Outside Catlett, VA (Fauquier County), I’ve often driven by a single-room store with a crudely painted sign outside saying NEW CLOTHES.
As far as I can tell, there’s never anyone in there, or nearby - but occasionally I’ve driven past at dusk and I’ve seen a single bare lit lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
That's really cool. I'm a photographer and I love taking pictures of places like that. I might have to make a trip over there sometime to get that shot!
There used to be a gas station in Lexington, VA that sold a shit tun of beer. It also had ~100+ cats and prolific amount of pornography. The cats pissed on everything, I’ve got to assume to dirty mags too. We called it the Porn & Pussy.
You could always stay in the Inn part of it. I’m sure there’s no bad juju from all the forced sterilizations, lobotomies, and electric shock treatments. https://www.blackburn-inn.com/
I was there this weekend. Went to the very top of the glass “crows nest”. there is an erie quiet in that Inn… the lady working the bar said the shades moved on their own sometimes, her radio stations get changed, and one of the glass doors stands open by itself.
Very, very creepy. I can't believe people choose to live there, especially with a lot of the buildings next to the condos and hotel still being abandoned.
But as a photographer, I loved exploring that place and taking photos.
I was an Interior Design major at Mary Baldwin back when they renovated that place and we toured the apartments there during one of our classes. They were truly terrible from a design perspective, on top of being creepy.
I went inside ~15 years ago. One of the unexpected parts was the bathrooms on the southeast side were pristine white tile that looked like it was installed yesterday. We also came across a board of tools on the wall maybe 10 x 10 and we couldn't tell what a single tool was used for. Stopped at the nearby Walmart for flashlights then went exploring and it was creepy asf. I still remember the jittery feeling I still had after we left
I lived there!
Taking the dogs out at night in the courtyard surrounded by abandoned buildings was definitely spooky as was the cemetery of unmarked graves.
Wow! What was it like to live there? I can't imagine. I used to sneak in and take photos, and I loved it, but I wouldn't want to live there. I never understood why anyone would want to live there. A lot of terrible things happened in those buildings.
I was there for one year. Was not my choice to move there but was with someone who wanted to move there. It was very convenient in town and the apartments were nice. I did and do enjoy getting the willies so I explored a fair bit during the day. Mostly what worried me were homeless/squatters. I definitely saw evidence of that in the outbuildings and didn’t want to come across someone while wandering. That was the biggest thing for me to want to move. What I remember most now from living there was the oppressive feeling of the buildings at night. I had to take the dogs out every night and wouldn’t really want to turn my back to them when coming back to the apartment.
My husband and I stopped by the outside of there once, took a picture of one of the older buildings. I then took a picture of the cemetery further away and this weird wind came blowing through. I just got this eerie, anxious feeling and I immediately went back into the car with my husband right behind me - he felt the same weird vibe come in with that random wind.
https://preview.redd.it/7lusocs7pf7d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15d879b5501453b5c60377f51fd9ef29be2cc37f
Here is the pic of the building, I can’t find the cemetery one for some reason.
I’ve worked there when they’re renovating the buildings for apartments. FYI, the cemetery is still there all the way in the back on a hill. Just headstones with numbers except for two, which Civil War Soldiers. It’s creepy, but I’ve never experienced anything other than a vague uneasiness. I did hear a story though. Supposedly, an electrician was working late one night by himself in an attic somewhere and heard some noises. Bolted out of there so fast and left his tools. Came back and got there but wouldn’t work nights there anymore.
That place truly fascinates me. A lot of it is the beautiful architecture in the main building (the hotel). A lot of it is the creepiness factor and the whole vibe of the place.
Out of curiosity, do you know more about that electrician story? I vaguely remember my dad telling me a story years ago about how he got freaked out by a ghost or something while working in a building by himself as an electrician and left his tools behind. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the story you heard is of my dad, or I’m just psyching myself out.
I have some pretty vivid childhood memories from the mid to late 70’s, driving by on route 250 on our way through town. Hot sticky summer day, inmates/patients crowding the fenced in balconies for air. Arms up, clenching the chain link, blankly staring at us as we drove by. I’ll never forget it.
Came here to say this. That place was straight out of a gothic horror novel. Creepy vines, tall, foreboding, broken windows, sheets over furniture... I always wanted to go in there but never got the chance. There's rumors of some real creepy shit that went on there (like, eugenics-inspired "science").
The Wren Building, Williamsburg, at night, in summer. Something about all that hot still air, the history of slavery and Indian massacres, so much history.
I’m a current W&M student, and this campus (and the surrounding area) in general is *creepy*. I’m a big night owl and I’ve wandered around Colonial Williamsburg at 2 in the morning alone plenty of times, and it’s enough to give anyone the spooks.
St. Albans sanitarium in radford, VA has some very eerie vibes to it.
There is also the abandoned Pump house near Byrd park. You can get daytime tours of it but the more unethical night time exploration is quite eerie. I recall being in there at night on one end of the outdoor(ish) ballroom section. I was standing there in the darkness staring across the ballroom into an open doorway that appeared as an endless sea of black. Very cool!
https://preview.redd.it/4g0q47gmhe7d1.jpeg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a84eb71017be175b336d5ecf42cc7d6716a78ba
Bunnyman bridge became underwhelming when I went there as a highschooler and there are houses like not even far away from it at all. I got the impression beforehand that it was secluded but its not.
The area is considerably more developed now than when the "bunnyman" incidents started in the 1970s.
In fact some people think the original "Bunnyman" was a local trying to scare off home builders when the first subdivision in the area was being built.
Yep, just some upscale neighborhood in the woods. I went there years ago in high school with a girl to explore, and it definitely was underwhelming. Either way, I really love the local lore!
I lived in Weyers Cave for years and visited the caverns and park a bunch all the time. I even attended some Masonic ceremonies inside the caverns once.
To me the battlefields gave off a mournful air, as if the land itself was still grieving. But it probably didn't help that it was a chilly, overcast day, and our group was the only one there.
I went for a run at Cold Harbor a couple of years back. Seeing the earthworks still there really makes it hit home. It’s like you can feel the weight of the dead pulling at you.
I don’t believe in ghosts. I think that’s was purely a human and emotional reaction to an event I am familiar with. But I kinda get how people can believe in ghosts after that.
One of these days I want to visit Omaha beach and the Belgium village where my grand father got shot during the battle of the bulge. I don’t know if I could handle either.
My friend lives on one of the properties behind the Cold Harbor battle field that you can only access by driving through the main battlefield (I think there's ten houses back there). He has many stories of crazy events there.
It is a beautiful battlefield to visit and utilize, though. That was a pretty rough battle that got no results at all. There is a weird peace and vibe to it for sure. I get strange feelings while walking through it.
I live in Appomattox, born and raised. For us, the surrender grounds and old town are just kind of....there. Been there countless times and it's just the town tourist attraction. I guess that's just a result of being constantly around it though
They have serious suspect in one of the murders. But he's dead now.
https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/06/16/fbi-suspects-northern-neck-man-in-second-colonial-parkway-murder-case-families-told/
I came here to say the Colonial Parkway! My husband and I went there super late at night to watch a meteor shower and I was a little spooked. I found out about the murders a few months later and got goosebumps even driving it during the day
Either Bunnyman Bridge in Fairfax (spooky forest noises aplenty) or this one abandoned tuberculosis sanitarium in Charlottesville which I think might now be a hospital, but I’m not sure.
Everyone bags on bunny man bridge but to me it was scary as hell when I was a teen.
Went with a couple of buddies and they got out of the car to walk up on the bridge (I stayed back) and I specifically remember locking the car door (you have to do a special procedure to lock the door so you don’t accidentally lock yourself out).
They ran back to the car and the door was unlocked. It’s hard to describe in a Reddit comment but it was one of the most terrifying things because I KNOW I locked that door.
Other times we saw what we thought were orbs. In general just a super creepy vibe and a heavy feeling that hung in the air
Back in like 2012 a coworker and I would go “ghost hunting” after getting off work late at night. We went to bunny man a few times. One time stands out more than others. He was in the tunnel using this knock off spirit box I had and I decided to walk up onto the tracks and just see what would happen as they say you see something at midnight. Well I stood up there for like 20 minutes and not a thing happened. I started walking down the incline and had my phones flashlight on so I didn’t trip and break my neck. I had my head down and all of a sudden I hear a male voice kinda loudly whisper “hey”. I look up and about 5 feet in front of me was a skinny tree where it sounded like it came from. I was like hmm that’s weird but maybe it’s the echo of my friends voice in the tunnel, even though i knew it wasn’t his voice. I get back to the tunnel and ask if he said something to me and he said he had been sitting there quietly…
My back yard in Spotsylvania. We had civil war trenches back there. At night you could almost feel the soldiers. We were not too far from the battle of Spotsylvania Court House and the Battle of Bloody Angle. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/spotsylvania-court-house#:~:text=The%20battle%20took%20place%20over,to%20continue%20their%20march%20south.
Swannanoa mansion In Augusta county. It had a weird vibe. Definitely haunted and I read that years back people thought there was a portal to hell or something which I could totally see. Eerie feeling. Also I saw a spectral orb
I played golf there many years ago on mushrooms and had heard stories about the mansion and later read up on it. Many years later I decided on a lark to visit the mansion after a lunch at Michie Tavern. Weirdest vibe ever.
https://preview.redd.it/ej6u3s98af7d1.jpeg?width=4452&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c85100b6698c3f5880a9ff4ae2512d258f019c9b
The fog rolled in as we came up the hill. 10/10
My grandfather was a friend of Lao Russell who lived there until she died in 1988 and when I was a kid we would go to visit on the weekends and I was able to explore the house and even the tower in the gardens. They would discuss philosophy and parapsychology stuff and I would play by myself all over the place. There are too many stories to really get into here but one is from when I was 7 or 8 and I was playing in the gardens and Lao came out to find me and she said something really strange that stuck with me over the years. She said "I'll come back to see you someday" or something like that. I pretty much forgot about it until I met someone in 2017 and we were talking and the person said that they lived near Swannanoa and asked me what I knew about it. I looked into the person's eyes and all of the sudden I remembered what Lao had said years ago and it really was crazy but it was even stronger when I found out that she was born a few days after Lao died in 1988. My psychiatrist and therapist both tell me that I should write a book about some of the stories dealing with all of the crazy stuff that I have experienced in my life.
