Why Would You Bring Me Here? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Suicides

While a vacation to the Land of the Rising Sun to view or climb Mt. Fuji isn't out of the ordinary, flying specifically to Japan to visit the nearby Aokigahara Forest would be a weird-- even morbid-- decision to make. Why would you bring me here?

The Aokigahara Forest is particularly disturbing. Aside from the almost unnatural calmness, darkness, and emptiness of the woods here, that which actually does inhabit the woods is...erm...dead. For over half a century, Aokigahara has been home to hundreds upon hundreds of suicides. According to the "Wall Street Journal", it's second only to the Golden Gate Bridge in suicides. This isn't counting attempted suicides either.

Japanese officials head through the forest once per year to clean it out and apparently some of the bodies are looted before they're cleared. As if it weren't creepy enough with the dead bodies, people are robbing them. Unsurprisingly, locals believe that evil creatures reside in these woods.

Again...why would you bring me here?

Answer: Mexico

Found in the Mexican Federal District, Xochimilco is found on the lake of the same name, built up on flooded agricultural lands. It's also the place of NIGHTMARES. Why would you bring me here?

Taking a short boat ride to the specific island (better known as 'Island of the Dolls', in case the creepy dolls didn't explain enough), visitors will find that thousands of lost toys hang upon the trees, strung up by wire. The daughter of the original owner of the property drowned in the canals nearby...the same canals he would later drown in...but between their deaths he pulled up all of the dolls, collecting them.

Seriously. Death? Dolls? Why would you bring me here?

Answer: Pacific Ocean

Sure, a getaway to the Pacific is usually a blessing, but there's something that's not being said about the Palmyra Island Atoll, a group of islands found south of Hawaii. Sure, a group of U.S. scientists are consistently on-site at this Equatorial paradise but...

...is it haunted? After a murder in the mid-1970s (in which one body was placed into a chest and sent out to sea...only to be found in Hawaii a year later), many considered the island to be a death trap. Local fish are poisonous as a result of dangerous types of coral, it's an aggressive shark breeding ground, and there are rumours of shipwrecks from a distant pirate past.

Along with tales of ghost ships crossing between the northern and southern trade routes it's also accumulated missing planes, almost like the Bermuda Triangle.

Did you bring me here intentionally? If so, WHY did you bring me here?

Answer: By swimming several miles through the cave, down a river

Wait...sacrificial chamber? Cave and river? Sepulcher?! I thought that Belize was full of forests, ruins, and beaches. Not death and darkness. Why would you bring me here?

Belize's Actun Tunichil Muknal is in Tapir Mountain National Reserve and to get to it you'd better like to take adventures. After a two mile trip downriver and into the cave proper, you'll need to spend another mile climbing to the proper chamber. En route you may encounter bats and giant spiders, but really, at least they're not skeletons.

Oh...and then there's the skeletons. The final chamber contains the bones of several Mayan sacrifices, the most of which were less than fifteen years old. Most of them can't be taken out either; centuries of leaving the remnants in a damp cavern have fused them to the ground and, in some cases, crystallized them. Imagine swinging your flashlight around to find a sparkling skull staring at you.

So...can we get out of here? Why did you bring me here, again?

Answer: Bhangarh

For a country so well-known for overcrowding, Bhangarh is a bit of an anomaly. Not a single person lives there. They used to-- it's empty now. So why would you bring me here?

Bhangarh was populated more than three centuries ago but after a regional famine-- when the citizens left they didn't come back. But was that really it? Local storytellers claim that fierce battles forced locals to depart; a curse was apparently placed on land too. That's a way to get people to leave. In fact, nowadays, locals don't even suggest you visit it at night-- they go so far as to restrict access. Not that you'd see anybody there; the place is eerily empty.

Do you hear that? No? Well, it's me wondering why on Earth you decided to bring me here.

Answer: Prypiat was closed down after the Chernobyl accident

Prypiat...why is that a familiar name? Well, I'll give you a hint. It's in Ukraine. Prypiat River flows past the city of Chernobyl. In other words, you don't want to be there. Now why did you bring me here?

