The haunted catacombs

Underneath the French Capital, there’s a network of tunnels and crypts. Is there something sinister lurking in the Catacombs of Paris? 

The haunted catacombs

Sometime in the late 1990s, the French freelance photographer and filmmaker, Francis Freedland, was contacted by an amateur cave explorer. The young man said he had something he wanted to show him urgently. When they got together, the photographer was confronted with a video cassette, containing footage from the famous Paris catacombs. 

They sat down and started rolling the video. At first, nothing strange occurred on the screen. It’s filmed in first-person, subjective angle. You see the narrow corridors, every now and then interrupted by a doorway or a smaller passage to the right or to the left. The walls are hard soil, as is the floor. As he walks along, certain parts seem even more narrow, or lower in height. But it’s still nothing extraordinary or uncommon. 

Francis was already aware of the fact that people sometimes go down there to explore. It’s forbidden and it’s dangerous, but he knew that sometimes the human race wants a bit more adrenaline than just going to work and coming back again.

The hunted explorer 

He turned and was about to ask his companion what’s so special about the footage they were watching when the young adventurer signaled at him to watch…

  –  Look, he said… Watch this!

And suddenly the pace of the video increases a little. In front of Francis’s surprised gaze, he saw how the maker of the film down there in the underground accelerates. First, it’s hardly visible, but after a short while, you can hear that his breath is faster… Nervous. His steps become more irregular, and after a short while, he is running. The focus of the film moves up and down, left and right, and soon it’s so shaky that it becomes impossible to follow the course. The man is now running and panting heavily, faster and faster until he drops the camera. The video footage stops, framing the wall and a piece of the tunnel ahead from the floor, while the steps of the man seem to continue ahead in the darkness. 

After that, the camera continues filming that static image until it runs out.

So what is the video showing? A man who’s panicking from not being able to find the way out? … Or did it show a glimpse of something more sinister? Something lurking deep down under the glamorous boutiques and large Avenues of the French Capital? Something that hunts whoever dares to enter his realm?

What are the catacombs? 

Catacombs are tunnels, rooms, and chambers under the ground, originally used as burial places. The word, Catacomb, is of Greek origin, but the significance is uncertain. 

The most famous are those in Rome, Italy. The oldest are in Paola near Valetta in Malta. But there are Catacombs in many places, especially in the Mediterranean area. Other famous catacombs are Paris, Kom El Shoqafa in Egypt, Odesa in Ukraine, and Brna in the Czech Republic.

Most can be visited by tourists, but only with guides, and in certain well-lit, restricted areas. Some are very big. The Odessa catacombs have a total length of more than 1500 miles.  

And why were they built?

The ancient catacombs started out as burial places, like the ones under the eternal city of Rome, Italy. In the 2nd century, the first Christians started burying their dead underground. As a part of their beliefs, they couldn’t burn their diseased as the Pagans did, cause how were they supposed to present themselves after the final Armageddon if they didn’t have a body? 

And as putting decaying corpses down into the ground inside the city walls was forbidden, for obvious reasons, their only alternative was to bury them outside the city walls. The churches were small, the cemeteries were limited, and the Romans didn’t care much for their religion anyway. Soon it became crowded around the temples, To resolve this, they started digging down into the ground to be able to put the bodies of their loved ones to rest… In the catacombs.

Myths about the catacombs in Rome.

That meant every church in Rome had its own burial cave underneath the churchyard. With time these became bigger, with more space and more graves. But they still had to respect the boundaries of the area of the site on top. They couldn’t dig out horizontally into the neighborhood. So, they dug down. Some corridors of the Roman catacombs are as high as 20 meters or more, all flanked by burial chambers. 

• The catacombs in Rome are separated from each other. It’s not one big labyrinth.
• The catacombs in Rome were never hiding places for the Christians to evade the Roman oppressors. The Romans knew very well where they were, the entrances, and who was in charge. It was all perfectly legal, and official in every sense.

Other locations.

The same type of catacombs dug for the same reason, can be found all over Italy… And all over the Roman world, even further away than that. The idea of burying people in caves and tunnels underground lived on even until the 20th century. Rosalia Lombardo was the last person to be buried in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo in Sicily, Italy. She died in 1920, at only two years of age. 

Other famous Catacombs can be found in Lima – Peru, in Vienna – Austria, in New York, in Bambang – the Philippines, and many other locations. 

