Ready to explore the world's eeriest abandoned islands? From haunted prisons to forgotten resorts, join us as we uncover the secrets and stories behind 10 mysterious islands where time stands still. Which island amazed you the most? Drop a comment below! Love cool history and odd places? Hit subscribe and never miss an adventure! #history #mystery #travel #abandonedplaces #islands
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@noelpolotv
0:00 - Introduction to Abandoned Islands
1:14 - Corregidor: Last WWII Stronghold
2:33 - Spinalonga: Island of Leprosy
3:57 - Heart Island: New York's Secret Cemetery
5:24 - Ancheta & Hashima: Prisons and Ghost Towns
8:13 - Goli Otok: Yugoslavia’s Hidden Prison
9:36 - Coiba, Sveti Stefan: Change and Abandonment
12:27 - Gritviken & Plague Fort: Nature Reclaims History
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@noelpolotv
0:00 - Introduction to Abandoned Islands
1:14 - Corregidor: Last WWII Stronghold
2:33 - Spinalonga: Island of Leprosy
3:57 - Heart Island: New York's Secret Cemetery
5:24 - Ancheta & Hashima: Prisons and Ghost Towns
8:13 - Goli Otok: Yugoslavia’s Hidden Prison
9:36 - Coiba, Sveti Stefan: Change and Abandonment
12:27 - Gritviken & Plague Fort: Nature Reclaims History
Category
🏖
TravelTranscript
00:00In different parts of the world, there are islands where time seems to have stopped.
00:04Some of them used to be home to entire communities.
00:07Others were turned into prisons, military bases, or places of forced isolation.
00:14Thousands of people once lived on these islands until war, disease, disaster,
00:20or the closure of an industry forced everyone to leave.
00:25Since then, only the buildings have been left behind.
00:28They still stand by the sea, exposed to strong winds, humidity, and the rapid spread of vegetation.
00:35There are vacant apartments, closed passageways, rusty factories, and roads that no longer have any traffic.
00:42In some places, you can still see furniture, machinery, and various items left behind by their last inhabitants.
00:49In this video, we will visit the 10 most mysterious abandoned islands in the world.
00:56Remote places that still hold stories of survival, tragedy, and secrets buried within their ruin.
01:03But before we start, if you are new to our channel, make sure to subscribe so you will always be
01:09updated with videos like this.
01:17At the mouth of Manila Bay, guarding the entrance to the capital of the Philippines,
01:23lies Corregidor, a tadpole-shaped island that for many centuries served as a checkpoint for ships coming from the sea.
01:30In 1942, its location became extremely important, as it served as the last stronghold of American and Filipino soldiers against
01:38the advancing Japanese.
01:40Thousands of soldiers took shelter in the Malinta Tunnel, a large system of passageways dug right into the rock.
01:47It was used as a hospital, headquarters, and storage for ammunition and other war equipment.
01:53It was here that General Douglas MacArthur led the defense before he received orders to leave the island.
02:00Before he left, he said the words that would later become famous,
02:05I shall return.
02:07Correa endured intense bombing for several weeks, but it finally fell in May 1942,
02:14which caused thousands of soldiers to surrender.
02:17Today, its rusty cannons are still there.
02:21Destroyed barracks and the entrance to Malinta Tunnel are slowly being covered by thick tropical plants,
02:28as if silently witnessing one of the toughest battles of World War II.
02:33Number 9
02:34Spinalonga, in the Gulf of Elanda, on the northern part of Crete,
02:39there is a small but fortified island that was first built by the Venetians as a strategic military fortress.
02:47But later on, it became one of the biggest symbols of fear of leprosy in Europe.
02:52In 1903, the Greek government sent thousands of people with leprosy from different parts of Greece.
03:00They were separated from their families and sentenced to live long-term within the walls of the old Venetian fortress.
03:08But Spinalonga is not just a story of forced separation.
03:12A young law student named Epaminondas Remondakis, who was diagnosed with the disease, founded an association for the patients.
03:22They managed to have electricity, clean streets, and a community with shops, schools, and even a tavern.
03:29All of this was built inside a place that, for many, felt like a prison.
03:35The colony closed in 1957, after an effective cure for the disease was discovered.
03:41The last resident there was an Orthodox priest who stayed for five more years to conduct burial ceremonies for the
03:48patients who had passed away.
03:50In the end, he also left in 1962, and the island was completely abandoned.
04:01At the far eastern end of the Bronx, where you can see the skyscrapers of New York, there is an
04:07island that only a few New Yorkers know about.
04:10Since 1869, Heart Island has served as the city's vast cemetery.