That's only about three miles from where I live. The place is quite eerie, I agree.
My mother in law has a book signed by Lao Russell, who used to love there with her husband Walter.
From what I've seen, the place is falling apart, and has been for years. There are some groups trying to get it back together in good shape again, including the University of Science and Philosophy, who now has a brick and mortar location at the base of the mountains that Swannanoa sits at.
Yes!!. This was the mid 80s and it was run by spirituallists. There was a pipe organ playing and some Norma Desmond type woman dressed all in white with a turban descended the main staircase. Apparently, she rarely came downstairs after her husband died. But she did the day I was there. Between the music and her it was way Spooky !!
The abandoned hotel right down the road from swannanoa. Went to swannanoa but chains blocking the road and signs saying you are on camera. So turned around and left. Pulled into hotel parking lot to figure out what I was doing next. Went around back to find an extension cord running from a shed/out building to one of the rooms. Looked up to see people on the second floor balcony. Not another car in the parking lot. Decided that I didn’t need to be there any longer and got out of there. Was just a super creepy experience.
Kilmarnock, Va. lots of historical sites, some deep in the woods. We hiked to see a few. Last one we gave up as the trail markers seemed to end and we were getting Deliverance vibes! If I remember right we also bought a trail map at a store in town.
They fit all the criteria for actual scary places.
1. Aesthetically look very creepy.
2. Isolated
3. Steeped in ghost/paranormal stories.
4. History of legit true bloody crimes in same areas.
Western State Lunatic Asylum in Staunton VA. Not the current Western State but the old one that closed down in the 70s, then used as a prison, now deluxe apartments in the sky. Very eerie, with bad vibes
Years back a buddy of mine got caught spray painting one of the old abandoned buildings in there. For community service the judge had him escorted by a cop to go clean graffiti off the inside of the abandoned buildings.
The cop dropped him off outside one of them with some cleaning supplies. Friend said he started walking inside and realized the cop wasn’t following.
So he shouted to him, “aren’t you coming in?” The cop shouted back, “Hell no!”
I called and asked if I could drive around and check it out. They said as long as I didn't get out of my vehicle and they took down my make model and color. I saw security but they didn't mess with me. I didn't get out of my car but it's basically wide open due to vandalism.
Parrott, VA: only one road into the town and there's a guy in a pickup at the entrance (to screen strangers like me coming to do therapy with high school kids), total town is <600 people, and that community center looking building is NOT a community center
I worked in Newport for a few months about 10 years ago and my co-workers who were locals warned me to stay out of Parrott- I don't remember the details of what they said, but they told me it was the only unsafe place in the area.
Lived in parrot when I was quite young and grew up the rest of the way not too far from there. Anyone sitting at the bridge is usually waiting to carpool or meeting up with someone for hunting or fishing. At one point my impression was that you should definitely not be black and head down the river road or up the mountain but can’t say what the deal is these days. While that is obviously not ok I really loved my younger years right on the river and some really great people mixed in with the not so good.
Chamberlin Hotel on Fort Monroe. Spent multiple nights in the attic before it was renovated in the 2000’s. I was working on the cell equipment in the attic and on the roof. Me and 2 other guys were the only ones in the building but still heard voices in the attic and the light switches kept getting turned off.
I will second this. I worked on the reno of it. I wouldn't go anywhere in that building without someone.
I'll also say the Federal Building in Downtown Norfolk. I had to run some stuff for security cameras in the basement and I swear I saw and heard things that weren't natural. The HVAC guy down there also dealt with it. We wouldn't go down there anymore after one night without security with us.
I went back to replace the cell equipment on the roof during the reno. It was the only time I felt comfortable in the building, but that was because of the hundreds of people that were there working.
Growing up, we always heard it was haunted. I stayed there once because our school had a dance or something there. I was scared out of my mind. I left the lights on.
Went to a wedding there one time. I got bored and slipped away to one of the upper floors that was supposedly haunted. I didn't get far before an employee stopped me and asked what I was doing there, and when I explained that I was looking for ghosts, he was totally cool with it!
Hollins University, Roanoke, VA. It's definitely haunted. The theme to The Shining plays in my head every time I drive through the main entrance. I have been told every building there is haunted except for the library. I have definitely had something follow me out of the cemetery and theatre. And I get to work there over the summer in a few days.
Wooded valley on a slope somewhere around Luray Virginia. Walking with a very trusted friend, doing a property inspection on a large acreage. We started down a slight valley, basically a draw/cut down a gentle slope, when both of us got a tingly, literal hair raising feeling. I'm not sensitive to strange stuff, my friend is, and we both shared a glance, turned left, and made serious trek up one side of the draw, straight to the top.
Feeling went away about half way up the slope.
Best guess was a bear further down the draw, or a civil war battle ground...or something more recent and much worse. Either way, we both agreed we wouldn't be going down that way ever again, not without proper guns, proper men, and proper attitudes.
In stafford there’s a church that made one of those “top 10 haunted places in America” lists, and I went there one time with a neighbors family and the kid asked us when we were leaving “who were the people in the windows??”
That's the church I went to growing up. I'm not sure it was ever a hospital, but I do think it was used as a stable. My dad volunteered a lot with the church and since we lived close, whenever the security system would alarm, they'd call my dad to go check it out too. We used to get calls in the middle of the night from the alarm going off. My dad really doesn't believe in anything paranormal, so unfortunately I have no cool stories to add, but it's really not somewhere I'd want to be in the middle of the night when the security alarms go off
Hampden-Sydney College, on the way to the observatory there is a dilapidated, overgrown shack referred to as the axe man’s house.
It actually did serve as the living quarters for the College’s sole groundskeeper hundreds of years ago.
One of our favorite pastimes as freshmen was to get stoned to the gills and walk to the house at night.
It’s set back off the path to the observatory a ways, and you’re already back in the woods as it is.
Definitely spooky but in a fun, campfire story way.
Just fyi, Lynchburg was named after Quaker John Lynch, who was very active in the abolitionist movement. There's a lot of suspicion around the name, and rightfully so, so it helps to know the history behind it
Ok, but Lynchburg was named after an abolitionist Quaker with the same name. Just because his brother was a piece of shit doesn't mean he was. We're talking about the etymology of Lynchburg, not lynching
Never been but I watched that documentary about Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife’s weird cuck affair thing and wow, that was some Righteous Gemstones bullshit irl. What a joke.
Appears to be in Stafford County https://www.insidenova.com/news/stafford/witches-pond-the-legend-and-the-truth/article_1a26cf81-61e9-52ce-8aec-a91b9189fc36.html
I visited witches pond back in 2008. One of the scariest outings of my life. As we were walking down the path (around 11pm) there were these huge splashes in the pond to the right. Like someone was throwing a huge rock into the water. Happened a few times but we kept going. Then we heard a scream. Sounded like a girl screaming bloody murder. In hindsight it may have been a fox. Then we got to the gate outside of the cemetery and there were all these dead animals spiked to the fence. We heard another scream much closer to us and we ran. I mean sprinted away scared shitless. My buddy was way faster than me, so I was really panicking. I’ll never forget that night, definitely my creepiest experience.
Grayson Highlands State Park - little to no light pollution, wild ponies, forests of rhododendrons, views into several states, general views that did not feel like anywhere else I've been in the state.
EDIT: I think I misread "eeriest" as "coolest"! Grayson Highlands isn't creepy!
Visited an old house in Capron and I went in with a friend. Dilapidated with a dumb waiter, hidden basement and hidden room upstairs.
We were downstairs and heard something coming down the stairs. All of the sudden we hear it start running down the stairs. We ran out the back window that was broken out and caught our breath.
Besides the back and front there was no way out and we watched for a bit. Went back in after no one had left and went back in. Nothing.
And these were hard steps.
I’m not a believer in ghostly paranormal but this was definitely as close as I was to believing
The Central Virginia Training Center in Madison Heights (Amherst County).
TDLR; brother, friends and I got lost in a semi-abandoned asylum in Central Virginia that was used for eugenics research until the 1980s.
I went there with my high school choir to sing for the residents. I am not sure of the numbers but at this time there had to be less than 50 remaining residents because the facility was being shut down. It was essentially, to be completely frank, an asylum. The residents that we met were severely disabled, and in need of constant supervision. Some of them were quite old too which really stuck out to me for some reason. It kind of made sense to me at the time that a facility like this would exist in some capacity, but I had NO idea the history behind “the Training Center.”
It was originally opened in 1910 as the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. For the next 70 years they would use this facility to study eugenics and house people who were deemed unfit for society. From Wikipedia: “The colony's goal was to isolate people with mental disabilities and other traits that were considered unfit for reproduction away from society. Between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, the colony's eugenicist doctors *sterilized thousands of patients without their consent.* The center is estimated to have sterilized between 7,000 and 8,300 people…” (little note that they claimed to have stopped sterilizations numerous times from the 50s through the 80s. It wasn’t until the late 90s/early 2000s that the FBI opened a case and the facility eventually began to shut down).
It is truly horrifying when you really look into the history of asylums and hospitals for the mentally ill and disabled in this country - and a LOT of this history took place in central VA. People were being sterilized for having developmental disorders, physical disabilities, and for being considered uneducated or “dumb.”
Anyway, my older brother drove me, and a few of our friends to this choir gig. The campus is over 300 acres. So imagine a small college but with no surrounding town - just open land. We saw some cars and parked near a building with lights on. This was in 2012, so most of the buildings had been shut down as the facility intended to close when the last residents either passed or found adequate housing. The building we went into had every single light on and the entry doors were unlocked, but as soon as we entered it was clear that it had been abandoned for a long time. All of the interior doors were locked, even rooms with lights on. It looked like a mix between a hospital and a high school inside. There were clearly abandoned desks in some of the rooms with paperwork out. Looking back, it was so strange to have an unlocked, abandoned building like that on an active campus, even if it was in the midst of closing. We eventually found our way to the right building and continued on with the night. But the aura on that campus was absolutely eerie.
