Original subtitles

An abandoned seaside villa

with a deadly reputation.

A nuclear wasteland unfit for human life.

And a tropical retreat

that was once home to a witches' coven.

Our planet is covered with islands of all shapes and sizes.

But all across the globe, there are ominous islands

that are tainted with dark histories,

mysterious curses,

and unspeakable tragedies.

While their stories may vary,

these places all conjure a similar sense of dread.

Could it be that evil forces or even unholy entities

are what create these... Islands of the damned?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

This residential quarter in south Naples

dates back to ancient Greece and Rome.

2,000 years ago, this hillside district

was once a vacation destination for wealthy Roman nobles.

And today, it's just as prestigious.

It's home to some of the city's wealthiest residents

and its most opulent villas.

But among them is a desolate, abandoned mansion

that sits just off the coastline,

on a jagged outcropping called gaiola island.

Gaiola island is unlike most areas.

It sticks out as a strange island,

right off the coast of Naples.

It's basically the size of a small estate.

Just a house and yard, really.

And it's just contained on these two outcroppings of rock.

You can see it right from the beach.

So you can get close to this,

but it's been abandoned for decades.

Located just a short 100-foot swim from shore,

gaiola island's a tempting location

for curious beachgoers to explore.

But don't be fooled.

According to local legend,

it's best to stay well away,

because many believe this long-abandoned island

has been damned by a deadly curse.

Locals are terrified of this island.

Everyone who's owned this property,

whether they were on the island or not,

some type of tragedy occurred in their lives.

Whether it was losing a fortune or losing a family member

or going insane.

Whoever owned this island,

nothing but tragedy followed.

Gaiola island's forbidding reputation began

in the late 19th century,

when a successful local businessman

decided to build there.

The first owner of the island was Luigi negri.

He's the one that built the villa on the island

that is still there today but is abandoned.

He built it and then immediately went bankrupt.

It's not strange for a businessman to go bankrupt.

But in this case, it was a precursor

to a series of misfortunes that got worse and worse

over the course of the 20th century.

While gaiola island may or may not be responsible

for Luigi negri's financial collapse,

others who dared to make the isolated property their home

would suffer far worse consequences.

Another owner of the island

is hans braun, a businessman.

As soon as he takes up residence on the island,

his luck turns.

His body's found wrapped in a rug.

He's died under mysterious circumstances.

Soon after that, his wife falls off the island and drowns.

It was at this point where people started thinking

there's something more going on here.

Something supernatural.

A string of tragedies would continue to unravel

on gaiola island.

German perfume dealer Otto grunback

suffered a fatal heart attack

shortly after purchasing the property.

And madness and suicide put an end

to owner Maurice-yves sandoz,

a Swiss pharmaceutical industrialist.

Even gaiola's most famous proprietor,

American oil tycoon Jean Paul getty,

could not escape speculation

that the cursed island played a hand

in troubling events that surrounded his family.

Jean Paul getty owned this island.

And of course, his fortunes are legendary,

but so are his misfortunes.

Jean Paul getty's son commits suicide.

He has a younger son, at 12,

that contracts a fatal brain tumor.

And then, of course, there's the infamous case of his grandson,

John Paul getty III.

John Paul getty III was kidnapped by the Italian mafia

and then, over the course of the negotiations for his freedom,

had his ear cut off.

Eventually, he was freed for a little over $2 million.

But he would go on to suffer the effects of that kidnapping

for the rest of his life until a string of addictions

caused him to become a quadriplegic.

Could gaiola island really have the power

to doom the lives of those who call it home?

And if there is an evil energy

imbued in the exclusive property,

just where did it come from?

While it's impossible to say for sure,

some attribute it to an old hermit called "the wizard"

who was rumored to once reside there.

But others believe

the curse began more than 2,000 years ago,

in the first century bc,

when gaiola island was attached to the mainland

and part of a magnificent estate

that belonged to a cruel Roman politician

named publius vedius pollio.

Publius vedius pollio was

a member of the cavalry and the Roman army.

And he adopted this area,

this gorgeous posillipo area, for his own.

He had a 2,000-seat theater

and constructed an incredible villa

with gardens, fountains, sculptures,

and a spa complex.

Now, interestingly, pollio came from modest roots.

He was of slave stock himself.

And one would think this might make him

rather generously disposed to his own slaves.

But by all accounts, that was not the case.

He owned many slaves, and he treated them very poorly.

And in fact, whenever a slave displeased him,

the story goes that he fed them

to a pool of moray eels that he kept on the property.

Pollio was a friend of emperor Augustus,

which certainly helped his rise through the ranks.

