Creepiest/Weirdest Place You've Been

**Obstruction** · 02-21-2017, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by iceman

Yeah he was the psychiatrist in charge of that place for many years (it's still there and probably just the same as it was I bet) and at the Brockton VA pyschiatric hospital, both really hard-core places. Brockton has some sections for milder patients and some completely locked-down sections.

For a while he was superintendent at the Gardner State Hospital and they gave him a house on the grounds, it came with the job. The place was huge, over 7000 acres, and the house was way out in the farm fields far from the buildings which were all at one end of the place. Sometimes we'd go out there to the house for the weekend, it was actually beautiful countryside.

My brother and I used to ride our bikes down to the hospital itself and shoot hoops in this courtyard in the middle of the buildings. If you can hit a jump shot while some guy is screaming that he wants to rip your eyes out and is literally throwing himself at the security screen in a window 50 feet away from you trying to get to you, well son, you got game.

Good on your Dad for doing that work, from what I saw those dudes needed plenty of help! The DDs (defective delinquents charming name for mentally/intellectually handicapped criminals) particularly spooked the crap out of me.

**Bronco** · 02-21-2017, 11:10 AM

I've been in some scary places with various jobs (slaughter house, mental institutions, maximum security prisons, etc.) but the weirdest place was probably Sedona Arizona. Between the vortex seekers and timeshare sales people, I felt like I was in another dimension.

**old goat** · 02-21-2017, 11:27 AM

Coldwater State Asylum in Michigan. We got the tour in med school. The place used to house the most profoundly retarded children--none of them could speak. Untreated hydrocephaly--kids with heads the size of large watermelons. Maternal rubella, cri du chat, kids who had to wear football helmets all the time because they fell on their heads so much, anencephaly (tiny heads), deaf mute and blind kids, various other perinatal infections. The place is now an ordinary psych hospital. A lot of the conditions that put kids there are now treated or preventable with vaccination (too bad the place isn't still an asylum for anti-vaccers to tour). I don't think anything else I saw in med school or in my career affected me so strongly.

**riser4** · 02-21-2017, 11:28 AM

Price, Utah. Weird as fuck town. Ate breakfast there after spending the night in Green River. I was on my way to a stopover in Boise before heading to Eugene, OR on a motorcycle trip in 92. In fact, that place weirded me out the most of all the weird things and weird people one runs into traveling solo on a bike across the country. I expected to hear banjos. The old guys in the diner were very creepy and very unfriendly. I called a friend from the payphone halfway through my meal to say where I was in case I was never heard from again.

**iceman** · 02-21-2017, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Obstruction

Good on your Dad for doing that work, from what I saw those dudes needed plenty of help! The DDs (defective delinquents charming name for mentally/intellectually handicapped criminals) particularly spooked the crap out of me.

"I work with insane people every day, and you guys are worse than any of them!"

-Dad, one time, to me and my brothers (I don't think he meant it)

Yeah, he coulda made a lot more money in private practice but felt he was doing more good where he was, he always worked for the State, the VA and Catholic Charities. Workingest dude you ever met, 80 hours was a slow week.

He had a serious stroke and he was in the Brigham in Boston and I was standing on the street smoking a cigarette and I started talking to this crazy homeless dude, he was waiting around killing time until they'd let him back into the shelter at 6:00, the topic got around to why I was there and when he figured out it was my dad in there he lectured me for about 10 minutes on how great a man he was, I mean he was fired up, he wanted to go in and rescue him. That was kinda interesting. There's lots of stories.

**iceman** · 02-21-2017, 11:36 AM

Another weird place was DC Jail, I was in there a bunch of times when I worked as an investigator for some Public Defenders. That place was pretty much like hell. Constant yelling, screaming, banging, way overcrowded, people everywhere, in the hallways, the guards didn't give a shit about me since I was working for the defense, they'd just leave. Fortunately the guys I went to see I was trying to help, so they looked out for me. Coulda gotten ugly otherwise.

**hatchgreenchile** · 02-21-2017, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by ill-advised strategy

The places that felt creepy (to me...)....the OH/KY/WV area. It's that "the hills are alive" feeling. Drug zombies, police who don't care about "yankees". Just feels like you could get a flat tire and disappear into one of those barns. ugh...

I got that feeling in rural Tennessee. Dad's cousin has some property somewhere near Linden. I was used to some rednecks in northern PA (Potter County) growing up, but they were more of the camo hoodie and Skoal kind, nothing like you find in the rural South. Holy shit, that's a whole different breed of people down there.

Other weird place - Wamsutter WY & Alamosa CO

**SkiBall** · 02-21-2017, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by riser3

Price, Utah. Weird as fuck town. Ate breakfast there after spending the night in Green River. I was on my way to a stopover in Boise before heading to Eugene, OR on a motorcycle trip in 92. In fact, that place weirded me out the most of all the weird things and weird people one runs into traveling solo on a bike across the country. I expected to hear banjos. The old guys in the diner were very creepy and very unfriendly. I called a friend from the payphone halfway through my meal to say where I was in case I was never heard from again.