04:16This is where people who pass away without any family to claim or recognize their remains are buried.
04:22More than a million people have been buried here.
04:24Most of them are poor and cannot afford to pay for a burial.
04:29For over a century, prisoners from nearby Rikers Island have been digging the graves.
04:35They are also the ones who arranged the Pinewood Coffins, which usually only have numbers for identification.
04:42The island also served as a camp for prisoners during the American Civil War.
04:48Eventually, it was also used as a psychiatric hospital and a base for anti-aircraft missiles.
04:54For many decades, cameras and journalists were prohibited from entering the island.
05:00Because of this, its reputation as a secret and hidden place grew even stronger.
05:06In 2021, the city finally opened the island to the public.
05:10Because of this, families had the opportunity to visit the graves of their loved ones.
05:16People who, for many generations, did not even have their names placed above their graves.
05:247. Anquita Island, Brazil
05:41In 1902, the Brazilian government took the land from hundreds of fishing families to build a prison colony there.
05:49The prison went through various phases.
05:53Ordinary criminals were placed here, as well as political prisoners during the dictatorship of Getulio Vargas.
06:01Over time, more than 450 men were imprisoned here, considered to be dangerous inmates.
06:10In 1952, an incident occurred that left a permanent mark on the island's history.
06:16A group of prisoners, led by a man nicknamed Tuesday, organized a massive escape.
06:26But it ended in a violent clash between the prisoners and the police on the nearby shores.
06:33This rebellion, considered one of the bloodiest incidents in the history of Brazil's prison system, hastened the closure of the
06:41prison.
06:42It was finally closed in 1955, and today, the island is a protected state park.
06:49The ruins of the former prison still stand beside beaches that have been almost untouched by modern life.
06:58Number 6. Hashima, Japan
07:00A few kilometers off the coast of Nagasaki, there is a small artificial island surrounded by a concrete wall.
07:08This place once had the highest population density in the world.
07:15Hashima thrived because of an undersea coal deposit, which was mined by the Mitsubishi Company since the late 19th century.
07:24To house the miners, they built interconnected apartment buildings, schools, shops, and even a movie theater.
07:32At its peak, more than 5,000 people were crowded onto the small island.
07:39From the sea, its shape looked like a warship floating on the ocean, but the end came suddenly,
07:46when coal was replaced by oil as the main source of energy in Japan.
07:52The mine closed in 1974.
07:55Within just a few weeks, the entire population left, leaving behind furniture and personal belongings as if nothing had happened.
08:05Today, its buildings are slowly collapsing, and it has become a true concrete ghost town in the middle of the
08:12sea.
08:13Number 5. Goli Otak, Croatia
08:17In the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Croatia, there is a dry and almost barren island with very few
08:24plants.
08:25The prisoners themselves called it hellish.
08:28Its name, Goli Otak, literally means Bear Island.
08:34In 1948, after the leader of Yugoslavia, Joseph Brostito, cut the country's ties with the Soviet Union,
08:41the island was turned into a secret prison for people suspected of continuing to support Stalin.
08:48But the scariest part was not the guards, but the prison system itself, forcing prisoners to beat and humiliate each
08:56other.
08:58And report their fellow prisoners to prove their loyalty and avoid their own punishment.
09:03In the island's quarries and workshops, nearly 16,000 people passed through the prison over the years.
09:11For many decades, talking about Goli Otak was forbidden in Yugoslavia.
09:15Even on official maps, it seemed the island was deliberately erased.
09:20The prison closed in 1988.
09:23Today, only the skeletons of former buildings remain, along with a few flocks of sheep
09:30and the silence of a place that for many years was deliberately hidden as if it never existed.
09:36Number 4. Coiba Island, Panama
09:39Off the Pacific coast of Panama, surrounded by dangerous ocean currents and shark-infested waters,
09:47lies Coiba Island, the largest island in Central America.
09:52For almost a century, these natural dangers made it the perfect island prison.
09:59Since 1919, the government of Panama has been sending its most dangerous prisoners there.
10:04They were distributed among about 30 camps scattered throughout the dense jungle.
10:10Under the dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega,
10:15Coiba's history became even darker.
10:18It became a destination for political prisoners,
10:21and many of them were never seen again.
10:24There are stories that some ended up in unmarked graves,
10:28while others were said to have fallen victim to the sharks surrounding the island.
10:32The prison finally closed in 2004, but there is an irony in all of this.
10:40The fear caused by Coiba is the very reason why much of its forest remained almost untouched for many decades.