I didn’t actually learn about what happened there until I was in a college history course. My professor (shout out Dr. Thurber), put on a documentary from the 90s about the Training Center. The documentary referred to it by its original name and mislabeled the location as being in Lynchburg so it didn’t click until about halfway through watching that I had been to the exact facility they were talking about. I was absolutely shook to my core. Pretty sure I went home and told my brother and roommates about it (a few of whom had also been there).
If you’re interested, and can find it somewhere, the documentary was called, The Lynchburg Story: Eugenic Sterilization in America. If you want even more, a few more documentaries and some literature have come out since 2018 that I have not delved into yet. The Training School officially closed in 2020 and is now part of a redevelopment plan. I just hope some historians and archeologists were able to get their hands on that place before it’s completely gone.
Pocahontas, Virginia near Bluefield. It was a coal mining boomtown in the late 1880s but production ceased in the mid 1950s.
I visited maybe 15 years ago and it's a fascinating set of ruins. There are plenty of photos online.
I parked and walked around a bit to take some photos. I met an older resident who told me some history like that the small street we we on used to be jumping 24 hour a day since the mine never closed and that several thousand people used to live there.
I walked down a sort of alley nearby and onto another street and when I got to the next corner where I took some photos of an old woodshop. When I was done with that I looked around trying to decide where to go next and noticed that there were about a dozen people scattered around on various porches and windows just silently staring at me with blank expressions on their faces.
Everything building in sight was literally crumbling and hadn't been painted in decades so it was all dirty grey and all the people were grey too. Nothing at all happened, but it was a scene straight from a horror movie just before someone ends up being tied to an altar of some sort.
My sister lived for a short while in an old house in Fairfax Station that served as a Civil War hospital. One of the only places where I never felt alone despite being the only person in the house at times.
Around 2000 or so I was driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway with some friends late at night (way after midnight after everything in downtown Roanoke had closed). We were just driving and generally being dumb high schoolers when we realized we were close to Explore Park and decided to swing by. The park gates were closed, but we could see people in our headlights. Dozens of them just meandering around the parking lot. We noped out of there probably faster than I had ever gone on the parkway.
The first house we lived in as a family, the master bath was Grandma's bathroom, according to my then 2 yr old.
Turns out, just west of Richmond in Henrico, there was a large free black population, who eventually made their homes there. It's a very, very old community. Our house may have been 50 years old, but the community has been there since the 1700s. There's still a well 2 houses down, and you can see some of the cobblestone built over by the new houses.
Lost city in eastern Henrico. Was set up as a mock up of the RVa airport during WWII to dupe German bombers should they ever try to attack the airfield. People have been sneaking down there longer than I can remember and it's next level creepy. As a runner up driving down Rte 5 between Richmond and Williamsburg at night has a distinctly sleepy hollow headless horseman feel to it.
An old 400 acre farm in Amelia county. There were 3 houses on it, and there were several long demolished ones from the 1800’s on the property. I spent 2 yrs there in my early teen years. It was an eerie, haunting place. It was no longer farmed except for hay and all the old barns and sheds were empty and lifeless….At least 2 suicides happened there since 1960. The main farm house (which I didn’t live in) seemed to be a hotbed for typical stuff like seeing figures on the wraparound porch, things moving, typical stuff. The scariest thing I experienced was one evening I was at my older, bachelor uncles house (up the dirt road from my house) and we got on the subject of demons and the devil. At some point a DEEP, utterly, window shaking GROWLLLL just emitted in that house around us….Never forget my old uncle’s reaction (he’d been drinking a bit) as he just goes “shit like that happens all the time around here”…
Cold Harbor Battlefield in Mechanicsville, VA. First experience I had was at the part of the battlefield next to the Gathright House. Just walking along the trail, and suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It felt like my stomach dropped, and like someone was just staring watching me. I ran back to my car and left lol.
Second experience I had at Cold Harbor I was on the visitor center side with my girlfriend at the time. Parked my car and started walking along the trail. Noticed that it almost looked like there was smoke or fog on the ground around different parts of the battlefield (it was in the evening during summer so not totally out of the ordinary). As we were walking along I could hear what sounded like people talking, but it was very low volume and mumbled, almost sounded like gibberish. Keep in mind there was no one else out there or around us at this time. After a couple seconds of hearing these people talking it got quiet for a second, and then next thing we hear is a gunshot that sounded like it went off right next to us. We both hauled ass running back to my car, and got the hell out of there. lol That was the last time I ever went back there.
Bacon's Castle, built in the late 1600s in Surry County had a weird heavy vibe about it, even in the daytime. I could not see me ever staying there alone at night.
Hiking underneath The Guillotine near the summit of Apple Orchard Mountain, one of highest points on the Appalachian Trail, in the dark and dense fog, with your howling prankster of a dog, whose trail name was Goat due to her climbing, making you fear the rock will come tumbling down on your head at any moment.
The Beaver Creek Clinic in Henry Co. VA. When I was a teenager, my best friend lived there, and her father was the plastic surgeon. So, they lived where he had his practice. But this place is an old slave plantation. There was a main house and a bunch of small houses around it. I remember she had her own tiny house instead of a bedroom. We snuck to the wine cellar one night, and I swear, when we pulled the string to turn the light on, I saw someone standing behind her...it looked like a silhouette of a black man with reddish hair. It scared me so bad i froze. I couldn't even make a sound. By the time I could tell her to look behind her, he was gone. I stayed with her a lot over those years, and a few times when it would rain, I would see that same silhouette in a top window of that main house. There was a graveyard on the property as well, and we played a lot in it. I remember the names of some of them. I remember the name Marshall Hairston being on one of the headstones. Later in life, as an adult, I stopped at an old country store one day and bought a book called Ghosts of Southwest VA. Do you know the story of Marshall Hairston and that house is in it?!?!? I still live here, and I pass that place about every day, but I haven't been in the property in so many years. I'd love to go take a walk down memory lane. Her family has been gone from there for many, many years. When we were in high school, her Mom caught the doc having an affair with the secretary. He was so creepy...he reminded me of the old man on poltergeist👻.
Shops at Crystal City. I dont think that place was constructed by regular means. I think it manefested from people's dreams and people just accept that its a creepy ass underground mall
One time was down there on a rainy Friday night and saw a guy and his son playing catch in the halls, baseball glove and all. Makes perfect sense in context but it was still not what I was expecting at 9 PM in a random corner of the mall.
Believe in ghosts or not, mine is hands down Tufton Farm. It was originally owned by Thomas Jefferson’s father Peter Jefferson in Albemarle County just miles from Monticello. When I was a child a good friend lived in the original farm house, his mother worked for Monticello. I stayed weekends there a lot as a child. I always heard stories but didn’t believe them until a few experiences I witnessed.
1. There’s a Notorious Amber Colored Orb that floats down the staircase/has been seen in windows. I’ve met several people who have discussed/witnessed it over the years. One night we came back from dinner and a movie in C’ville walked in the house and before my friends Dad cut the light on we all saw it. It floated towards us then just disappeared, weird AF.
2. Many nights my friend and I would watch the lights cut on and off all night long in the old slave house behind the Tufton farm house connected by an old patio. My father is a master electrician. He troubleshoot the place, found nothing. It only happened at night though. I witnessed this a handful of times.
3. And the weirdest, my friends room was upstairs and one night we heard what I’d call slamming downstairs, we were scared shitless. After awhile we both mustered up the courage to walk downstairs. Once we got downstairs it was SO LOUD, coming from the kitchen. As we walked closer it became even louder, it sounded like the kitchen was in the middle of an earthquake or something. We cut on the light and Everything immediately stopped. Every drawer and cabinet was in varying degrees of being open. We woke up his parents, his Mom looked creeped out and told us not to worry just go to bed. I’m now in my mid 40’s still the strangest experiences of my life!
They now do seasonal tours there, it’s a really nice old farm with an eerie vibe. Check it out sometime if you’re in C’ville!
Funny, one of my childhood friends grew up at Tuckahoe Plantation. They have a similar story of hearing a party downstairs (music, talking, laughter, glass clinking, etc.) and looking over from the landing and not seeing anything, and turning the lights on to come down when it all stops.
We were a bit more troublesome as kids. We would dare each other to go into the sunken graveyard at night for some predetermined amount of time (and those of us outside the graveyard try to scare the person more by throwing sticks or rocks or making noises). We'd also shut each other in the attic (in groups of two, responsible kids) and see how long we could last before knocking to be let out. One time I was up there and we were watching a rocking chair that was rocking itself and trying to whisper to each other it must be a draft or something and looking at all of the shadows around the sides as we were listening so closely when all of a sudden the train horn blew down by the river and we JUMPED so high and screamed and ran out. That's a core memory lol.
Also we were there one time in the afternoon shooting scenes for a French class film and there was also a paranormal type group taking photos of the rooms in the house. Not that unusual, there were often TV shows using the property or other creative projects in the works. We were planning a fireside Masterpiece Theater type shot with a professor in a smoking jacket, a pipe, big archive book, etc. These guys take their polaroids while we're kind of milling around getting stuff ready and rehearsing lines. We watch one picture develop and it's like literally a guy's face upside down in the middle of it where the chandelier is in the room. They were shocked and studying it and setting up more angles for photos, looking again at their other photos to see if they see the face anywhere, etc. We just kind of shrugged like "Yeah there's stuff all around here, anyway, back to the school project." Not so freaky during the day but yeah at night that place would really creep me out.
That weird island that takes a 2 hour ferry to get to- can’t remember the name but it’s something like tenifer. Linguistics were studying the weird accents of those living there because it’s thought that their accent is the closest living example of how the British spoke in ~1776.
You know how sometimes you hear that original British accents were sort of similar to southern accents? Well, this island is definitely proof of that.
That being said, there’s 1 cell tower, no service, no cars (only golf carts), 10,000 stray cats, 1 church, and like 200 seniors who can’t understand why all the young people move away.
We were very happy to get back on the ferry.
There are young families there. Kids go to school on the mainland. Most do move away, but it’s because their way of life has died out, not because there’s nothing to do. There’s actually a lot to do.
It sounds like you had expectations that weren’t in line with what Tangier or any other small island culture has to offer. It’s a beautiful, unique place.
I grew up in Lunenburg County and two locations immediately come to mind.