If we determine the catacombs as not necessarily and exclusively a final resting place, then the list grows significantly. In the US there are many underground structures to visit. In Beijing, China, there’s an underground network covering more than 30 square miles, constructed in the 1970s. Or just think about the vast Củ Chi tunnel network used by the Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnamese war. 

Be careful where you walk… There could be a void under you.

The haunted catacombs in Paris.

If the Roman catacombs are very old… Separated in many different networks, and reasonably tidy, well documented, and accessible… The Paris underground tunnels are very different. The mysterious video presented to Francis Freedland, couldn’t have been from Rome. The Roman catacombs are just too limited and well-lit. 

Under Paris, on the other hand, there’s an enormous spiderweb of corridors on five levels. Some parts are easily accessible, and you can go there with a tourist guide who tells you everything you need to know. But there are miles and miles of haunted catacombs that are much scarier, and much more dangerous… And they are much more recent than their Roman namesake.

The origin

In the late 1700, the authorities in France were becoming concerned about the overcrowded cemeteries in the Capital. The city was growing fast and all the corpses in and around the small cemeteries were becoming a severe health risk. The stench especially around the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery, the oldest and largest graveyard in Paris, was overwhelming. And when in 1774 a part of a basement wall collapsed under the weight of the many cadavers, spilling dead and decaying corpses all over the neighboring streets, something had to be done… And quickly. So Luigi XVI closed all cemeteries inside the city and started planning for the removal of the already buried to abandoned querries further away.

Not too far away though, just about outside the city gates, would be perfect. And the first and easiest spot to dump them was Barrière d’Enfer Gate of Hell, a tollgate, on the border of the city.

The quarries under the city. 

Because in Paris, unlike in Rome, there was no need to dig. The tunnel system was already there in form of old Lutetian limestone quarries  Most of the city was built of Lutetian limestone and all that material had been extracted from underneath the city, leaving a huge web of old mines, tunnels, and chambers. 

At first, they just dumped the bones, but from 1810 they started organizing and placing them in an arranged fashion. The enterprise was led by Inspector Héricart de Thury, who either had some macabre stylistic urge or was highly ironical. Anyway, he started building rooms, and chapels, and he arranged the bones and skulls in artistic patterns. 

He practically created what is today a site that attracts half a million tourists a year.

The burial parts of the tunnel system, the ossuary, which is what attracts the visitors, is about a mile. One mile of corridors, rooms, and crypts, decorated with human remains in form of skulls, basins, and legbones.

But the total length of the haunted catacombs is supposed to be as much as 200 miles, maybe even more. Nobody knows. 200 miles of winding, dark corridors in five levels… Full of dead people, or even worse, maybe not entirely dead…

So are they really haunted? 

While the haunted catacombs of Rome isn’t a common statement, the haunted catacombs of Paris definitely is. And it’s very easy to see the reason why. The Parisian network is scary. It’s huge, and it’s partly unmapped, so you can easily become trapped down there with the dead bodies and the skeletons. It’s a terrifying thought and not just a thought. Many people actually have met that fate, not being able to find their way out.

Philibert Aspairt was a doorkeeper of the Val-de-Grâce hospital. In 1793 for some reason he went down through a staircase located in the hospital courtyard. He was found 11 years later and could be identified only cause he still had the key to the hospital on him. He was buried on site. 

The movie… There’s always a movie…

Two movies, actually. The first was Catacombs, directed by Tomm Coker and David Elliot and starring Shannyn Sossamon, released in 2007. The second was As Above, So Below, written and directed by John Erick Dowdle and starring François Civil and Perdita Weeks. Both created with lots of footage of narrow tunnels, dark shadows, deep pits, and scared teenagers. It’s effective. 

There’s a very obvious pattern when it comes to hauntings. Any type of publicity, Tv, Movie, News, anything, boosts the general scariness of a place. And before the movies, there was the very famous TV-series, Scariest Places on Earth, Season 1, Episode 2 from 2000 hosted by Lind Blair. 

And we’re back to where we started. Because Francis Freedland’s videotape formed the base for a part of that episode. Freedland together with the camera crew and a guide, went down into the tunnels to try to find the origin of the video film. And maybe find the exact spot from where it was shot. 

