
08:51They didn't know the stone they were using for construction
08:54was embedded with millions of tiny diamonds.
08:57And the origins of the crater were out of this world.
09:00An asteroid slightly larger than half a mile in diameter
09:04hit our planet around 14.5 million years ago
09:08in what is now Bavaria and left a crater 16 miles wide.
09:13The bedrock was under such intense heat and pressure
09:16that the bubbles of carbon inside transformed into tiny diamonds
09:20at a concentration like nowhere else in the world.
09:23The locals didn't pay attention to their houses,
09:27built of what was left of that asteroid impact shimmering on sunrise.
09:32Then, in the 1960s, two geologists arrived from the USA,
09:37studied the landscape from a distance,
09:39and noticed it didn't look exactly like a volcanic crater.
09:43After further research,
09:44they realized their theory that the crater was shaped from above
09:48and not from below proved right.
09:51They even had to change school books after the discovery,
09:54not to mislead the students.
09:56Once the word of the crater had spread,
09:59NASA got interested in it
10:00and sent their Apollo 14 and Apollo 16 astronauts to visit it
10:05to learn about what kind of rocks they'd find in space
10:08and which of them were worth bringing home.
10:11A moon rock that arrived with one of the missions
10:13is now on display at the local museum
10:16and astronauts still visit the place.
10:18The locals, though, are so used to living among diamonds,
10:22they don't even find it special.
10:25The Australian town of Coober Pedy
10:28is known as the Opal Capital of the World
10:31and exists completely underground.
10:34The town even has the first four-star underground hotel
10:38in the world.
10:39The reason people settled in this area
10:42was to work at an opal mine.
10:44Back in the day,
10:45the miners could hardly survive under the burning desert sun,
10:48so someone decided to put a tent directly into the mine.
10:52Then it turned into a home.
10:55Now, Coober Pedy has around 2,500 residents
10:58from different countries,
10:59about 30 shops,
11:01an opal gallery,
11:02museums,
11:03a bar,
11:03and other buildings
11:04and is a popular tourist attraction.
11:08The town of Manowee, Nebraska,
11:11in the USA,
11:12has a mayor,
11:13a clerk,
11:14a treasurer,
11:14a librarian,
11:15a tavern keeper,
11:16and a bartender.
11:18Yet,
11:19the population is officially just...
11:21one!
11:22Elsie Eiler has been doing all those jobs,
11:25paying taxes to herself
11:26and voting herself for mayor
11:28since 2004.
11:30Back in the 1930s,
11:31Manowee had a population of 150 people,
11:35grocery shops,
11:36and restaurants.
11:37When farming conditions got worse,
11:39people started leaving family by family
11:41until it went down to one person.
11:45If you feel like saving some money on house construction,
11:49look up some property in the Spanish town of Centennial de las Bodegas.
11:543,000 residents live under and into the sides of the Cadiz Mountains
11:59and use them as natural walls and ceilings.
12:02The first settlers moved in here back in prehistoric times.
12:05The rocks keep the houses cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
12:11Neft Dashlery in Azerbaijan was built as an oil platform in 1940,
12:17directly in the Caspian Sea.
12:19Once they discovered rich oil deposits,
12:21it started growing and is now made up of a network of platforms
12:25with around 5,000 people working and living here.
12:28The town has apartments, bridges, a library, a community center,
12:33and even a movie theater.
12:36The Japanese village of Nagoro has an unofficial second name,
12:41the Scarecrow Village.
12:43The last children were born here over 20 years ago.
12:46It officially has less than 50 residents,
12:49but it feels complete thanks to 350 life-size human dolls.
12:54When a local lady came back here in 2000 to look after her aging father,
12:59she saw the empty streets, shops, and schools.
13:02To change that, she and her friends started making cute dolls
13:06to replace the residents.
13:10The entire town of Whittier, Alaska,
13:13lives under one roof of a 14-story building of a former barracks.
13:17That's around 220 people who live here all year round,
13:21plus all the shops, a police station, a post office, a hospital, and a church.
13:26The locals are mostly working in commercial fishing,
13:30recreation, and tourism, or for the state ferry and railroad.
13:34The idea behind having everyone and everything in one place
13:37is to save money on heating in the always cold climate
13:41and let the people do all their business inside.
13:44This way, they don't have to face the unbearably strong winds.
13:50There's a town in Svalbard, Norway, called LÃ¥ngjurbyen,
13:54where the sun sets on October 25th
13:57and doesn't rise again for the next four months.
14:00When it rises again in spring,
14:02the locals gather on the step of an old hospital at 12.15
14:06to welcome the sun and celebrate its return.
14:10Then, it doesn't set for over four months.
14:13It happens because of the way the earth is tilted on its axis.
14:17The sun only rises and sets once each year at the North and South Poles.
14:22LÃ¥ngjurbyen is the northernmost town in the world,
14:25so it gets affected by that.
14:27Its residents occasionally see polar bears and reindeer in the streets
14:31and get around on snowmobiles.
14:35The Italian village of Viganella was built right at the bottom of a deep valley
14:40and on the wrong side of the mountains.
14:43They cast huge shadows
14:45and deprived the village of the sun for the entire winter.
14:49The locals used to live like that for centuries
14:51until one engineer decided to build a large mirror
14:55high on the opposite slope of the mountain.
14:58It's operated by a computer
15:00and reflects light on the central square of Viganella
15:03for at least six hours a day during the darkest months.
15:08Santa Cruz del Eslote in Colombia
15:11is one of the world's most crowded islands
15:13with around 600 residents in a two-and-a-half-acre area.
15:18Fishermen built this island on a coral platform over a century ago.
15:21They chose it because of its beautiful location
15:24and the absence of mosquitoes.
15:26The families of the original settlers were growing
15:29and most of them never left the island.
15:32You'll only find people with six different last names living here.
15:35When the family needs extra space,
15:38they just add an extra floor
15:39to one of around 100 homes in town.
15:42Now it has a school, shops, a church, and one restaurant.
15:46There is no traffic
15:47since the streets aren't wide enough for cars or trucks
15:51and the distances are perfectly walkable.
15:53No one on the island locks their doors
15:56because everyone knows each other
15:57and there hasn't been a single crime.
16:01Another place where people don't lock their doors
16:04is the Shani Shingdapur village in India.
16:07In fact, local homes and even shops
16:10don't have front doors, keys, and locks.
16:13But locals never feel unsafe.
16:15Residents believe their village
16:17is under the protection of Lord Shani,
16:19who will punish anyone who tries to steal something.
16:22A legend says that around 300 years ago,
16:26after heavy rain and flooding,
16:27the locals found a huge rock.
16:29The same night, Lord Shani appeared
16:32in the dreams of the village head
16:34and promised to protect the village
16:36if they kept the rock in the village unsheltered.
16:38The deity would live on the rock
16:40and oversee the village.
16:42Once the first bank opened in the village,
16:44they added a glass entrance
16:46and a barely visible electromagnetic lock
16:48with a remote control
16:50to respect the tradition.
16:53If you're looking for the most relaxed place in the world,
16:56check out The Villages in Florida.
16:59You can't move here
17:00unless there is at least one person over 55 in your home.
17:04And you'd have to leave behind
17:06any family members under 19.
17:08The most popular means of transportation
17:10in the villages is a golf cart.
17:12There are all sorts of free fun activities
17:15for the residents,
17:16so it's far from boring.
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