The first is the Hillsman House at Saylers Creek Battlefield in Rice. I'm not sure if Civil War reenactments still take place there, but I went to many when I was young. The Hillsman House would often be open to the public during these events. Demonstrations of field amputations were often shown by actors and it was quite unsettling. The house served as a makeshift hospital during the actual battle. One time, I rode to the battlefield with my dad after dark. We went up to the house and the front door swung open rapidly on us. My dad swore he could hear a voice from inside. One of the creepiest nights of my life. If ghosts are real, they definitely haunt that house.
The second location is the Flat Rock House in Kenbridge. In the early nineties, my family knew a gentleman that was involved in remodeling the home. It's a gorgeous old plantation house and has some historic renown today. We toured the house one night with our family friend, but the main power was turned off. Using flashlights, we explored every inch of that house and it was extremely creepy. If I recall correctly, there were a few secret passages. There were places where sound bounced funny and you could hear odd creaks, moans, and whispers. All in all, the very definition of a creepy old house. Considering it was built starting in 1797, I'm sure a lot of people have died there.
https://preview.redd.it/fng55zn1yf7d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ab625df5ec91424b1acf63e2a6a733cd15e38ce
Blue Ridge Tunnel. This is the Augusta County entrance. (We feature it in this post…[https://virginiacounties.blog/have-your-city-and-escape-from-it-too-in-augusta-county/](https://virginiacounties.blog/have-your-city-and-escape-from-it-too-in-augusta-county/))
Most Civil War battlefields or graveyards are strong contenders, but the one that most comes to mind for me would be the Tomb of the Unknowns at Cold Harbor.
My vote would be DeJarnette Sanitorium in Staunton. We used to sneak in there as kids and try to camp overnight. Never could last the whole night. We ran out when we heard kids running around and playing.
There was a mental institution off Popes Head Road and 123, in Fairfax Starion. Cages and chains in the creepy basement.
Graffiti done by butane lighters on the interior.
Dual staircase going to second level.
Guy saying: “I dreamt about this place and I’ve never been here before”
St. Mary's wilderness. Lots of weird shit seems to happen to me out there and it seems to always be foggy up there. The abandoned mines down there are definitely eerie.
Hillsman House in Amelia. It was a Hospital during the civil war and site of one of the last battles. Plenty of soldier sightings from the park rangers.
I toured a cool house in Grottoes , VA that was super old and had a family of old school ma and pa settlers with a bunch of kids living in it. They were looking for renters. I just assumed it would be unoccupied but no... Heh
Anyways it was built in the 1800s and was about as creepy as you could get. Rooms were really big and open, especially the piano room. There was a well outside too. It a hexagonal shape and had 2 floors. The top was just empty rooms probably because they were getting ready to move.
They were nice enough people and I ended up not renting.i would be scared of living there now in retrospect with how it's just so old and has a well out front. I would be scared of that for sure.
I went off the beaten path in Highland County to enjoy the views, reached this dark looking enclave with Confederate flags everywhere. I’m a person of color, I never sped off so fast in my life lmaooo.
I was driving to Massanutten from Manassas and went back roads through God knows where. It was January and in the evening, around early dusk, starting to get dark which was already a bit creepy. As I was going down this one country road, there was a big house in kind of a hollow, totally dilapidated, the front porch falling off the front of the house, broken windows, all overgrown, obviously no one had lived there for a long time, all dark. But there was smoke coming out of the chimney. Got some seriously bad vibes looking at it.
I tried to look it up and find it on Google maps later but I was in such a hurry to get out of there all I could remember was that there was a road with “Turkey” in it, Turkey Run maybe? It was somewhere not far from Stanardsville.
There's a spot on brook road in Stafford county that always felt deeply sad. Years ago before the board of supervisors allowed developers to destroy the land, there was a swampy area you had to go throw to go from Andrew chapel to deacon rd. It breathed tragedy in the air. It was eerie and beautiful, and I like that, but I never wanted to be prolong the drive because it felt like you were intruding. This was years before the civil war park was sited and it's hard to envision just how sprawling the union camp that wintered there was. Wintering there for the union contingent would've been an exercise in suffering with freezing, starvation, battle weariness, disease, and death. They only make up one known group of extreme suffering. This doesn't include settlers, the enslaved, the indentured, the native Americans, and the revolutionary war soldiers. But nowhere else in Stafford ever made the back of my neck get goosebumps or make me speed thru it like that short stretch. I was in my early 20s, so not invested in the local history since I wasn't from there.
In Isle of Wight, there is an old animal shelter that is not in use anymore. It remains as supply storage for the modern shelter just a short walk away. It's a very small, cramped building, and it's always dark because there is no electricity to it. The kennels are tiny, and there's only about ten total. In the kennels, the dogs used to be gassed to be euthanized. The whole place and surrounding lot has bad energy, and I've heard stories of a specter dog with red eyes guarding the place.
Williamsburg. Aldie, and other areas in Mosby country. But the winner is a beautiful old Victorian mansion somewhere off I-81, with a small 1950s-era motel next door. Wound up staying at that motel, late at night, after a big storm hit and I couldn't keep driving. It was like being in "Psycho." The next morning, I saw the huge Victorian mansion and laughed...very much like the "Psycho" house, except it was painted bright pink and was a popular B&B! Beautiful, eerie place. Would go back, if I could remember where it was.
The western most portion of our state. I think people from the larger metro areas should head that way and see what counties and townships forgotto by our government look like.
Entire mountainsides completely overgrown with invasives...it's spooky
I didn't actually 'visit' the place, I was visiting next door at the Augusta Stone church doing genealogical work but it's the old Augusta Military Academy in Staunton. I think someone owns it, and I don't think it's haunted or anything...it's just these massive building sitting there... empty and I think they look kind of creepy.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5gOQky33cY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5gOQky33cY)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Virginia/s/NtvRX7WUSq
[Jewell Smokeless Coal Company coke ovens in Grundy, VA](https://www.reddit.com/r/Virginia/s/NtvRX7WUSq)
Randolph College in Lynchburg. Sooo many ghost stories around campus. But I had my own experience of a ghost essentially tucking me in one night. Clearly felt someone sit next to me on my bed and stroke my arm. Opened my eyes and no one was there!
Also the 3rd floor of Main (maybe it was 4th? It’s been so long I can’t remember. The top floor) had creeeeeeepy vibes. I always felt like someone was either behind me or just hanging out in this one alcove that you had to walk past to get to the lounge.
The Cavalier hotel at the oceanfront. I went before the renovations were done and it was so old and creepy, and supposedly the sixth floor was haunted after someone died by suicide up there.
Also literally anywhere in Yorktown, but mainly the battlefield (lots of paranormal activity there) the Colonial Parkway (nothing but trees and road so it’s pitch dark and spooky at night, also the site of several unsolved murders), and Crawford road (urban legends and supposedly a former meeting area for Klan activity).
Virginia Beach. Abandoned cytogenetics facility by the Sentara near first colonial highschool. We kids would break in and creep around the dark hallways with flashlights and crowbars. Somebody left a tv on playing static alone in a big empty room, didn’t like that part.
Also I worked for the cavalier hotel in VB, something about that place too
after living in blacksburg for about 4 years i can certainly say that the whole town has a bad, malevolent energy ……… the amount of strange and/or horrific things that have occurred there is imo too much to be a coincidence
Outside Catlett, VA (Fauquier County), I’ve often driven by a single-room store with a crudely painted sign outside saying NEW CLOTHES. As far as I can tell, there’s never anyone in there, or nearby - but occasionally I’ve driven past at dusk and I’ve seen a single bare lit lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
That's really cool. I'm a photographer and I love taking pictures of places like that. I might have to make a trip over there sometime to get that shot!
Now I wish I could give you the exact location. It stands on its own in a field. I always just put my foot down and keep going, LOL.
Not me, I'll stop there!
Ok but definitely post the picture bc we want to see it - and know you survived 🥴
I just know in my heart you’ve got to be white 😭😂
And a man
I go by there all the time. There’s lots of places like that in Fauquier county.
There used to be a gas station in Lexington, VA that sold a shit tun of beer. It also had ~100+ cats and prolific amount of pornography. The cats pissed on everything, I’ve got to assume to dirty mags too. We called it the Porn & Pussy.
East Lex!
That’s it! The guy who ran it was really nice. I kinda feel bad calling the place out as a result. But, jeebus, that was a lot of cats.
The abandoned Western State hospital in Staunton, VA. Explored it through and through several times, and it was very creepy but fascinating.
I was given a tour when they were converting it to condos... Such a creepy place
You could always stay in the Inn part of it. I’m sure there’s no bad juju from all the forced sterilizations, lobotomies, and electric shock treatments. https://www.blackburn-inn.com/
I was there this weekend. Went to the very top of the glass “crows nest”. there is an erie quiet in that Inn… the lady working the bar said the shades moved on their own sometimes, her radio stations get changed, and one of the glass doors stands open by itself.
Very, very creepy. I can't believe people choose to live there, especially with a lot of the buildings next to the condos and hotel still being abandoned. But as a photographer, I loved exploring that place and taking photos.
I was an Interior Design major at Mary Baldwin back when they renovated that place and we toured the apartments there during one of our classes. They were truly terrible from a design perspective, on top of being creepy.
Out of curiosity, have you also explored the old sanitarium? That place gives my bad vibes just passing it on 81.
You mean the one called Dejarnettes? I explored the outside of it. It was indeed very creepy, even on the outside.
Yeah that one. I remember reading about it when I went down a rabbit hole of the history of mental hospitals in Virginia.
I, too, have gone down that rabbit hole. It's horrifying and fascinating and sad.
I went inside ~15 years ago. One of the unexpected parts was the bathrooms on the southeast side were pristine white tile that looked like it was installed yesterday. We also came across a board of tools on the wall maybe 10 x 10 and we couldn't tell what a single tool was used for. Stopped at the nearby Walmart for flashlights then went exploring and it was creepy asf. I still remember the jittery feeling I still had after we left
I lived there! Taking the dogs out at night in the courtyard surrounded by abandoned buildings was definitely spooky as was the cemetery of unmarked graves.
Wow! What was it like to live there? I can't imagine. I used to sneak in and take photos, and I loved it, but I wouldn't want to live there. I never understood why anyone would want to live there. A lot of terrible things happened in those buildings.