To cut the story short, it is a frightening experience. But not because of any hauntings on spooky findings. The chill you feel when you watch the footage comes from a sense of claustrophobia. The narrow corridors, the low roof, the tight passages, and the panting voices… Well, you know the style. It’s kind of disturbing, but there’s no real substance. 

So, the haunted catacombs, it’s all a scam?

There are at least three strange facts about this video:

• Why on earth would anybody drop the camera? He could have been attacked but in that situation, he must have tried to do anything not to lose the only light source he had. Even if he was chased.
• The total of the film has never been made public. It is supposed to be around 40 minutes, but all we have ever seen is the last minute. 
• The timing. Freedland states that the video was found in 1993, but the first evidence of it is from 2000 when Most haunted places on earth sent the episode. Why didn’t he go to the police? Why didn’t he try to investigate earlier?

And that leads us to the famous TV series. It is beyond any doubt that The most haunted places on earth on occasions created and invented facts to make a good show

More interesting facts about the haunted catacombs of Paris.

The whole city is constructed on top of a tunnel web that is reasonably superficial. This fact makes constructing heavy buildings somewhat risky. And Parisian law states that the owner of a property not only owns the surface but also what’s under it. So if the house collapses, you, yourself are responsible.

• The tunnels were originally outside the city gates, but as Paris grew, they became well inside the city limits. The biggest risks for sinkholes are therefore in the suburbs. The city center is regarded as safer.
• It’s estimated that there are remains from over six million people down there. That would mean that there are more dead than alive in Paris today. 
• And the bones are still down there. While the skeletons of the Catacombs in Rome have been moved or stolen, the dead in Paris are all there… At least most of them.
• In 1880 an innovative French farmer found out that the Catacombs were perfect for growing mushrooms. A few years later more than 300 mushroom farms were set up down there, and the cultivation continues even today, but on a smaller scale. These are the famous Champignon de Paris.
• During WW2 the resistance used the catacombs for transport. Interestingly, so did the Germans. They even set up a large bunker right under Lycée Montaigne, one of Paris’ most famous schools. Fortunately, with both parties moving about in the 200 miles of tunnels, there was little risk that they would run into each other.
• In 2017 thieves drilled their way into a basement from the Catacombs straight underneath it. They got away with 300 bottles of vintage grand cru with a market value of more than 250.000 euros. The operation was meticulously planned and the bottles were never found again.   

Although most people would avoid the forbidden and haunted catacombs, there is a community of adventurers, the so-called Cataphiles. These are to a certain degree experts in where to enter, how to behave once down there, and, most important of all, how to exit the catacombs. It is a very secret community with no names or identities and with a fixed, and determined conduct. 

Among those, there’s an even more secret group called…

Les UX

Their goal is to explore, restore, and improve hidden corners of Paris. They frequently go into the Catacombs and they are responsible for many extraordinary features. And they’re not only young hipsters, and yuccies, but also more prominent and older members of society… Architects historians, and entrepreneurs. Here are a few examples:

In 1981 the group stole the complete mapping of the catacombs from the ministry of telecommunication. And from there they’ve managed to pull off a long list of amazing endeavors. They are not only a nuisance to the authorities but they actually fix things too. 

In 2007, they restored the famous clock in the Panthéon together with the clockmaker Jean-Baptiste Viot. 

2004 the Police discovered a complete movie theater underground. Complete with a bar, a kitchen, and seats carved out of the rock. They had pulled electricity from the surface and even had a motion-detecting CCTV setup that triggered recorded dogs barking if someone would close in on their hideout. When the police came back after three days all they found was a note saying “Don’t search for us”. All the equipment was gone.

So, in the end, where does it leave us? Are the catacombs underneath Paris haunted or not?

No, they’re not. Francis Freedland’s video clip is probably a fake… Done by him, by someone else in Paris. But probably by the creators of Most haunted places on earth. They did these things, you know.

And for the rest, there is no indication whatsoever that anything sinister or ghostly happens down there. 

But it’s still creepy. And the creepiness obviously comes from the fact that the not so haunted catacombs of Paris are vast. Even though people move around down there, the graffiti on the walls is a good testimony of that… There still are 200 miles of tunnels to get lost in. 200 miles of dark, damp, narrow, rough, and largely unmapped tunnels, in five layers down all the way to 100 feet under the surface. And they are full of human bones. If that’s not scary… I don’t know what is.

