Creepy thread is creepy.

[AK_Alex]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/04/19/chernobyl.25/index.html?hpt=C1

This is an article about a city abandoned after the Chernobyl disaster - Pripyat, Ukraine. I've done some research on web and google earth, and what is left is fascinating, tragic and somehow just creepy. This city's timeline ended in 1986, and nothing has changed or moved since - the time has stood still.
Check it out.

[jed2009]

Love the Chernobyl stuff, I find it very fascinating. Would love to tour the place someday - the places where I won't lose 10 years of my life after 5 minutes, of course. Check this link out for TONS of pictures from someone who went there... The vehicle graveyard always creeps me out. Those massive choppers just sitting there menacingly for years and years... Crazy.

Another great link here.

[Reiland]

Check this link out for TONS of pictures from someone who went there...

Wow. That guy has a sharp eye for photography. Some good photos in the second link as well, although many appear rather digitally enhanced.

Surreal, and very sobering.

[Jiu-Jitsu Cop]

I did not watch the link above but if it was anything like the show I saw on the Discovery channel (or maybe the history channel), it was fascinating. They had a female on there who went back and found a doll she left behind when they evacuated. It was an awesome show.

[Rudy8116]

Makes you wonder how Japan will recover from their disaster.

[AK_Alex]

Yeah. The Chernobyl disaster made an area of about Switzerland unusable for development. REALLY makes you wonder how that would affect Japan in terms of containment areas. One of the creepiest pictures I saw was of the abandoned train station, with locomotives and cars sitting there 25 years later exactly where they were left. I would like to pay a visit there as well.

[Murf425]

I would like to pay a visit there as well.

A few months back, there was something about Ukraine planning to open the area up for tourism, because it's now "safe enough".
Yeah...I'd have to officially have seen every possible halfway almost decent vacation spot on the planet before picking that one.

Actually, it'd be a pretty badass trip that I'd go on right away...if it was like a mutant zombie hunting safari or something.

[FromOhio]

There's a video of people actually going inside the plant. http://www.tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/

Not to get too off topic, but if you can't ever make it over there, we have our own abandoned town over here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

[The State]

mindblowingly eerie.

[SRT936]

One of those ghost hunter shows went there. Ah, Destination Truth was the one. I don't like the show but when I saw they were Pripyat, I had to watch. That was place was creepy before they added all the ghost sound effects.

[M-11]

It's not safe yet.

There's so much hot graphite there you can be cooking for hours and not know it.

That neato Ozone smell is radiation ionizing the atmosphere. Ypu can still smell it there so it's hot enough to kill you early.

M-11

[mdrdep]

Just think after the tour you will never need to buy another flashlight. Just whip out your johnson and use it instead.

[Bounce]

Much closer to home is, Picher, an abandoned town in Okla as a result of mining lead for all the things we use that need it.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/jul/31/okla-town-contaminated-years-mining-now-ghost-town/

And, apparently even more ghost towns listed at:

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ok/ok.html

There's also the PA town of Centralia that's been abandoned because a fire started in the coal mine that spreads out underneath it and has continued to burn since 1962.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

with lots of photos at:

http://www.google.com/search?q=centralia+pa&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&safe=on&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1091&bih=737

[GLHS837]

the only problem with visiting Centralia is the dangers involved. From what I understand, one danger is that you could end up in a pocket of CO2 from the burning coal and not know it time to make it out before you black out. Sholuld be able to alleviate that one by making sure that you always leave one side around you lower than yourself, never get into any sort of bowl.

The other, however, is a crap shoot. At any given place, the fire could have burned away the coal right under the surface, and its an eggshell waiting for extra weight to cave in under you.

One place I thought about visiting is the abandoned Navy training facility here in MD, near port Deposit, the old Bainbridge facility. Was abandoned due to age, not because it was dangerous. so it would be safe as long as you were smart enoug to stay out of the falling down buildings. This map shows all the streets, and you can zoom in and see how its going back to nature, but a some of the buildings survive.

http://goo.gl/maps/ovqH

http://goo.gl/maps/cJV9

http://goo.gl/maps/jrwG

[AK_Alex]

It's not safe yet.

There's so much hot graphite there you can be cooking for hours and not know it.

That neato Ozone smell is radiation ionizing the atmosphere. Ypu can still smell it there so it's hot enough to kill you early.

M-11

Correct. The shutdown of chernobyl is not planned till 2061. Even after that, none of us breathing today will see the time when Chernobyl and the nearby exclusion zone will be 100% safe. These things don't operate on a human time scale.