We went through SLC on the way to Yellowstone back in early 80's. I stopped in sporting goods store to get an extra band for my wrist rocket. It was like children of the corn or something. I had long hair and probably sporting some rock shirt. Parents wanted to tour the church being the culture driven people they were...10 minutes into it, they were like "let's get the hell out of here".

**hutash** · 02-21-2017, 12:03 PM

I was staying in a hotel in Topeka Kansas and went out for a pre-dawn run. No idea were I was going just cruising roads. I ended up in some old park an a rise above the river. Kind of a cool place, mature trees, rambling roads, then I come across this old shutter up brick building, four or five stores high. The place just looked weird, like from "The Shining". I figured that had to be a few ax murders that came from or lived there. There was just the slightest hint of dawn, no real light, but just enough to see the building. I figured this building had real history like a nut house or something. Just a creepy vibe from it.

I ran by it again the following day about 45 minutes later in the dawn, and it was pretty well light, and it just looked like and old abandoned building. Turns out it was a closed mental hospital.

Just goes to show what a little darkness and imagination can create.

**AK47bp** · 02-21-2017, 12:23 PM

Downtown Dhaka, Sadarghat Port area at night during a black out.
Wasn't creepy or weird, more surreal being in the most overpopulated city in the 3rd world with the only light being car headlights, candles, and oil drum fires lighting the way.

**yeahman** · 02-21-2017, 12:31 PM

Has to be the Missoula County jail doing 24 hours for a DUI (many years ago). I think there were 8 of us in the cell, including a few badass Indians, one of whom told me I was going to be eating "tube steak" before the night was over. Didn't shut my eyes all night. That whole thing fucking sucked.

**TBS** · 02-21-2017, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

Bethel, Alaska, weirder than Adak. Also Hughes Alaska, and Venetie AK.

Rock Springs, Wyoming belongs here. And Borrego Mesa NM. Trona, CA. Tonopah, NV.

I could, and might, go on.

Heh, I was responsible for selling the Bethel cable TV system back in Mid 80's. Remember all the people living in containers with satellite dishes attached. Seemed almost post-apocalyptic

Also worked for a company with operations in Rock Springs during the coal boom. Fucking wild west with bunches of people packing sidearms. Remember a guy getting drunk, stealing a dozer, dropping the raker teeth and tearing up several blocks of the main street.

Haven't been to the others on your list. Will say that Klukwan AK was pretty weird. I remember the Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the others" playing through my head.

Truchas NM was kinda strange as well...

**Elkhound Odin** · 02-21-2017, 01:45 PM

A communal shitter in a refinery in central Russia. A bunch of holes in a 20ft long bench. Thought I walked into something from the Holocaust.

**mcski** · 02-21-2017, 01:46 PM

Early 80s before fully opened to tourists, got into the Paris catacombs w a couple of buddies w flashlights. Nothing like long tunnels w millions of skeletons and no light for the imagination to go to dark places of creep.

Still WV sounds much worse.

**east or bust** · 02-21-2017, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by hatchgreenchile

I got that feeling in rural Tennessee. Dad's cousin has some property somewhere near Linden. I was used to some rednecks in northern PA (Potter County) growing up, but they were more of the camo hoodie and Skoal kind, nothing like you find in the rural South. Holy shit, that's a whole different breed of people down there.

Ever been to Perry County?… I was out there today scoping a future project site up in the hills, it was way more backwoodsy than anything I've experienced in PA so far. Definitely not somewhere I'd want to get a flat.

Don't know how I forgot to mention Stag Hill in NJ. Taking the wrong road up there at night would almost surely lead to something bad happening. Back in high school a bunch of us would take our 4x4s up and never got in trouble with the locals. They were actually pretty friendly with us since they know the off road crowd doesn't go up and cause trouble. Went to a couple bonfires in the woods where tensions seemed pretty high between locals and drunk assholes. Make a wrong move there and you were good for a beating or worse.

In college a kid was shot in the head on his couch in the house behind ours on NYE. He was found a couple days later, so as we were going about our day to day activities there was a murder victim about 20 feet from where I was parking my car. The police determined it was a drug related hit and the case was never closed. About a week later we were walking our dog by the house and the parents were there throwing away the furniture and stuff and asked if we wanted any of it. Two of my bonehead roommates said they would take a couch (not the one he was killed on). I didn't let them take it in our house, so it sat on the back porch for a year.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/s...year/79745756/

**Supermoon** · 02-21-2017, 06:35 PM

Was in Cape Cod really early season (first of May or something) and stayed in a B&B that looked straight out of "So I Married an Axe Murderer." We were literally the only guests staying there and the caretakers/owners lived a couple miles down the road. It was one of those totally nasty/windy coastal days you get up there. We came back from dinner and the bar a little drunk to this pitch black hotel that sounded alive with all the wind and creaking. Wandered around the place with just my phone flashlight and I was convinced I was going to see some floating dead ghost lady around the corner. I'll admit I was a little relieved the next night when a couple other groups showed up.