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sources

• Le Catacombes de Paris
• Britannica / Catacomb
• Condè Nast Travel / 10 Creepiest Catacombs You Can Actually Visit
• Archeology Travel / Catacombs of Paris
• New York Times / The Secret Is Out on a Cherished Underground Haven
• Wikipedia
• IMDb / As Above, So Below

The Enigma of Port Chatham: Uncovering a Century of Mountain Terror Legends.

The beautiful town of Port Chatham on the southwestern shores of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, USA. Was it abandoned overnight because it was haunted?

You might wonder how something could ever be this beautiful… Coming in through the opening of the Bay of Port Chatham in the sunlight, a warm summer day, The green mountains surrounding the grey gravel shores. The dark, almost black water mirroring white clouds, every now and then shadowed by a huge bald eagle searching the untouched nature for its prey.

Still, if you sense an undetermined dread, a sudden feeling of disturbance as if you were observed by someone… Or something. Then, you’re not alone. Because this is one of the scariest spots on the American continent. 

And the villagers’ sudden escape from the once small but prosperous settlement, is one of the greatest mysteries in the history of Alaska.

A short history.

In 1786 a British ship sought refuge in Chatham Bay during a storm. The Captain’s name was Nathaniel Portlock of the Royal Navy, and that name was later given to the cannery plant on the southern shores. But it would take more than a hundred years before anything else than wilderness was to be seen here.

After the US bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867 southerners started to come to the new land for hunting and gold mining opportunities. In late 1800 small villages started to pop up around the fishing industry. And especially on the Kenai peninsula the canneries, cold store and smoking facilities were the main business activity.

In 1912 a cannery opened in Port Graham some 15 miles away on the northern side of the tip of the Kenai peninsula. In 1915 a cod and halibut cold storage plant was built in Port Chatham. A chrome mine opened opposite the inlet, in Chrome Bay, two years later. A small settlement started to grow, around mining, fishing, and fish processing. In 1921 it even got a Post office, and soon it felt almost like a real town. 

In 1928, a small salmon cannery was opened in Portlock/Port Chatham, and two years later, in 1930, a bigger cannery was built by the A. N. Nilson Company. For a few decades, these plants offered a stable income for a handful of people. Because we’re talking about a small place, even by Alaska’s standards.   

The famous Port Chatham horror.

But something wasn’t right. Some sinister entity, in and around the Bay, started to show its presence to the villagers. It began right when the first settlers got there, but it became more and more difficult to ignore it as years went by. Most of the workforce in the facilities were of Russian-Alutiiq extraction. And they already had an idea about what was lurking in the forests…

What they referred to is a big hairy Bigfoot-like creature that walks on two legs, much bigger and stronger than a human. From being a silent threat, only to those who venture too far into the wild at night, the sightings became more frequent … And closer. 

And when people started to disappear and die, the villagers finally abandoned Port Chatham more or less overnight. Leaving their homes, and livelihoods behind. The last man to leave was the Postmaster. In 1951 he locked the door to the local post office, never to return again. 

Here is a list of what happened in Port Chatham in the first half of the 20th century.

• Andrew Kamluck was murdered in 1931. Someone, or something, hit him over the head with a piece of heavy log-moving equipment. The piece of machinery was found more than 10 feet away from the body, and it was too heavy for one man to lift, let alone swing it and strike a standing man.
• Around the same time, a gold miner went to his claim never to return. According to the Port Graham elder, Simeon Kvasnikoff, no traces were ever found of him, nor at his cabin, nor anywhere else. It was as if he had disappeared from the surface of the earth.
• Tom Larsen, a local sawmill owner, was out chopping wood for fish traps, when he spotted a big hairy creature on two legs on the shore. He ran to his cabin to get his gun. When he came back, the creature was just standing there, looking at him, without running away or charging him. Larsen could never explain why he didn’t fire his rifle at it.
• During WW2 the workers of the Cannery plant often went into the forest to hunt, never to come back. Some bodies were later found mutilated and dismembered in a way that no animal would or could do. 
• In the 40s a group of hunters were tracking a moose. On the path, they found 18 inches long footprints  They concluded that something else was stalking the animal other than them. At a certain point, they found an opening and signs of a fight. The only prints moving away from the site were the 18-inch footprints they had seen earlier. It was as if the unknown predator had killed the moose, an animal of at least 500 pounds, possibly 1000, and carried it away, on its shoulders. 
• In 1973, three hunters took shelter in Port Chatham during a three-day storm and claimed that each night something walked around their tent on what sounded like only two feet.