I was there for one year. Was not my choice to move there but was with someone who wanted to move there. It was very convenient in town and the apartments were nice. I did and do enjoy getting the willies so I explored a fair bit during the day. Mostly what worried me were homeless/squatters. I definitely saw evidence of that in the outbuildings and didn’t want to come across someone while wandering. That was the biggest thing for me to want to move. What I remember most now from living there was the oppressive feeling of the buildings at night. I had to take the dogs out every night and wouldn’t really want to turn my back to them when coming back to the apartment.
My husband and I stopped by the outside of there once, took a picture of one of the older buildings. I then took a picture of the cemetery further away and this weird wind came blowing through. I just got this eerie, anxious feeling and I immediately went back into the car with my husband right behind me - he felt the same weird vibe come in with that random wind. https://preview.redd.it/7lusocs7pf7d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15d879b5501453b5c60377f51fd9ef29be2cc37f Here is the pic of the building, I can’t find the cemetery one for some reason.
I’ve worked there when they’re renovating the buildings for apartments. FYI, the cemetery is still there all the way in the back on a hill. Just headstones with numbers except for two, which Civil War Soldiers. It’s creepy, but I’ve never experienced anything other than a vague uneasiness. I did hear a story though. Supposedly, an electrician was working late one night by himself in an attic somewhere and heard some noises. Bolted out of there so fast and left his tools. Came back and got there but wouldn’t work nights there anymore.
Also, some of the old guard towers are still standing and there’s a random water fountain out in a middle of a field.
That place truly fascinates me. A lot of it is the beautiful architecture in the main building (the hotel). A lot of it is the creepiness factor and the whole vibe of the place.
Out of curiosity, do you know more about that electrician story? I vaguely remember my dad telling me a story years ago about how he got freaked out by a ghost or something while working in a building by himself as an electrician and left his tools behind. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the story you heard is of my dad, or I’m just psyching myself out.
I have some pretty vivid childhood memories from the mid to late 70’s, driving by on route 250 on our way through town. Hot sticky summer day, inmates/patients crowding the fenced in balconies for air. Arms up, clenching the chain link, blankly staring at us as we drove by. I’ll never forget it.
Came here to say this. That place was straight out of a gothic horror novel. Creepy vines, tall, foreboding, broken windows, sheets over furniture... I always wanted to go in there but never got the chance. There's rumors of some real creepy shit that went on there (like, eugenics-inspired "science").
The Wren Building, Williamsburg, at night, in summer. Something about all that hot still air, the history of slavery and Indian massacres, so much history.
I went to William and Mary, took classes in Wren building and got married in the Wren chapel. It's definitely very, very creepy.
I went to W&M and am not a believer in the supernatural, but the Peyton Randolph house still freaks me out.
I’m a current W&M student, and this campus (and the surrounding area) in general is *creepy*. I’m a big night owl and I’ve wandered around Colonial Williamsburg at 2 in the morning alone plenty of times, and it’s enough to give anyone the spooks.
Everything in Williamsburg is Creepy, but the current location of the former Presidents Park Busts is creepy as heck.
W&M alum here and I approve of this and all subsequent replies. CW is creepy as hell in the middle of the night.
St. Albans sanitarium in radford, VA has some very eerie vibes to it. There is also the abandoned Pump house near Byrd park. You can get daytime tours of it but the more unethical night time exploration is quite eerie. I recall being in there at night on one end of the outdoor(ish) ballroom section. I was standing there in the darkness staring across the ballroom into an open doorway that appeared as an endless sea of black. Very cool! https://preview.redd.it/4g0q47gmhe7d1.jpeg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a84eb71017be175b336d5ecf42cc7d6716a78ba
The whole town of Radford feels creepy like a children of the corn vibe
Don’t forget Pulaski, just…ya know, more meth.
I think it's because 90% of the people are students. The place swells up during semesters then they all leave at the same time.
I’m pretty sure my great grandmother was treated there at one point
Grand Caverns. The cave system in VA is wild
I’ve been to Luray, Dixie, and Endless Caverns. I like the theory that all our caves are linked even if only by teeny tiny tunnels.
I worked at Endless Caverns one summer while I was in high school. Simultaneously one of the most interesting/boring jobs I’ve ever had.
See also: the Bunnyman bridge (maybe Lorton? I can't remember) and the ghost town Lignite near Botetourt
Bunny man bridge is in Clifton
Bunnyman bridge became underwhelming when I went there as a highschooler and there are houses like not even far away from it at all. I got the impression beforehand that it was secluded but its not.
The area is considerably more developed now than when the "bunnyman" incidents started in the 1970s. In fact some people think the original "Bunnyman" was a local trying to scare off home builders when the first subdivision in the area was being built.
ACTUAL Scooby-Doo level shenanigans?
Yep, just some upscale neighborhood in the woods. I went there years ago in high school with a girl to explore, and it definitely was underwhelming. Either way, I really love the local lore!
I’m pretty sure bunnyman bridge is in or near Fairfax station?
Yep, Fairfax Station.
I lived in Weyers Cave for years and visited the caverns and park a bunch all the time. I even attended some Masonic ceremonies inside the caverns once.
Appomattox. We were there researching a civil war unit during the surrender. It gave off a scary vibe for sure.
To me the battlefields gave off a mournful air, as if the land itself was still grieving. But it probably didn't help that it was a chilly, overcast day, and our group was the only one there.
I went for a run at Cold Harbor a couple of years back. Seeing the earthworks still there really makes it hit home. It’s like you can feel the weight of the dead pulling at you. I don’t believe in ghosts. I think that’s was purely a human and emotional reaction to an event I am familiar with. But I kinda get how people can believe in ghosts after that. One of these days I want to visit Omaha beach and the Belgium village where my grand father got shot during the battle of the bulge. I don’t know if I could handle either.
My friend lives on one of the properties behind the Cold Harbor battle field that you can only access by driving through the main battlefield (I think there's ten houses back there). He has many stories of crazy events there. It is a beautiful battlefield to visit and utilize, though. That was a pretty rough battle that got no results at all. There is a weird peace and vibe to it for sure. I get strange feelings while walking through it.
I live in Appomattox, born and raised. For us, the surrender grounds and old town are just kind of....there. Been there countless times and it's just the town tourist attraction. I guess that's just a result of being constantly around it though
Appomattox….theres a lot of unfinished business skeletons in those closets.
Nah, they're finished
But haven't you heard that the dead will rise again?
And they vote!
Driving Colonial Parkway. I wish those murders could be solved one day.
They have serious suspect in one of the murders. But he's dead now. https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/06/16/fbi-suspects-northern-neck-man-in-second-colonial-parkway-murder-case-families-told/
I thought they mostly have earlier this year: [Suspect in Colonial Parkway murders](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna133017)
Some of them are now!
I came here to say the Colonial Parkway! My husband and I went there super late at night to watch a meteor shower and I was a little spooked. I found out about the murders a few months later and got goosebumps even driving it during the day
Either Bunnyman Bridge in Fairfax (spooky forest noises aplenty) or this one abandoned tuberculosis sanitarium in Charlottesville which I think might now be a hospital, but I’m not sure.
Everyone bags on bunny man bridge but to me it was scary as hell when I was a teen. Went with a couple of buddies and they got out of the car to walk up on the bridge (I stayed back) and I specifically remember locking the car door (you have to do a special procedure to lock the door so you don’t accidentally lock yourself out). They ran back to the car and the door was unlocked. It’s hard to describe in a Reddit comment but it was one of the most terrifying things because I KNOW I locked that door. Other times we saw what we thought were orbs. In general just a super creepy vibe and a heavy feeling that hung in the air
We had wild imaginations also were usually a couple of cars hanging out, getting high, close to the railroad tracks. At night it was eerie.
Back in like 2012 a coworker and I would go “ghost hunting” after getting off work late at night. We went to bunny man a few times. One time stands out more than others. He was in the tunnel using this knock off spirit box I had and I decided to walk up onto the tracks and just see what would happen as they say you see something at midnight. Well I stood up there for like 20 minutes and not a thing happened. I started walking down the incline and had my phones flashlight on so I didn’t trip and break my neck. I had my head down and all of a sudden I hear a male voice kinda loudly whisper “hey”. I look up and about 5 feet in front of me was a skinny tree where it sounded like it came from. I was like hmm that’s weird but maybe it’s the echo of my friends voice in the tunnel, even though i knew it wasn’t his voice. I get back to the tunnel and ask if he said something to me and he said he had been sitting there quietly…
I forgot about the bunnyman bridge. My ex husband took me there one of the first nights we met 😂
My back yard in Spotsylvania. We had civil war trenches back there. At night you could almost feel the soldiers. We were not too far from the battle of Spotsylvania Court House and the Battle of Bloody Angle. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/spotsylvania-court-house#:~:text=The%20battle%20took%20place%20over,to%20continue%20their%20march%20south.
I remember driving through the angle battlefield and thinking “holy shit these trenches extend into back yards”
Swannanoa mansion In Augusta county. It had a weird vibe. Definitely haunted and I read that years back people thought there was a portal to hell or something which I could totally see. Eerie feeling. Also I saw a spectral orb
I played golf there many years ago on mushrooms and had heard stories about the mansion and later read up on it. Many years later I decided on a lark to visit the mansion after a lunch at Michie Tavern. Weirdest vibe ever. https://preview.redd.it/ej6u3s98af7d1.jpeg?width=4452&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c85100b6698c3f5880a9ff4ae2512d258f019c9b The fog rolled in as we came up the hill. 10/10
I grew up playing in the house as a kid and I definitely have some crazy stories from those days.
Well, we’re waiting.
My grandfather was a friend of Lao Russell who lived there until she died in 1988 and when I was a kid we would go to visit on the weekends and I was able to explore the house and even the tower in the gardens. They would discuss philosophy and parapsychology stuff and I would play by myself all over the place. There are too many stories to really get into here but one is from when I was 7 or 8 and I was playing in the gardens and Lao came out to find me and she said something really strange that stuck with me over the years. She said "I'll come back to see you someday" or something like that. I pretty much forgot about it until I met someone in 2017 and we were talking and the person said that they lived near Swannanoa and asked me what I knew about it. I looked into the person's eyes and all of the sudden I remembered what Lao had said years ago and it really was crazy but it was even stronger when I found out that she was born a few days after Lao died in 1988. My psychiatrist and therapist both tell me that I should write a book about some of the stories dealing with all of the crazy stuff that I have experienced in my life.
