Centralia, Pennsylvania
Since 1962, there has been a nonstop coal burning fire under Centralia. All it took was some officials deciding to set fire to trash in a local landfill that happened to be in an open pit mine. It took two days to burn down the trash, but when it settled, they realized it had caught the underground coal on fire.
They attempted to put out the fire many times in many ways over a few years, but to no avail. Citizens reported hot basements and a thermomenter lowered under a gas station showed the gas was 172 degrees. Carbon monoxide poured out of holes in the ground.
Citizens moved out of gown and eventually they condemned the town. If you've ever seen "Silent Hill," it was based on this "cursed" location.
Salem, Massachusetts
It was 1692 and two young girls in the village began to have fits, screaming, and contorting. The local doctor declared they were betwitched. Soon, other girls in the community started having fits. The locals blamed two enslaved Caribbean women and they were promptly arrested.
This deeply religious community noted that they began to have harsh winters, smallpox outbreaks, and ongoing issues with the Native Americans.
After much arguing, the subject was brought to trial and testimony had them judge the women witches. It was not something that could easily be defended. Over several months 200 people were accused of being bewitched. All in all, 19 people were hanged, one man was crushed to death with heavy stones for refusing to admit his condition. Five others died in a crude prison.
Ironically, the judge dissolved the case when his own wife was accused of the condition. If something good came out of it, it changed the way trials are held and the presumption of innocense.
Today, the town is a popular mecca for witches and magical practices. It is a haven for those who like spooky things and Halloween. Perhaps today the town is not cursed so much with bad happenings, but it sits atop ground that redefined our justice system and outted our puritan tendencies.
Gettysburg Battlefield, Pennsylvania
In 1863, a 3-day battle occurred. The Union defeated the confederates, but the price was extremely high. All in all, 7000 to 8000 outright, but the total loss was 51,000 lives.
Today, people often wander the battlefields and report encounters with spirits. I have walked those paths and encountered two incidents. One, we were driving through the woods and suddenly, I felt a rush of 3 wounded and exhausted soldiers walk through me. As a psychic, that is hard to explain. I knew how each one felt, what they looked like, and what was going through their minds. Three at once! I asked my friend to stop the car and she did just outside of the woods. I stood getting some fresh air and sorting through that encounter when my eyes went up a hill. A very large man with curly dark hair stared defiantely down at us. He wasn't visible, except in my mind. I slowly edged toward the car, realizing my friend had never been rushed through by a spirit. I asked her to start the car. My other friend, a reenactor in costume, seemed to be the focus of the spirit's gaze. My reenactor friend stared up the hill too. He asked me, 'someone's up there, isn't he?" I nodded.
We left the area. We stayed in a B&B that had been a Civil War hospital. Having grown up in a Civil War hospital, I knew it would feel familliar. And, it did. I did a reading on a young handsome man who wanted to be a doctor. He called himself one, but he was nothing more than a grunt that did clean up at the hospital. Having spoken of him to my friend, I went to sleep. The air conditioner was stuck on high and wouldn't go down, so I put a big heavy comforter over me.
During the night, I woke up shivering. The comforter was down around my feet. I pulled it up. Later, I woke up icy again and the comforter was gone. I got up on the chilly wooden floor and found it on the floor at the end of the bed. I pulled it back up and went to sleep, wrapped up in it. Before dawn, I woke up again and the comforter was gone. It wasn't on the floor. I wandered 15 feet away in the parlor area and found it on the floor. This time, I was angry.
I dragged it back to the bed and wrapped myself like a mummy and said, "okay, okay. I know you're here. Stop taking my blanket. It's cold!"
I slept with the comforter for a few more hours.
Gettysburg is charmingly haunted today. It's not really a curse, but a memory so deeply embedded it plays out over and over again for eternity.
Alaskan Triangle, Alaska
This part of Alaska, defined by three points creates a triangle shape. It is very much like the "Bermuda Triangle." There are an unusually high number of missing people, plane crashes, and UFO sightings. Reporter and researcher, Linda Moulton Howe, popularized the notion that there is an actual large pyramid there that is the center of some kind of almost alien-like activity.