• In 1905, the workers of the cannery refused to go back to work, as they were afraid of the hairy man haunting the neighborhood. Only when the manager of the plant hired armed guards to watch not only the fish cannery but also the village, did they agree to come back to work.
• Trees were being pulled up with the roots for no apparent reason. Sometimes they were put back upside down, with the roots pointing upward. 

So, where’s the truth in all this?

Was Port Chatham really haunted? What was it that frightened a whole community to such an extent that they preferred to leave their home and just run? Was it a Sasquatch, a Bigfoot, or was it something even more sinister?

Let’s look at the facts. Because this is not New York, London, or L A… It’s Alaska, a huge, desolate State with wildlife, harsh weather and nature, and generally difficult living conditions. People who go missing aren’t all that unusual. It’s twice as common in Alaska as elsewhere in the USA. And big bears can be mistaken for many things. 

This poor bear walks on its back legs because the front paws are injured. You can see the right front paw being contorted (1.02). Scientists say bears can walk reasonably well on two legs. 

But let’s look at the evidence one by one.

The first issue: The sudden escape.

The town was abandoned in the late 40s or the early 50s depending somewhat on who claims it. The post office was closed in 1951, that’s reasonably verified. Now, Portlock/Port Chatham isn’t the only abandoned village in Alaska. There are at least 50 small towns just like this one, some say more than 100, in the northernmost State. 

Alaska’s history is a chain of entrepreneurship, dreams, prosperity, and failure. Many came up north to set up businesses and start a new career. Some succeeded, while others didn’t.

Fishing was a big industry, but after the war, the ships became bigger, and the need for local storage and refining slowly became obsolete. The boats cooked, canned, and stored the catch directly on the ship. The cold facilities and canneries that took the hardest blow were the small ones… Like Port Chatham. 

• A. N. Nilson Company, the owners of the Portlock Cannery, started a second plant in Seattle’s Ballard area in 1950. Closer to the market and easier to manage. 
• The mine at Chrome Bay was very active during WW2, but immediately after, the demand for chrome dropped drastically, and the mine closed. 

In this context, it’s not difficult to see why people moved away from Port Chatham to bigger urban centers like Nanwalek, and Port Graham. And I haven’t found anything to suggest that the migration was hasty or unplanned. 

The second issue: The hauntings. 

Some of the testimonies are obviously exaggerated or simply wrong:

The workers of the cannery that demanded armed guards back in 1905 is a strange statement. In 1905 there was no cannery in Port Chatham. There were fishers and hunters, but no big, single employer to whom you could possibly direct any demands. It sounds strange.

There were many more testimonies of people who went missing, as well as people who were killed by something. But, as said before, this is Alaska. People go missing every day. More than 2000 disappear every year in Alaska. Many of which are never found again. And people get assassinated. I can’t find it extraordinary that a gold miner is killed at his claim… Especially if there was gold in it. 

It is also true that there are other abandoned towns in Alaska. Many of them have their own stories, their own hauntings, and some even had their inhabitants fleeing “overnight”.  

What do the locals say?

Well, while some locals say that Bigfoot/Sasquatch is very real, others deem it as a hoax. The opinion here is divided… For or against, Yes or no. Even though no evidence has ever been presented as proof of an actual specimen, many people, especially among those who are familiar with the big open forests, swear they exist.

It has also been suggested that the thing or things that haunted Port Chatham was supernatural… A paranormal phenomenon. This is a less popular explanation though.

… And the experts, what do they say?

As the creature of Port Chatham often is regarded as physical and natural, no investigation of paranormal activity has ever been done. And the investigations of Bigfoot creatures around the bay are not very serious, to say the least. A few youtubers, a pseudo-exploratory full-length movie, and a local radio show, that’s all. 

And we don’t have any documentation… None at all. No photos, no videos, not even reliable police reports. All we have are stories. 

Rests the single fact that the town, or towns were abandoned… Maybe suddenly, overnight, but more likely. over some time. This fact alone is actually a very important part of the history. Abandoned settlements are not uncommon in Alaska, and it’s a fact that both the mine and the cannery closed before and around 1950. Still, the escape isn’t perfectly natural or 100% motivated…

Alaska after WW2. 