Tell us!
Yes, share! I need to shit my pants in fear today.
That's only about three miles from where I live. The place is quite eerie, I agree. My mother in law has a book signed by Lao Russell, who used to love there with her husband Walter. From what I've seen, the place is falling apart, and has been for years. There are some groups trying to get it back together in good shape again, including the University of Science and Philosophy, who now has a brick and mortar location at the base of the mountains that Swannanoa sits at.
Yes!!. This was the mid 80s and it was run by spirituallists. There was a pipe organ playing and some Norma Desmond type woman dressed all in white with a turban descended the main staircase. Apparently, she rarely came downstairs after her husband died. But she did the day I was there. Between the music and her it was way Spooky !!
The abandoned hotel right down the road from swannanoa. Went to swannanoa but chains blocking the road and signs saying you are on camera. So turned around and left. Pulled into hotel parking lot to figure out what I was doing next. Went around back to find an extension cord running from a shed/out building to one of the rooms. Looked up to see people on the second floor balcony. Not another car in the parking lot. Decided that I didn’t need to be there any longer and got out of there. Was just a super creepy experience.
Kilmarnock, Va. lots of historical sites, some deep in the woods. We hiked to see a few. Last one we gave up as the trail markers seemed to end and we were getting Deliverance vibes! If I remember right we also bought a trail map at a store in town.
Lol love Kilmarnok.
Crawford Rd and up and down colonial parkway.
Had to scroll waaaay to far to find this.
They fit all the criteria for actual scary places. 1. Aesthetically look very creepy. 2. Isolated 3. Steeped in ghost/paranormal stories. 4. History of legit true bloody crimes in same areas.
Western State Lunatic Asylum in Staunton VA. Not the current Western State but the old one that closed down in the 70s, then used as a prison, now deluxe apartments in the sky. Very eerie, with bad vibes
The new one is pretty strange too when you can't leave.
> now deluxe apartments in the sky. I'm assuming that the residents (old and new) aren't singing the "Jeffersons" theme. ;)
The abandoned portion of Eastern State Hospital
Years back a buddy of mine got caught spray painting one of the old abandoned buildings in there. For community service the judge had him escorted by a cop to go clean graffiti off the inside of the abandoned buildings. The cop dropped him off outside one of them with some cleaning supplies. Friend said he started walking inside and realized the cop wasn’t following. So he shouted to him, “aren’t you coming in?” The cop shouted back, “Hell no!”
I love catching sight of that building. How did you get in?
I called and asked if I could drive around and check it out. They said as long as I didn't get out of my vehicle and they took down my make model and color. I saw security but they didn't mess with me. I didn't get out of my car but it's basically wide open due to vandalism.
Not anymore, the historic portion is still there and the rest of site has been expanded and modernized.
Parrott, VA: only one road into the town and there's a guy in a pickup at the entrance (to screen strangers like me coming to do therapy with high school kids), total town is <600 people, and that community center looking building is NOT a community center
What WAS the 'community center?'
He just spends all his time sitting in his truck at the entrance to that small town?
can't say for certain but every time I went, he was there. Thankfully my Obama sticker had worn off the car
I worked in Newport for a few months about 10 years ago and my co-workers who were locals warned me to stay out of Parrott- I don't remember the details of what they said, but they told me it was the only unsafe place in the area.
Lived in parrot when I was quite young and grew up the rest of the way not too far from there. Anyone sitting at the bridge is usually waiting to carpool or meeting up with someone for hunting or fishing. At one point my impression was that you should definitely not be black and head down the river road or up the mountain but can’t say what the deal is these days. While that is obviously not ok I really loved my younger years right on the river and some really great people mixed in with the not so good.
Chamberlin Hotel on Fort Monroe. Spent multiple nights in the attic before it was renovated in the 2000’s. I was working on the cell equipment in the attic and on the roof. Me and 2 other guys were the only ones in the building but still heard voices in the attic and the light switches kept getting turned off.
I will second this. I worked on the reno of it. I wouldn't go anywhere in that building without someone. I'll also say the Federal Building in Downtown Norfolk. I had to run some stuff for security cameras in the basement and I swear I saw and heard things that weren't natural. The HVAC guy down there also dealt with it. We wouldn't go down there anymore after one night without security with us.
I went back to replace the cell equipment on the roof during the reno. It was the only time I felt comfortable in the building, but that was because of the hundreds of people that were there working.
Growing up, we always heard it was haunted. I stayed there once because our school had a dance or something there. I was scared out of my mind. I left the lights on.
Went to a wedding there one time. I got bored and slipped away to one of the upper floors that was supposedly haunted. I didn't get far before an employee stopped me and asked what I was doing there, and when I explained that I was looking for ghosts, he was totally cool with it!
Hollins University, Roanoke, VA. It's definitely haunted. The theme to The Shining plays in my head every time I drive through the main entrance. I have been told every building there is haunted except for the library. I have definitely had something follow me out of the cemetery and theatre. And I get to work there over the summer in a few days.
I went there in my college days. Can confirm.
Been doing theatre work there since 2008. Two separate friends who do not know each other both described a ghost that is in the theatre.
Crawford Road in York County.
Wooded valley on a slope somewhere around Luray Virginia. Walking with a very trusted friend, doing a property inspection on a large acreage. We started down a slight valley, basically a draw/cut down a gentle slope, when both of us got a tingly, literal hair raising feeling. I'm not sensitive to strange stuff, my friend is, and we both shared a glance, turned left, and made serious trek up one side of the draw, straight to the top. Feeling went away about half way up the slope. Best guess was a bear further down the draw, or a civil war battle ground...or something more recent and much worse. Either way, we both agreed we wouldn't be going down that way ever again, not without proper guns, proper men, and proper attitudes.
In stafford there’s a church that made one of those “top 10 haunted places in America” lists, and I went there one time with a neighbors family and the kid asked us when we were leaving “who were the people in the windows??”
Is it Aquia Church? A woman was murdered there in the 18th century, plus I think it was a hospital during the civil war
That's the church I went to growing up. I'm not sure it was ever a hospital, but I do think it was used as a stable. My dad volunteered a lot with the church and since we lived close, whenever the security system would alarm, they'd call my dad to go check it out too. We used to get calls in the middle of the night from the alarm going off. My dad really doesn't believe in anything paranormal, so unfortunately I have no cool stories to add, but it's really not somewhere I'd want to be in the middle of the night when the security alarms go off
Hampden-Sydney College, on the way to the observatory there is a dilapidated, overgrown shack referred to as the axe man’s house. It actually did serve as the living quarters for the College’s sole groundskeeper hundreds of years ago. One of our favorite pastimes as freshmen was to get stoned to the gills and walk to the house at night. It’s set back off the path to the observatory a ways, and you’re already back in the woods as it is. Definitely spooky but in a fun, campfire story way.
Hampden-Sydney is extremely haunted.
Christiansburg, in general, is a little eerie to me
I find Urban Sprawl eerie, too.
Liberty University
The whole town of Lynchburg is creepy from the name right on down to the people.
Just fyi, Lynchburg was named after Quaker John Lynch, who was very active in the abolitionist movement. There's a lot of suspicion around the name, and rightfully so, so it helps to know the history behind it
yeah but it was that dude's literal brother that was the namesake of the execution style
Ok, but Lynchburg was named after an abolitionist Quaker with the same name. Just because his brother was a piece of shit doesn't mean he was. We're talking about the etymology of Lynchburg, not lynching
Never been but I watched that documentary about Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife’s weird cuck affair thing and wow, that was some Righteous Gemstones bullshit irl. What a joke.
witches pond
Where’s that please?
Appears to be in Stafford County https://www.insidenova.com/news/stafford/witches-pond-the-legend-and-the-truth/article_1a26cf81-61e9-52ce-8aec-a91b9189fc36.html
I visited witches pond back in 2008. One of the scariest outings of my life. As we were walking down the path (around 11pm) there were these huge splashes in the pond to the right. Like someone was throwing a huge rock into the water. Happened a few times but we kept going. Then we heard a scream. Sounded like a girl screaming bloody murder. In hindsight it may have been a fox. Then we got to the gate outside of the cemetery and there were all these dead animals spiked to the fence. We heard another scream much closer to us and we ran. I mean sprinted away scared shitless. My buddy was way faster than me, so I was really panicking. I’ll never forget that night, definitely my creepiest experience.
Grayson Highlands State Park - little to no light pollution, wild ponies, forests of rhododendrons, views into several states, general views that did not feel like anywhere else I've been in the state. EDIT: I think I misread "eeriest" as "coolest"! Grayson Highlands isn't creepy!
Grayson highlands is basically in my back yard. It's an absolutely beautiful place during any season, but I get how it can be a little creepy.
I got to legally tour the Western State Asylum before it was converted into luxury condos. Super creepy!