Well, one day,

Augustus is visiting pollio at one of his villas,

and a slave is pouring wine in these crystal goblets.

The slave spills the wine.

The goblet crashes to the ground and breaks.

Pollio grabs the slave

and goes to drag him to this pit of moray eels,

where he's to be devoured alive.

The slave scrambles away,

throws himself at the feet of the emperor

and is begging. And pollio says,

"you can't beg for your life from the emperor. You're mine."

Augustus does not like this.

He breaks every crystal goblet in the entire house.

Soon after that,

Augustus took the villa and razed it to the ground.

And local legend has it that he cursed it.

And ever since then, there is a negative energy

that has certainly permeated the culture

and the minds of the people that lived there.

A century after Augustus destroyed pollio's estate,

a massive earthquake leveled a large section of the property,

causing it to collapse into the sea,

forever separating gaiola island from the mainland.

Are the traumatic events experienced

by the former landowners of gaiola island

merely coincidence?

Or is the rocky outcropping actually cursed?

It's hard to say.

And with its history of epic misfortune,

it may be a very long time before someone is brave enough

to tempt fate and live there once again.

Once a place is deemed cursed or...

Has some aura of dread about it,

it's really hard to get rid of that.

Even if you move the people away

or you chase away the source of the rumors

or you tear down the buildings that were supposed to house

the tragedies that happened, evil still remains.

About 500 miles south of gaiola island

is another, very different island of the damned,

an ancient place where some believe

giants once walked the earth, ready to grab anyone

who ventured into their cursed underground lair.

Just south of sicily in the mediterranean sea

is the island nation of Malta.

It's famous for its dazzling coastline,

stunning architecture, and fascinating history.

But perhaps most remarkable are the massive prehistoric

stone structures that can be found all around the islands.

These megalithic temples of Malta are some

of the oldest freestanding structures on earth,

and legend is... They were built by giants.

Maltese temple culture, as it's known

you legitimately could call their creations

the greatest engineering feats of the neolithic world.

They are put together painstakingly.

And what remains of the ruins above ground today

still towers 20 feet up.

And this was done 6,000 years ago

without the benefit of the wheel or metal tools.

It predates stonehenge and the great pyramids

by close to a thousand years.

And according to Maltese legend,

a giantess called sansuna

constructed these monumental temples

so that the local people could worship.

So when it comes

to understanding the Maltese temples,

there are traditions of giants constructing them.

These were 40 to 50 to 60-ton blocks

put together like Jigsaw pieces in a profound manner.

This is why many people believe

and say they were built by giants.

It's intriguing to think

that giants may have inhabited Malta thousands of years ago,

leaving behind enormous stone structures

that still mystify archaeologists and engineers.

But if the legends are correct,

these megalithic builders were menacing creatures

of great strength, who lived underground,

in a dark and dangerous world.

These were very strange, kind of mythical beings.

They even lived all across the island

where there were caves and underground areas.

It was said to be a place of darkness,

a place of death.

Could the islands of Malta be the home

of an ancient race of treacherous prehistoric giants?

Some experts believe a chilling clue may lie

within one of Malta's stone structures...

Deep underground.

In the small town of Paola,

workers digging the foundation

for a new home make a remarkable discovery.

They uncover the entrance to an ancient underground temple

extending deep beneath the surface.

It's called... the hypogeum.

"Hypogeum" means

literally "underground" in Greek.

It's an astonishing underground complex of halls,

corridors and passageways

hollowed out from limestone rock,

seemingly built beginning with natural caves.

And what archaeologists discovered there

astonished them.

It consisted of a number of burial chambers.

About 6,000 people are thought to have been buried there.

There's really nothing else like it

in the world that we know about.

People have suggested it may have been a tomb,

but no one really knows.

The hypogeum's got this weird energy about it.

And this could be why we hear all these very strange stories

associated with this place.

While some believe

the hypogeum is simply an underground cemetery,

a number of disturbing incidents have been reported here.

And perhaps the most shocking is a firsthand account

published in the journal of borderland research.

In it, thrill-seeker Lois jessop recounts a disturbing encounter

she had while exploring the dark depths

of the hypogeum in the 1930s.

Very strange story is that

of a British woman called Lois jessop

who actually worked for the British consulate.

And she went down there with a private guide.

She wanted to go further than you were allowed to go.

Lois wants to go down so far

and so dark and so deep

that her tour guide won't go with her.

So what he does is he ties a rope around her waist,

and she dangles down to a ledge.

All she has to light her way is a candle.

According to jessop's eyewitness account,

she found herself overlooking a wide chasm.