The legend here is that the Abenaki Tribe took an injured soldier into the springs and the water healed his wounds. The soldier later returned to bottle some of the water to sell. When the tribe tried to stop him, he killed one of their men and his child. The tribe then cursed the springs.
Since then, it is said, many have tried to profit from the springs to no avail. in fact, buildings erected there succumbled to fires and unstable land. Multiple attempts at resorts there ended in fire.
Are the springs cursed today? Well, a consevation service took over the area and stated it was to conserve a location sacred to the Abenaki Tribe.Roanoke Island, North Carolina
This location is perhaps one of the greatest historic American mysteries. In the 1500s, Sir Walter Raleigh sent explorers out to claim Virginia for the Queen. A military outpost led by Ralph Lane established a settlement on Roanoke Island in 1585. A year later, the settlers were all missing. Had they abandoned camp? Was the local tribe causing troubles? Did they run out of resources. To this day, it is still hotly debated.
2 Guns, Arizona
Now, this town was seriously cursed. In 1878, the Navajo people trapped 42 Apache raiders in a cave that today is referred to as "Apache Death Cave." The Apache had raided the Navajo camp, killing, and carrying off women and children. They hid in the cave, hoping to plan their getaway when they were discovered by the Navajo as they had lit a fire within and the smoke tendrils escaped a hole in the ceiling.
The Navajo filled the opening of the cave with brush and burned it, leaving them trapped and suffocating inside.
That might have been one kind of curse, but then a town was built on that land near Diablo Canyon (today it is found 30 miles east of Flagstaff off Hwy 40 - formerly Route 66)
Sadly that town had one tragedy after another with sheriffs being killed, crime, fires, and more. It eventually was abandoned and today, when I visited it, it looks like this -
Superstition Mountains, Arizona
Some places develop so much lore on top of tragedy, that they become epic and terrifying locations. The Supersttition Mountains in Apache Junction, AZ is such a place. Found on the eastern most border of the Greater Phoenix Area, the sun rises behind it and casts its massive shadow on the valley floor below.
Dudleytown, Connecticut
Bermuda Triangle, Atlantic ocean
This location at points between Miami, Florida, the island of Bermuda, and San Juan, Puerto Rico has been perhaps the very most curious, unexplained locations in the US.
This region of the Atlantic takes up 800,000 to 1.5 million square miles of ocean. Over the centuries, 50 ships and 20 airplanes vanished here.
The US Coast Guard reports that there are no more losses here than anywhere else, but the legends are intense and the vessels and planes have yet to be recovered. A Navy practice flight of 5 bombers took off over the area in 1945 and promptly went missing and wasn't seen again.
My father (in the Navy from 1937-1957) sadly los a friend on that flight. He had convinced him to go on the exercise instead of taking a Christmas pass to go home, so that the friend could save the pass for another important event.
A whole lot of research and time has been spent on this oddity. One private pilot mentioned his compass going out, losing his bearings, going through a fog in the sky, and coming out further alone his route and with more gas than he should have. These are the kinds of reports that keeps the curiosity alive!
Some call it the Devil's Triangle, others believe methane escapes from the sea floor and causes ships to sink, and others believe there is a portal there. There have been some fun movies based on it. Some of these (links) can be found on YouTube. -
Triangle
The Triangle
Satan's Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle
Lost Voyage
Death Ship
Beyond the Bermuda Triangle
What does happen in the Bermuda Triangle region of the Atlantic? We have yet to understand if it's a real anomaly or just simply repeated lore. There are other locations around the world getting noted for the same odd happenings - Alaskan Triangle, Japan Triangle, Bridgewater Triangle (Massachusetts), Bennington Triangle (Vermont), Bass Straight Triangle (Australia), Broadhaven Triangle (Wales),
I think when we say a place is cursed, we aren't saying it's possessed, but that it has had enough cumulative losses to be tragic and repeated.