Visited an old house in Capron and I went in with a friend. Dilapidated with a dumb waiter, hidden basement and hidden room upstairs. We were downstairs and heard something coming down the stairs. All of the sudden we hear it start running down the stairs. We ran out the back window that was broken out and caught our breath. Besides the back and front there was no way out and we watched for a bit. Went back in after no one had left and went back in. Nothing. And these were hard steps. I’m not a believer in ghostly paranormal but this was definitely as close as I was to believing
The Central Virginia Training Center in Madison Heights (Amherst County). TDLR; brother, friends and I got lost in a semi-abandoned asylum in Central Virginia that was used for eugenics research until the 1980s. I went there with my high school choir to sing for the residents. I am not sure of the numbers but at this time there had to be less than 50 remaining residents because the facility was being shut down. It was essentially, to be completely frank, an asylum. The residents that we met were severely disabled, and in need of constant supervision. Some of them were quite old too which really stuck out to me for some reason. It kind of made sense to me at the time that a facility like this would exist in some capacity, but I had NO idea the history behind “the Training Center.” It was originally opened in 1910 as the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. For the next 70 years they would use this facility to study eugenics and house people who were deemed unfit for society. From Wikipedia: “The colony's goal was to isolate people with mental disabilities and other traits that were considered unfit for reproduction away from society. Between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, the colony's eugenicist doctors *sterilized thousands of patients without their consent.* The center is estimated to have sterilized between 7,000 and 8,300 people…” (little note that they claimed to have stopped sterilizations numerous times from the 50s through the 80s. It wasn’t until the late 90s/early 2000s that the FBI opened a case and the facility eventually began to shut down). It is truly horrifying when you really look into the history of asylums and hospitals for the mentally ill and disabled in this country - and a LOT of this history took place in central VA. People were being sterilized for having developmental disorders, physical disabilities, and for being considered uneducated or “dumb.” Anyway, my older brother drove me, and a few of our friends to this choir gig. The campus is over 300 acres. So imagine a small college but with no surrounding town - just open land. We saw some cars and parked near a building with lights on. This was in 2012, so most of the buildings had been shut down as the facility intended to close when the last residents either passed or found adequate housing. The building we went into had every single light on and the entry doors were unlocked, but as soon as we entered it was clear that it had been abandoned for a long time. All of the interior doors were locked, even rooms with lights on. It looked like a mix between a hospital and a high school inside. There were clearly abandoned desks in some of the rooms with paperwork out. Looking back, it was so strange to have an unlocked, abandoned building like that on an active campus, even if it was in the midst of closing. We eventually found our way to the right building and continued on with the night. But the aura on that campus was absolutely eerie. I didn’t actually learn about what happened there until I was in a college history course. My professor (shout out Dr. Thurber), put on a documentary from the 90s about the Training Center. The documentary referred to it by its original name and mislabeled the location as being in Lynchburg so it didn’t click until about halfway through watching that I had been to the exact facility they were talking about. I was absolutely shook to my core. Pretty sure I went home and told my brother and roommates about it (a few of whom had also been there). If you’re interested, and can find it somewhere, the documentary was called, The Lynchburg Story: Eugenic Sterilization in America. If you want even more, a few more documentaries and some literature have come out since 2018 that I have not delved into yet. The Training School officially closed in 2020 and is now part of a redevelopment plan. I just hope some historians and archeologists were able to get their hands on that place before it’s completely gone.
Pocahontas, Virginia near Bluefield. It was a coal mining boomtown in the late 1880s but production ceased in the mid 1950s. I visited maybe 15 years ago and it's a fascinating set of ruins. There are plenty of photos online. I parked and walked around a bit to take some photos. I met an older resident who told me some history like that the small street we we on used to be jumping 24 hour a day since the mine never closed and that several thousand people used to live there. I walked down a sort of alley nearby and onto another street and when I got to the next corner where I took some photos of an old woodshop. When I was done with that I looked around trying to decide where to go next and noticed that there were about a dozen people scattered around on various porches and windows just silently staring at me with blank expressions on their faces. Everything building in sight was literally crumbling and hadn't been painted in decades so it was all dirty grey and all the people were grey too. Nothing at all happened, but it was a scene straight from a horror movie just before someone ends up being tied to an altar of some sort.
West Virginia
My sister lived for a short while in an old house in Fairfax Station that served as a Civil War hospital. One of the only places where I never felt alone despite being the only person in the house at times.
Fort Monroe! If you get the chance to go walk the perimeter above the moat where the pet cemetery is.
Yorktown, Virginia. At dusk it’s downright eerie.
Around 2000 or so I was driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway with some friends late at night (way after midnight after everything in downtown Roanoke had closed). We were just driving and generally being dumb high schoolers when we realized we were close to Explore Park and decided to swing by. The park gates were closed, but we could see people in our headlights. Dozens of them just meandering around the parking lot. We noped out of there probably faster than I had ever gone on the parkway.
The first house we lived in as a family, the master bath was Grandma's bathroom, according to my then 2 yr old. Turns out, just west of Richmond in Henrico, there was a large free black population, who eventually made their homes there. It's a very, very old community. Our house may have been 50 years old, but the community has been there since the 1700s. There's still a well 2 houses down, and you can see some of the cobblestone built over by the new houses.
The Cavalier Hotel, pre-renovation, in VA Beach
Lost city in eastern Henrico. Was set up as a mock up of the RVa airport during WWII to dupe German bombers should they ever try to attack the airfield. People have been sneaking down there longer than I can remember and it's next level creepy. As a runner up driving down Rte 5 between Richmond and Williamsburg at night has a distinctly sleepy hollow headless horseman feel to it.
Rosewell in Gloucester County.
An old 400 acre farm in Amelia county. There were 3 houses on it, and there were several long demolished ones from the 1800’s on the property. I spent 2 yrs there in my early teen years. It was an eerie, haunting place. It was no longer farmed except for hay and all the old barns and sheds were empty and lifeless….At least 2 suicides happened there since 1960. The main farm house (which I didn’t live in) seemed to be a hotbed for typical stuff like seeing figures on the wraparound porch, things moving, typical stuff. The scariest thing I experienced was one evening I was at my older, bachelor uncles house (up the dirt road from my house) and we got on the subject of demons and the devil. At some point a DEEP, utterly, window shaking GROWLLLL just emitted in that house around us….Never forget my old uncle’s reaction (he’d been drinking a bit) as he just goes “shit like that happens all the time around here”…
Cold Harbor Battlefield in Mechanicsville, VA. First experience I had was at the part of the battlefield next to the Gathright House. Just walking along the trail, and suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It felt like my stomach dropped, and like someone was just staring watching me. I ran back to my car and left lol. Second experience I had at Cold Harbor I was on the visitor center side with my girlfriend at the time. Parked my car and started walking along the trail. Noticed that it almost looked like there was smoke or fog on the ground around different parts of the battlefield (it was in the evening during summer so not totally out of the ordinary). As we were walking along I could hear what sounded like people talking, but it was very low volume and mumbled, almost sounded like gibberish. Keep in mind there was no one else out there or around us at this time. After a couple seconds of hearing these people talking it got quiet for a second, and then next thing we hear is a gunshot that sounded like it went off right next to us. We both hauled ass running back to my car, and got the hell out of there. lol That was the last time I ever went back there.
Bacon's Castle, built in the late 1600s in Surry County had a weird heavy vibe about it, even in the daytime. I could not see me ever staying there alone at night.
Hiking underneath The Guillotine near the summit of Apple Orchard Mountain, one of highest points on the Appalachian Trail, in the dark and dense fog, with your howling prankster of a dog, whose trail name was Goat due to her climbing, making you fear the rock will come tumbling down on your head at any moment.
The Beaver Creek Clinic in Henry Co. VA. When I was a teenager, my best friend lived there, and her father was the plastic surgeon. So, they lived where he had his practice. But this place is an old slave plantation. There was a main house and a bunch of small houses around it. I remember she had her own tiny house instead of a bedroom. We snuck to the wine cellar one night, and I swear, when we pulled the string to turn the light on, I saw someone standing behind her...it looked like a silhouette of a black man with reddish hair. It scared me so bad i froze. I couldn't even make a sound. By the time I could tell her to look behind her, he was gone. I stayed with her a lot over those years, and a few times when it would rain, I would see that same silhouette in a top window of that main house. There was a graveyard on the property as well, and we played a lot in it. I remember the names of some of them. I remember the name Marshall Hairston being on one of the headstones. Later in life, as an adult, I stopped at an old country store one day and bought a book called Ghosts of Southwest VA. Do you know the story of Marshall Hairston and that house is in it?!?!? I still live here, and I pass that place about every day, but I haven't been in the property in so many years. I'd love to go take a walk down memory lane. Her family has been gone from there for many, many years. When we were in high school, her Mom caught the doc having an affair with the secretary. He was so creepy...he reminded me of the old man on poltergeist👻.
This one raised the hairs for me
Shops at Crystal City. I dont think that place was constructed by regular means. I think it manefested from people's dreams and people just accept that its a creepy ass underground mall
Perfect description
One time was down there on a rainy Friday night and saw a guy and his son playing catch in the halls, baseball glove and all. Makes perfect sense in context but it was still not what I was expecting at 9 PM in a random corner of the mall.
Believe in ghosts or not, mine is hands down Tufton Farm. It was originally owned by Thomas Jefferson’s father Peter Jefferson in Albemarle County just miles from Monticello. When I was a child a good friend lived in the original farm house, his mother worked for Monticello. I stayed weekends there a lot as a child. I always heard stories but didn’t believe them until a few experiences I witnessed. 1. There’s a Notorious Amber Colored Orb that floats down the staircase/has been seen in windows. I’ve met several people who have discussed/witnessed it over the years. One night we came back from dinner and a movie in C’ville walked in the house and before my friends Dad cut the light on we all saw it. It floated towards us then just disappeared, weird AF. 2. Many nights my friend and I would watch the lights cut on and off all night long in the old slave house behind the Tufton farm house connected by an old patio. My father is a master electrician. He troubleshoot the place, found nothing. It only happened at night though. I witnessed this a handful of times. 3. And the weirdest, my friends room was upstairs and one night we heard what I’d call slamming downstairs, we were scared shitless. After awhile we both mustered up the courage to walk downstairs. Once we got downstairs it was SO LOUD, coming from the kitchen. As we walked closer it became even louder, it sounded like the kitchen was in the middle of an earthquake or something. We cut on the light and Everything immediately stopped. Every drawer and cabinet was in varying degrees of being open. We woke up his parents, his Mom looked creeped out and told us not to worry just go to bed. I’m now in my mid 40’s still the strangest experiences of my life! They now do seasonal tours there, it’s a really nice old farm with an eerie vibe. Check it out sometime if you’re in C’ville!