And suddenly,

a group of "20 persons of giant stature"

emerged from a cave across the abyss.

She sees men that she describes

as three times the size of normal men.

The candle's blown out.

She tugs the rope,

and they pull her back to the surface.

But what Lois saw could be evidence of the people,

the creatures that created those structures on that island.

Did Lois jessop encounter

the lost giants of Malta somewhere deep

within the island's hypogeum,

or was it something else?

While it's hard to say, perhaps a clue can be found

by examining the story of another chilling encounter

in the hypogeum's depths.

One that appears to indicate

that whatever is lurking down there

does not take kindly to strangers.

Another incredible story was published most notably

in the national geographic in 1940.

And it recounts a story

of about 30 school children going out on a school trip,

going into the hypogeum, but then getting lost

in some of the tunnels there, never to be seen again.

And it gets weirder because none of the children were ever found.

But people claimed they heard the screams

and yells of children all across the island

where there were known caves and underground areas.

So this suggests

that the hypogeum may have been an entrance

to an underground network of tunnels,

that stretches all the way underneath Malta itself.

And to this day,

we don't know what happened to those kids.

But these stories could suggest

that there is maybe something more down there,

something that we don't understand.

Maybe something hiding in the darkness.

And whether something is supernatural or not happening

in the hypogeum, you just get a feeling

there's something bad happening there.

Could the legends of giants

that dwell below the island of Malta really be true?

Whatever the case may be,

these massive creatures loom large

in local folklore.

But off the coast of venice, Italy,

there are two islands

with very different stories to tell,

tales of plagues, madness and even... vampires.

Founded in 421 ad,

this ancient port on the adriatic sea is renowned

for its renaissance architecture,

cobblestone alleyways,

and of course, its world-famous canals.

But among the 118 small islands

that make up this iconic city,

there are a few that have a much darker mystique.

Because many centuries ago,

several of these venetian islands

would be the grim home to thousands of people suffering

from the terrifying disease known

as the black death.

Venice is one of the major trading ports

in the middle ages and the renaissance.

And it was disproportionately affected

when black plague rolled through Europe,

initially in 1348,

killing 50% of the population of venice.

They had to quickly get control of this situation

because diseases were spreading like wildfire.

Venice was particularly susceptible to the black death.

They always had ships coming in

laden with strangers and people coming to their islands.

They were on islands, so once infection happened,

it was hard to get away from it.

And of course, they were built on the water

so it was hard to Bury the bodies.

In an attempt to contain the plague,

the government of venice directed all incoming ships

to dock on a number of its more remote islands,

where infected passengers could be isolated.

One of these was known as poveglia.

Poveglia was used

as quarantine island during the black plagues

that affected venice at various times throughout history.

So, what happened was, if you showed signs of sickness,

you would be taken to poveglia and given 40 days.

And you had two choices... get better or get dead.

And most people died on poveglia.

Poveglia was one

of the most notorious islands in venice.

And unlike other islands,

where they buried the dead in mass graves,

on poveglia, they appeared to have cremated human remains,

and just let the ashes lie where they fell.

To the extent that even today,

it is thought that half the topsoil is comprised

of human ashes from plague victims.

Historians estimate

that approximately 160,000 people died

on poveglia from the plague.

But the history

of this small island would only get darker

in the centuries to follow.

The cursed history

of poveglia island doesn't just stop at the plague.

In the late 19th century,

they built a mental asylum on the island.

The purpose of the mental asylum were various

to care for the elderly, the indigent,

those who needed help,

but according to the legends,

the asylum was run by a doctor who was sadistic.

He would torture the patients, he would experiment on them.

He would do these crude lobotomies with drills,

just to see what would happen.

Some say the inmates, fed up with all the pain

that they had gone through as a result of him,

pushed him off the bell tower.

So the island itself is a place of not being wanted, of rumors

and stories that scare you away from visiting it.

Today, poveglia is abandoned,

and locals claim it's still haunted

by the lingering spirits of those who suffered there.

Yet, poveglia isn't the only island

in the venice lagoon with a dark past.

During the plague outbreaks of 1573 and 1630,

two islands north of poveglia

lazzaretto vecchio and lazzaretto nuovo

also served as quarantine stations for the afflicted.

Since 2004, archaeologists have uncovered

thousands of skeletons on these islands,

including one especially disturbing discovery

on lazzaretto nuovo

the skull of a 16th-century woman,

whose jaws had been forced open

by a brick jammed in her mouth.

This particular skull was really interesting

because the brick inside its mouth is actually

from a germanic tradition

that is called "shroud-eaters."

And these are like vampires in a way,

and they spread pestilence and disease.