Because it’s not entirely true that everything died out with the closing mine and fish cannery. Fishing for the King Crabb started to generate massive incomes in Alaska in the 50s. And in the 60s oil started to become big business. Especially the Cook Inlet filled up with new oil rigs. So it wasn’t like everybody shut down and moved out. 

Many moved to the bigger centers, more for practical reasons. And that was obviously part of a more general transfer of people from the countryside to the cities. Something that happened more or less all over the planet, after the war. But Port Chatham lying right in the middle of the new opportunities seized to exist in a very short time… The plants closed, but why was the transfer so definite, and so complete?

Because there is more…

The last piece of the puzzle is connected to the Alutiiq, or the Sugpiaq, as they are sometimes called. The natives of western Alaska.

To the Alutiit, the whole area around Port Chatham has a bad aura. Just the fact that they have a name for the dreaded hairy beast that runs the forests, and watch sawmill owners from the shoreline. He’s called the Nantiinaq. And he’s not like the average Bigfoot, a shy forest man who does everything to stay as far away from people as possible. An overgrown Gorilla, who is dangerous only if you get too close and you stalk it. 

No, the Nantiinaq is a deadly predator. A monster who kills people for no obvious reason, just to tear their limbs apart. A creature that actively hunts humans… An enormous, hideous murderer, bigger than a Grizzly and meaner than a Wolverine.

There is a bit of confusion about the names of the settlements in the bay. Some say that Port Chatham and Portlock were two different settlements, built very close. The cannery was called Portlock, and so were their products. I would refer to the town as Port Chatham, and the plant as Portlock. Anyway, it’s probably correct to imagine one single village next to the cannery. 

There were two more villages in the bay, though. Alutiiq-villages… Axu’layik, and To’qakvik. The Alutiit had winter- and summer quarters, and at least Axu’layik was a winter settlement. As such the houses were built for permanent living, dug down, and planked on top. The natives’ houses were small but warm and functional. They were well built and fit to withstand the harsh environment and keep the people inside alive. 

The Alutiit weren’t depending on the employment from the cannery and the mine, in the same way, that the Euro-Americans were. They had a different relationship with the land, and they wouldn’t be as soon to leave as the Southerners.

Still, they left. Axu’layik as well as To’qakvik were abandoned just like Port Chatham, and it seems to have happened around the same time. I think it would take more substantial motifs to leave your home than just to leave the place where you work… To run away from where you were born, where you grew up, where you met your first love, and where you were supposed to give up your breath in the end, that’s a much more difficult decision.

Nanwalek elder Malania Helen Kehl, who was born in Port Chatham in 1934 explained in an interview: “

   –  My parents, along with the rest of the village, grew weary of being terrorized by a creature the Alutiiq called a Nantiinaq, meaning half-man, half-beast…many of the residents refused to venture into the surrounding forests, and over time, abandoned their homes and the village school, and moved…

Conclusion

I believe it’s plausible that many people would leave a small settlement because there are no more jobs. I think it’s possible that Port Chatham was abandoned because the small industry closed. These things happen all the time. Opportunities arise, and then the production stops, and people move away again. It’s not unusual or particular in any way.

But when the natives suddenly left their hometown… Now, that is much more difficult to explain. And if all these people, natives and not, moved away in a very short period of time, then that one fact could be a sign that something wasn’t right in Port Chatham… That someone or something forced them away rather than the transfer being just something they did to find new jobs and more prosperity.

I can’t say I’m convinced that Bigfoot exists, but I am convinced that something happened in Port Chatham… Something other than an industry shutting down.  

Exactly what it was that caused them to move out, has never been confirmed. But the supposedly evil creatures have never been debunked either. And they could still be out there… Waiting…

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sources

• Alaska’s Digital Archives
• The Mouth of the Kenei / Haunting memories — ‘Nantiinaq’ sightings, spirits led to desertion of Native village
• United States Senate / Tariff Act of 1921
• Kenai Fjords / Historic Resource study
• Crosscut / Julia Child’s play
• The Seattle Times / Erling Nilson, 81, made smoked fish popular delicacy
• Alaska Historical Society / Alaska Canneries
• Alaskool / The People
• Wikipedia

Is Bhangarh Fort haunted?