**El Chupacabra** · 02-21-2017, 06:52 PM

Tulane medical school, New Orleans, has a collection of unusual birth defects and fetuses in jars. Really strange stuff. I googled for some pics, but only found this reference to the "fetus collection" -

http://orgoneresearch.com/2009/10/19...dical-museums/

**schindlerpiste** · 02-21-2017, 07:03 PM

Probably the Nazi tunnels under the town of Bamberg Germany . Even creepier than Dachau.

**goldengatestinx** · 02-21-2017, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by The SnowShow

The doomsday bunker under DIA and tunnel to Cheyenne Mtn.

Is there an entrance near Golden?

**Cono Este** · 02-21-2017, 07:16 PM

I once stopped at the crappiest motel on i70 in kansas, I just couldnt drive any longer without crashing. One of those places all by itself, 50 miles from the next stop, straight out of the Hills have eyes movie. I was the only car in the lot and It was so fucking bad inside i spent 5 minutes inside and left. i didnt even ask for my 40 bucks back in case Jethro was on his way.

Holiday Express from now on.

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 02-21-2017, 07:17 PM

Tie between the house I grew up in and black bear hunting in Alberta when I was 13 or 14.

The house I grew up in was originally built sometime in the 1750s on a 90 acres plot of woods/hay fields. Supposedly a young girl who lived in the house drowned in the pond about 1/2 a mile away at the adjacent farm. She was 8 years old and named Sarah. I never saw her "ghost" per se, but lots of really inexplicable sounds, doors closing on their own, etc. When my dad first moved into the house in the 1970s all the faucets in the house would turn themselves on at 3am, etc. Really weird shit.

Bear hunting in Alberta was one of those deals where the guides drive you out these old logging roads about 15 or 20 miles on an ATV and just drop you off at a tower stand and leave you there until well past sunset. Well, I was all alone and on the 2nd or 3rd day I shot a nice big sow about 15 minutes before dark. I was excited and got down out of the tower to go check the bear. So there I was sitting on the bear with my rifle waiting for the guide to come get me. It was getting really dark and I started to hear a bit of rustling and breathing/panting sounds circling me in the woods about 30-40 yds out. I could just barely see 4 or 5 LARGE wolves in the shadows. Luckily the guide eventually got within earshot and the sound of his quad scared them off. Yeah, that was intense and stupid.

**goldengatestinx** · 02-21-2017, 07:17 PM

Damn. I'll take my chances with the grizzlies in WY, black bears here in the canyon and the cougars. Those other places are seriously freaky.

**Hott Butt Mud** · 02-21-2017, 07:22 PM

The year 2017 in the United States of America.

**iceclimb** · 02-21-2017, 07:52 PM

At first I thought it was a tie between a 'shiners house in Rural West Virginia and spending the night at Eastern State Penetentiary. Then I remembered both had good folks who gave me liquor once they realized I wasn't gonna give them crap. Not sure what's with all the WV hate... met some of the nicest people there, had some of the best adventures, great times, and most of the problems we had were our own doing. Heck, we even streaked a Sunday morning "revival" once and that didn't end badly.

Nope... it's the tunnel between the animal experimentation facility and the hospital at a major research hospital. They did a bunch of experiments in the early 80s after three mile island in which they irradiated animals to see how much radiation they could stand. In that tunnel is a lead lined "crypt", which went as far as I could see, filled with trash bags tagged with species and half lives..... the one bag I saw had a date 15,000 years in the future.

That place was the creepiest of the "farm", but the whole farm was creepy.... remote controlled monkeys, ducks who could control their intake of cocaine and heroine, horses deliberately infected with viruses that gave them different cancers.

But the crypt was definitely the creepiest feel.

**Meadow Skipper** · 02-21-2017, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by iceman

Another weird place was DC...

Ha, that reminds me. (Back when I was first getting into TGR) I spent a few months in DC in the Main Interior Building on C Street working for a political appointee. I was in from the west on a temporary assignment. That was so weird and creepy that I forwent the (lucrative) promotion and fled back home to make retirement plans instead.

Originally Posted by TBS

Heh, I was responsible for selling the Bethel cable TV system back in Mid 80's. Remember all the people living in containers with satellite dishes attached. Seemed almost post-apocalyptic

Also worked for a company with operations in Rock Springs during the coal boom. Fucking wild west with bunches of people packing sidearms. Remember a guy getting drunk, stealing a dozer, dropping the raker teeth and tearing up several blocks of the main street.

Haven't been to the others on your list. Will say that Klukwan AK was pretty weird. I remember the Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the others" playing through my head.

Truchas NM was kinda strange as well...

Small world. ^Truchas is a good place to get your ass beat/house burned down if you're not from there.