After the nuclear accident in 1986, Prypiat was completely evacuated due to fears of radioactivity (justified fears). Since then, it fell into obvious disrepair...including an amusement park. The eeriness of the city has been depicted in several video games and people purposely don't visit it. Why take the chance with radioactivity? You wouldn't be able to stay regardless; no one's taken care of the buildings in decades. Many have been razed by natural causes.

Rather than visit the creepiest, emptiest, most radioactive amusement park, why wouldn't we just go to Minsk? It begs the question, as to why you would bring me here.

Answer: One

The construction of the Winchester Mystery House is certainly a story. According to stories, Sarah Winchester was convinced by a psychic to continuously build a house to appease the souls of those killed by her family's rifles; her family created Winchester Rifles. The place has one hundred sixty plus rooms. Now why would you bring me to this maze?

Sarah took the warning literally and continued to build for over thirty years until her death in 1922. Building was erratic-- some of the rooms and halls lead to nowhere; staircases and doorways head towards nothing in particular. For some reason, all but one of the bathrooms were out of order. Some of the house was destroyed in earthquakes at the turn of the century, but most of it continued to stand. It became a part of the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s, certainly not as the first house, but as the first maze added to the list.

Not only that-- people claim it's haunted! Aside from numerous spiderweb motifs throughout the house, there are also countless instances of the number thirteen. This place couldn't be spookier unless they also ran a shelter for black cats. Why would you bring me here and should I bring a four-leaf clover? A map?

Answer: Brazil

Ilha da Queimada Grande is purposely avoided by most travelers...and residents...particularly because of the horrible snake problem. The military bans visitors, excluding scientists with legal permits. So why would you bring me here?

Did I mention snakes? Think about this-- one snake in every five square meters. Now think about the actual total-- several snakes in a single square meter! And these aren't your grandma's garden snakes; these snakes are poisonous, so poisonous that their venom actually melts flesh. The Golden Lancehead is perhaps one of the deadliest snakes in all of Brazil (maybe all the world); most of them are on Snake Island. And it's safe to say the island is theirs.

Sooo...there is no justification as to why you brought me here. Unsafe. Quite simply. No slithering around the truth.

Answer: Venice

About that plague issue-- why would you bring me here? Just off the edge of Venice, Poveglia is an obvious problem area, reputedly haunted, and very much advised against visiting.

No one lives on Poveglia even though the famous tourist destination Venice is in the lagoon nearby. Why exactly? Well, back during the time of the plague, thousands of people afflicted with the disease were placed onto the island where they died...and it happened again when the plague returned hundreds of years later...and then it didn't matter if people had the plague or not. It continued to be a site for quarantine for any malady until the twentieth century at which point it made sense to leave forever, never to face the ghouls there again. Who'd have thought the place might be haunted after all of that?

So next time you're on a gondola ride in the Venetian canals, just think, somewhere out on that water you might see one of the 160,000+ ghostly plague specters waving silently...or one of the bodies originally left at rest in the island's pits. Why would you bring me here?

Answer: A coal mine

Near Nagasaki, Gunkanjima is hardly an odd site-- silent for the most part, empty, and separated from the busier regions of Japan, it's pretty much a regular island. Except for the fact that it's desolate, dilapidated, and creepy. Why would you bring me here?

Gunkanjima was built up in the nineteenth century in an attempt to mine for coal. Still not weird? Does it not explain the weird buildings? Well, during World War II it was a labour camp responsible for forcing hundreds of Koreans to work mining for coal. The horrible weather isolated the island for a large portion of the year and soon, coal became less of a priority. The island was decommissioned in the 1970s and it was emptied out, left alone for three decades.

Since then, the place remained untouched and unexplored and it's only visitable five months of the year. Visitors were finally permitted to take hour-long ferries to a largely cordoned-off facility. I guess it's cozy if you're into the whole 'desolation/armageddon' thing. I'm not; why did you bring me here?