No, Bhangarh Fort isn’t haunted. Although it is strictly forbidden to enter after dark, it is not because of all the ghosts roaming the site. Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan is a wonderful place to visit and spend a relaxing day. It has an intriguing and fascinating history, and it’s right at the border of the Sariska Tiger Reserve. And that is more likely the reason why it’s a bad idea to walk around there at night.

Where is Bhangarh?

Just about 300 miles southwest of the slopes of the highest mountains in the world, the Himalayas, there’s an abandoned, eery, ghost town called Bhangarh. We are of course in India, in the Rajasthan State, on the Aravalli Range, less than 200 miles southwest of Delhi.

Bhangarh was until the 1700s a flourishing and lively town. But then something happened and from late 1700, nobody lives there anymore. Though we don’t know exactly what it was that caused everybody to leave, there are quite a few theories. The most well-known are two and they involve spirits, witches, and black magic. 

The legend of Guru Bahu Nath.

The great ruler  Bhagwant Das decided to build a fortress on the Hill in the 16th century. Bhagwant Das was both a religious and a superstitious man. As the land formally belonged to an ascetic, named Guru Balu Nath, the Raja figured it would be safer to ask him for permission before building. Old hermits, that possessed knowledge of witchcraft had to be taken seriously and be respected in those days. Guru Bahu Nath gave his permission but under one condition. The shadow of the Fort must never fall on the simple cabin of the magician. Years went by and when both Raja Bhagwant and Guru Bahu Nath were long forgotten, the shadow finally reached the old shack. Bhangarh Fort had been fortified with higher walls, and the century-old curse engulfed the whole of Bhangarh, causing everybody to leave.

The Legend of Ratnavati.

There was a beautiful princess of Bhangarh, named Ratnavati. A magician nearby called Sinhai fell in love with her. But as magicians seldom play fair, he put a magic love potion in a bottle that he then gave to the princess to use for massage. But Ratnavati, who was a clever young woman, poured the whole bottle of potion onto a boulder. What then happened is unclear, but it seems that the boulder rushed down the mountain to find its love… Sinhai. It reached him, jumped on top of him, and crushed him. But before expiring, the magician cursed Bhangarh.  To be struck down by grief and despondency, and to slowly succumb to its utter desolation just like him.

So, Bhangarh Fort became world-famous for its paranormal activity…

Today it is strictly forbidden to enter the Fort area at night. ASI (Archaeological Survey of India)  has put up signs at several spots in Bhangarh warning against staying on the premises after sunset and before the sun rises. The reason for this could be multiple. 

Though the site is very big and it is possible to enter through holes in the collapsed wall or by jumping it. The police guard the premises with dogs, so you would have to have very light feet and know your way around, so as not to be caught and fined. One who successfully stayed a whole night inside the fort is “Anonymous”. Here’s something from his story at Quora.

Me and my friends bribed the gatekeeper with money and drinks, and he let us stay in the Bhangarh Fort area but only inside the Hanuman Temple, with locked doors, as that’s the only safe place.  “He said that there were some supernatural activities happening outside the temple at night and he was often called out by somebody in his wife’s voice asking him to open the gate of the fort… It was around 12:45 (when there was a power cut). We heard something tapping on the car parked outside… Suddenly we heard the guard shouting, asking for help as somebody was taking him away…I can still recall the voice. I went down the stairs chanting Hanuman Chalisa to see what happened. But the guard was asleep… One of my friends lost his mother in those days. He heard his mother calling him by his nickname telling him she was outside and asking him to join her… This continued all night, we recited Hanuman Chalisa, held each other’s hand, cried, and shouted for help, the sounds never stopped. Sometimes it would be the tapping on the car and sometimes we would listen to the voices of people we knew well.”

And people do get lost there…

Yes, there have been disappearances, and people have died. But does that mean Bhangarh Fort is haunted? Well, to confirm that, we probably need a bit more documentation than a story from Quora, be it a good story… Written by the very famous Mr. “Anonymous”.

Bhangarh Fort is situated just south of the Sariska Tiger Reserve, in a hillside and forest landscape. The wildlife is impressive with Tigers, Hyenas, Leopards, Wild Dogs, and every other kind of big animal. 