10:47Today, about 80% of its original rainforest still remains,
10:52and it has been declared a World Heritage Site.
10:56Number 3. Svidi Stefan, Montenegro
11:00On the coast of Montenegro, connected to the mainland, by a narrow causeway,
11:06is an island that was not abandoned because of war or disease,
11:10but because of power and changes in government.
11:14Svidi Stefan is a small fishing village dating back to the 15th century,
11:19made up of stone houses within a medieval fortress.
11:23In the 1950s, the Yugoslav government under Joseph Brostito decided that the place would be more valuable as a business
11:32than as a home.
11:33The government took all the houses and evicted the last residents to turn the entire island into a luxury resort.
11:41From the 1960s to the 1980s, famous personalities like Marilyn Monroe walked through its narrow streets.
11:49Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor, who were drawn to the exclusive place that had become a luxury hotel.
11:56After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Svidi Stefan's business gradually declined.
12:01Amman Resorts reopened the hotel in 2010, but due to a legal dispute with the government of Montenegro,
12:09it has remained closed, especially after the pandemic.
12:13For now, its old stone houses remain empty, as if frozen between two different lives.
12:20One is the life of the former community that is now gone,
12:23and the other is that of the hotel, which no one can visit either.
12:27Number 2. Great Gritwiken, South Georgia Islands, in the middle of the South Atlantic.
12:33Closer to Antarctica than most major cities in the world.
12:36Lies.
12:37South Georgia, a remote archipelago that is constantly battered by strong winds.
12:43In the early 20th century, the Norwegians and the British established one of the largest whaling industries in the world
12:51here.
12:51Its main settlement, Great Gritwiken, became the center for processing thousands of whales each year.
12:59Oil was extracted from them, which was then used to light lamps in Europe.
13:05The station operated from 1904 to 1965,
13:10but as the whale population continued to decrease, the industry gradually became less profitable.
13:17The workers left and abandoned the rusty boilers, ships left on the shore, and fuel storage tanks.
13:25To this day, they still stand slowly being consumed by rust and snow.
13:31Great Gritwiken also has a special connection to the history of polar exploration.
13:36A famous explorer, who was part of expeditions to the cold regions of the world, was also buried here.
13:42Ernest Shackleton, the famous explorer who died in 1922 while preparing for another expedition to Antarctica,
13:53was also buried here.
13:55Today, seals, penguins, and elephant seals freely roam around the abandoned machines and buildings.
14:02It is a unique yet very beautiful sight.
14:05A place where history, nature, and the ruins of a former industry come together.
14:10Number 1
14:12Fort Alexander I, Russia
14:14In the Gulf of Finland, across from the city of Kronstadt, Russia,
14:20stands a unique fort built on top of thousands of wooden posts driven into the seabed.
14:26Fort Alexander I was built from 1838 to 1845 to protect St. Petersburg.
14:33But there is something strange about it.
14:36It never fired a single cannon in real battle.
14:39When it finally lost its purpose as a military defense, it was put to a darker use.
14:46In 1897, it was turned into a secret laboratory where Russian scientists studied plague, cholera,
14:54and other deadly diseases.
14:56They used horses in their experiments to develop vaccines.
15:00This is where it got its frightening nickname, Plague Fort.
15:05The laboratory closed after the Russian Revolution, and the building was then used for storage of military equipment.
15:12It was completely abandoned in the 1980s.
15:16Ten islands.
15:18Ten different stories.
15:20But they all have one thing in common.
15:22On each island, there was once life, daily routines, work, and dreams.
15:28Until something happened.
15:30A war.
15:31An epidemic?
15:33A dictatorship?
15:34Or simply the passing of time?
15:36That suddenly brought everything to a halt.
15:39We saw colonies and prisons swallowed by the jungle.
15:42People, concrete cities slowly collapsing under their own weight.
15:46Fortresses that never fired a cannon in a real battle.
15:50And towns that disappeared to make way for expensive developments.
15:54Today, some of these places are visited by tourists, biologists, and explorers.
15:59But there are also some that almost no one ever reaches.
16:04Surprisingly, on most of these islands, the disappearance of people did not mean total destruction.
16:11Instead, nature returned.
16:15Plants reclaimed the land, animals returned, and some of these places are even more remarkable now than when people used
16:22to live there.
16:24If you enjoyed our journey into the world of abandoned islands, let us know in the comments, which of the
16:31ten islands surprised or amazed you the most.
16:34And if you want to discover more strange and mysterious places in the world, don't forget to subscribe.
16:40See you on our next adventure!
16:53See you on the next adventure!
Comments