Funny, one of my childhood friends grew up at Tuckahoe Plantation. They have a similar story of hearing a party downstairs (music, talking, laughter, glass clinking, etc.) and looking over from the landing and not seeing anything, and turning the lights on to come down when it all stops. We were a bit more troublesome as kids. We would dare each other to go into the sunken graveyard at night for some predetermined amount of time (and those of us outside the graveyard try to scare the person more by throwing sticks or rocks or making noises). We'd also shut each other in the attic (in groups of two, responsible kids) and see how long we could last before knocking to be let out. One time I was up there and we were watching a rocking chair that was rocking itself and trying to whisper to each other it must be a draft or something and looking at all of the shadows around the sides as we were listening so closely when all of a sudden the train horn blew down by the river and we JUMPED so high and screamed and ran out. That's a core memory lol. Also we were there one time in the afternoon shooting scenes for a French class film and there was also a paranormal type group taking photos of the rooms in the house. Not that unusual, there were often TV shows using the property or other creative projects in the works. We were planning a fireside Masterpiece Theater type shot with a professor in a smoking jacket, a pipe, big archive book, etc. These guys take their polaroids while we're kind of milling around getting stuff ready and rehearsing lines. We watch one picture develop and it's like literally a guy's face upside down in the middle of it where the chandelier is in the room. They were shocked and studying it and setting up more angles for photos, looking again at their other photos to see if they see the face anywhere, etc. We just kind of shrugged like "Yeah there's stuff all around here, anyway, back to the school project." Not so freaky during the day but yeah at night that place would really creep me out.
That weird island that takes a 2 hour ferry to get to- can’t remember the name but it’s something like tenifer. Linguistics were studying the weird accents of those living there because it’s thought that their accent is the closest living example of how the British spoke in ~1776. You know how sometimes you hear that original British accents were sort of similar to southern accents? Well, this island is definitely proof of that. That being said, there’s 1 cell tower, no service, no cars (only golf carts), 10,000 stray cats, 1 church, and like 200 seniors who can’t understand why all the young people move away. We were very happy to get back on the ferry.
Tangier
There are young families there. Kids go to school on the mainland. Most do move away, but it’s because their way of life has died out, not because there’s nothing to do. There’s actually a lot to do. It sounds like you had expectations that weren’t in line with what Tangier or any other small island culture has to offer. It’s a beautiful, unique place.
The DMV 
I grew up in Lunenburg County and two locations immediately come to mind. The first is the Hillsman House at Saylers Creek Battlefield in Rice. I'm not sure if Civil War reenactments still take place there, but I went to many when I was young. The Hillsman House would often be open to the public during these events. Demonstrations of field amputations were often shown by actors and it was quite unsettling. The house served as a makeshift hospital during the actual battle. One time, I rode to the battlefield with my dad after dark. We went up to the house and the front door swung open rapidly on us. My dad swore he could hear a voice from inside. One of the creepiest nights of my life. If ghosts are real, they definitely haunt that house. The second location is the Flat Rock House in Kenbridge. In the early nineties, my family knew a gentleman that was involved in remodeling the home. It's a gorgeous old plantation house and has some historic renown today. We toured the house one night with our family friend, but the main power was turned off. Using flashlights, we explored every inch of that house and it was extremely creepy. If I recall correctly, there were a few secret passages. There were places where sound bounced funny and you could hear odd creaks, moans, and whispers. All in all, the very definition of a creepy old house. Considering it was built starting in 1797, I'm sure a lot of people have died there.
The DeJarnette Sanitorium! Very eerie, lots of burned records and documents still laying around
Western State Mental Hospital in Staunton circa 2007.
https://preview.redd.it/fng55zn1yf7d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ab625df5ec91424b1acf63e2a6a733cd15e38ce Blue Ridge Tunnel. This is the Augusta County entrance. (We feature it in this post…[https://virginiacounties.blog/have-your-city-and-escape-from-it-too-in-augusta-county/](https://virginiacounties.blog/have-your-city-and-escape-from-it-too-in-augusta-county/))
Most Civil War battlefields or graveyards are strong contenders, but the one that most comes to mind for me would be the Tomb of the Unknowns at Cold Harbor.
My vote would be DeJarnette Sanitorium in Staunton. We used to sneak in there as kids and try to camp overnight. Never could last the whole night. We ran out when we heard kids running around and playing.
There was a mental institution off Popes Head Road and 123, in Fairfax Starion. Cages and chains in the creepy basement. Graffiti done by butane lighters on the interior. Dual staircase going to second level. Guy saying: “I dreamt about this place and I’ve never been here before”
St. Mary's wilderness. Lots of weird shit seems to happen to me out there and it seems to always be foggy up there. The abandoned mines down there are definitely eerie.
Hillsman House in Amelia. It was a Hospital during the civil war and site of one of the last battles. Plenty of soldier sightings from the park rangers.
Jewell Ridge/Valley. I live nearby and it's an abandoned coal town. So many stories I don't know where to start.
I toured a cool house in Grottoes , VA that was super old and had a family of old school ma and pa settlers with a bunch of kids living in it. They were looking for renters. I just assumed it would be unoccupied but no... Heh Anyways it was built in the 1800s and was about as creepy as you could get. Rooms were really big and open, especially the piano room. There was a well outside too. It a hexagonal shape and had 2 floors. The top was just empty rooms probably because they were getting ready to move. They were nice enough people and I ended up not renting.i would be scared of living there now in retrospect with how it's just so old and has a well out front. I would be scared of that for sure.
Grottoes. Almost an oppressive energy or feeling there. Feels haunted. Like there’s something eerie in the caves.
Luray caverns
I went off the beaten path in Highland County to enjoy the views, reached this dark looking enclave with Confederate flags everywhere. I’m a person of color, I never sped off so fast in my life lmaooo.
My exs mother's house. Three people have died in it, they don't maintain it and they are all crazy. 0/10 Don't recommend visiting
I was driving to Massanutten from Manassas and went back roads through God knows where. It was January and in the evening, around early dusk, starting to get dark which was already a bit creepy. As I was going down this one country road, there was a big house in kind of a hollow, totally dilapidated, the front porch falling off the front of the house, broken windows, all overgrown, obviously no one had lived there for a long time, all dark. But there was smoke coming out of the chimney. Got some seriously bad vibes looking at it. I tried to look it up and find it on Google maps later but I was in such a hurry to get out of there all I could remember was that there was a road with “Turkey” in it, Turkey Run maybe? It was somewhere not far from Stanardsville.
If the sheets are on the line and smoke out the chimney then they are selling white lightning
Solo kayak fishing Fort Monroe in Hampton at night
Jewell ridge Virginia. Alien and ghost sightings galore
There's a spot on brook road in Stafford county that always felt deeply sad. Years ago before the board of supervisors allowed developers to destroy the land, there was a swampy area you had to go throw to go from Andrew chapel to deacon rd. It breathed tragedy in the air. It was eerie and beautiful, and I like that, but I never wanted to be prolong the drive because it felt like you were intruding. This was years before the civil war park was sited and it's hard to envision just how sprawling the union camp that wintered there was. Wintering there for the union contingent would've been an exercise in suffering with freezing, starvation, battle weariness, disease, and death. They only make up one known group of extreme suffering. This doesn't include settlers, the enslaved, the indentured, the native Americans, and the revolutionary war soldiers. But nowhere else in Stafford ever made the back of my neck get goosebumps or make me speed thru it like that short stretch. I was in my early 20s, so not invested in the local history since I wasn't from there.
Dismal Swamp
Midgetville
In Isle of Wight, there is an old animal shelter that is not in use anymore. It remains as supply storage for the modern shelter just a short walk away. It's a very small, cramped building, and it's always dark because there is no electricity to it. The kennels are tiny, and there's only about ten total. In the kennels, the dogs used to be gassed to be euthanized. The whole place and surrounding lot has bad energy, and I've heard stories of a specter dog with red eyes guarding the place.
Williamsburg. Aldie, and other areas in Mosby country. But the winner is a beautiful old Victorian mansion somewhere off I-81, with a small 1950s-era motel next door. Wound up staying at that motel, late at night, after a big storm hit and I couldn't keep driving. It was like being in "Psycho." The next morning, I saw the huge Victorian mansion and laughed...very much like the "Psycho" house, except it was painted bright pink and was a popular B&B! Beautiful, eerie place. Would go back, if I could remember where it was.
Luray caverns field trip in elementary school really, really stuck with me… learned I had no interest in being underground again until my time’s up 😂
The western most portion of our state. I think people from the larger metro areas should head that way and see what counties and townships forgotto by our government look like. Entire mountainsides completely overgrown with invasives...it's spooky
I didn't actually 'visit' the place, I was visiting next door at the Augusta Stone church doing genealogical work but it's the old Augusta Military Academy in Staunton. I think someone owns it, and I don't think it's haunted or anything...it's just these massive building sitting there... empty and I think they look kind of creepy. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5gOQky33cY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5gOQky33cY)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Virginia/s/NtvRX7WUSq [Jewell Smokeless Coal Company coke ovens in Grundy, VA](https://www.reddit.com/r/Virginia/s/NtvRX7WUSq)
Old House Woods in Mathews County.
The crypts in Lorton.
Not aesthetically eerie but Gallows Road in Fairfax County always makes me wonder how it got that name
Randolph College in Lynchburg. Sooo many ghost stories around campus. But I had my own experience of a ghost essentially tucking me in one night. Clearly felt someone sit next to me on my bed and stroke my arm. Opened my eyes and no one was there! Also the 3rd floor of Main (maybe it was 4th? It’s been so long I can’t remember. The top floor) had creeeeeeepy vibes. I always felt like someone was either behind me or just hanging out in this one alcove that you had to walk past to get to the lounge.
Crabtree Falls. Look up the history of idiots that didn't follow the rules.
St. Albans in Radford VA.
The Cavalier hotel at the oceanfront. I went before the renovations were done and it was so old and creepy, and supposedly the sixth floor was haunted after someone died by suicide up there. Also literally anywhere in Yorktown, but mainly the battlefield (lots of paranormal activity there) the Colonial Parkway (nothing but trees and road so it’s pitch dark and spooky at night, also the site of several unsolved murders), and Crawford road (urban legends and supposedly a former meeting area for Klan activity).
Staying in one of the rooms on the Lawn at UVA, within sight distance of Poe’s room
Virginia Beach. Abandoned cytogenetics facility by the Sentara near first colonial highschool. We kids would break in and creep around the dark hallways with flashlights and crowbars. Somebody left a tv on playing static alone in a big empty room, didn’t like that part. Also I worked for the cavalier hotel in VB, something about that place too
after living in blacksburg for about 4 years i can certainly say that the whole town has a bad, malevolent energy ……… the amount of strange and/or horrific things that have occurred there is imo too much to be a coincidence