Tiger attacks are an increasing problem in India. But while reports of Tigers killing people are big news, other animal attacks are not. In India, around 50 people die every year from Tiger-attacks. But the casualties from f.ex. raging elephants are almost 10 times as high. The conclusion is that the hazards of dangerous animals are very real and substantial in India. Most of the missing persons in the area can be attributed to animal attacks. 

All this put together, makes the closing of the Fort area at night, very comprehensible. So are the sounds, voices, and rumors that can be heard from inside the closed site. If you’ve ever been in a jungle at night, you would know what I mean. The ASI confirms that the signs and closure of the Fort at night are exclusively to avoid encounters with dangerous animals. Not because there are any paranormal activity.

About the abandoned village surrounding Bhangarh Fort…

There have been many explanations for why the Bhangarh Fort area is deserted. Excessive taxation could be a motif. So, could the lack of water, political reasons, or the big famine of 1783. 

A very interesting new study by Professor Harsh Bhu, and Professor A B Roy published in the multidisciplinary science journal, Current Science, suggests that Kudhara, an equally abandoned village some 400 miles west of Bhangarh, was hit by an earthquake. This could be the reason why it was abandoned “overnight”. The researchers found damages to the buildings that couldn’t have come from normal erosion such as fallen joists and pillars.

In Bhangarh, there’s yet another story about the curse that prevents any building from being completed, as in building the roof. It is supposed to fall in every time. At Jauhari Bazar, today called the Ghost Market, houses are all roofless. 

Kudhara has legends similar to those of Bhangarh, about the evil Salim Singh and a girl from the village. The Kudharans too left the village abruptly, and they too cursed it when they left.

And there are many villages like that, in the bigger area. Villages that declined during 1700 and 1800, and that now are ghost towns. Some of these are also claimed to be haunted, just like Bhangarh. 

What do the locals say?

It wasn’t until the early 1980s that a steady water supply allowed people to move back. Now, tourism makes up a big part of the local market, and the rumor Bhangarh Fort has as one of the most haunted places in India obviously makes a huge difference. I could easily imagine that without that reputation, the Fort would be much less attractive from a tourist point of view. Especially in a country that has old temples, historical buildings, and archeological sites on every street corner.

Most of those you come in contact with if you visit Bhangarh Fort would confirm the sightings of transparent boys, dancing girls, and experiences of screaming and crying voices. Those would be taxi drivers, shop owners, guards, and other employees in the tourist business. Just like on many other haunted places, they need to enforce the myths for commercial purposes. There’s no doubt that paranormal tourism is a big market, and it’s growing. To be able to attract tourists you need stories, and the stories have to be credible. 

But the purpose of this article is to understand if there actually is any proof of paranormal activity in Bhangarh Fort or the village nearby.

If you, instead of taxi drivers and souvenir sellers, talk to ordinary people in the neighborhood, you get a very different picture. Most of them would say, there is nothing supernatural in the old ruins… None whatsoever. 

And lastly, what does the research say?

The possibly most famous Paranormal Investigator in all of India, Gaurav Tiwari, who tragically died under unclear circumstances in 2016 was convinced that Bhangarh Fort was not haunted. He visited the Fort in 2012 and concluded that it had no negative or paranormal energy whatsoever. Gaurav Tiwari visited more than 6000 sites with claimed paranormal activity during his short life.

B.R. Singh, Deputy Superintending Archaeologist of the Jaipur Circle declares that the site is not haunted. As the main responsible for archaeological research and protection of the cultural heritage around Jaipur, he is the one who is responsible for the site. Although not an expert on ghosts and haunted places, his words should still carry weight.

Another paranormal investigator named Jay Alani also denies any ghosts roaming around Bhangarh Fort at night. 

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The verdict is…

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Sources

• Wikipedia / Bhangarh Fort
• Wikipedia / Kuldhara
• The Times of India / Haunted’ Kuldhara destroyed by earthquake not abandoned: Study 
• Medium / Bhangarh Fort
• Daily O / Why I suspect ghosts and demons are behind Gaurav Tiwari’s death
• The Indian Express / The Indian Ghost Busters: Searching for paranormal activity in India
• Archeological Survey of India Jaipur circle
• Karma Weather / Bhangarh Fort
• Quora / Has anyone ever spent an entire night at the Bhangarh fort in Alwar district, Rajasthan, India?