And the way, the prescribed manner

that you keep this particular type of vampire down,

is to shove a brick in their mouth,

and that will stop it.

Is it possible that 16th-century venice

was not only being terrorized by fears of the black death,

but the spread of vampirism, as well?

It's a disturbing notion.

And even today, the legacy of darkness

associated with these islands of the damned

is so deeply rooted

that people continue to avoid them...

Like the plague.

The fate of the islands today

is kind of astonishing,

given the congestion in venice overall.

They are just completely abandoned,

and people are forbidden from even setting foot on them.

And looking at it throughout history,

anyone who comes to these islands

is looking at a pretty grim outcome.

While the plague islands of venice have been vacant

for decades, many believe

that their disturbing history makes them some

of the most haunted places in the world.

And paranormal powers are also present in South America,

on another island where evil sorcerers are said

to inflict harm and misfortune on anyone

who dares to cross their path.

Off the coast of Chile in the pacific ocean

is an archipelago made up of about 40 islands.

And among them, there is one large island

that is brimming with frightening tales

of monsters and dark sorcery.

The locals call it "la Isla magic a,"

the magic island.

The world knows it as chilo�.

Chilo� island is this beautiful island,

as far away as you can get

and still be habitable as an island.

So it's no surprise

that a place like chilo� island would gather all these stories

of magic and the supernatural.

Despite its breathtaking scenery,

legends have persisted that chilo� is overflowing

with dark and dangerous magic.

So much so, that even the ancient inca

the mighty civilization that once had the largest empire

to ever exist in the Americas,

stretching from Colombia to southern Chile...

Avoided this island at all costs.

The inca were great conquerors and great empire builders,

the inca were great conquerors and great empire builders,

but they viewed this island

as a place where their own empire ended,

and a strange new world began.

Chilo� island was occupied from about 600 bce

by a people called the mapuche.

Mapuche beliefs were very much tied into the natural world.

That inanimate objects possessed spiritual powers

for good or for bad.

They believed in shape-shifting, magical creatures

who could be helpful to them,

but could just as easily turn on them

and cast spells, even curses.

These supernatural practices became a subject

of national concern when, in 1880,

a group of chilo� island mapuche were brought to trial

by Chilean officials.

Their crime? Murder and kidnapping

by use of poison and magic.

The accused were a group of men who claimed

to be part of a mysterious secret society of brujos,

or male witches,

known as "the righteous province."

So 1880, in Chile,

a group of male witches or warlocks

that they called "the righteous province"

constitute what is probably

the last big witch trial in the world.

And it was a weird one.

These people were on trial for black magic,

and for just generally terrorizing

this small island community for generations.

The righteous province

would do lots of different horrible things,

like extortion, murders, kidnappings and everything else,

but also, they would kill people

by inflicting magical wounds upon them.

These brujos were responsible for deaths,

for livestock mutilations.

It was rumored that they would take young girls,

feed them certain potions

that would make them turn into large, dark crows.

Those crows would do the deeds of the brujos,

and then come back and turn back into girls.

They were people to be feared.

According to the handwritten trial testimony,

the headquarters of the righteous province

was located somewhere near the coastal village of quicavi,

carefully concealed within a deep, dark cave.

And this cave was guarded by hideous monsters

that protected the brujos

as they engaged in diabolical rituals

and malevolent magic against the people of chilo�.

One of the beasts that was said

to have protected the cave entrance

was a goat-like being

that had bristles all over its body.

This was said to have been a human baby at birth

that then got transformed and manipulated

by magic, torture and sorcery.

It was also said that the other beast

that protected the cave was this grotesque being, so much so

that the only thing they fed it was human flesh.

Whether these were real or not, we really don't know.

But from the accounts that came forth,

it seems like something very strange was going on here.

Is it really possible that an evil coven

of warlocks terrorized the island of chilo�

from deep inside a cave of dark magic?

The whole truth remains elusive.

Even though we have the trial transcripts from 1880,

it's very difficult to tease apart fact and fiction

in this case.

But something clearly was going on.

This brujo society of men

doing bad things was real.

Were the brujos actually warlocks

who had the powers to change into other animals?

It doesn't really matter, does it?

People believed they did.

And faith is all it takes for people to fall in line.

The trial against the righteous province

saw many of their leaders imprisoned.

Some were put to death, shackled to a rock,

and drowned during high tide.

But even today, superstitious locals believe

that the dark magic of these evil sorcerers

is still present on chilo� island.

The idea was to control the brujos,

to incarcerate them, to get them out of the picture,

which they do.

But one of the by-products

of that trial was, all these details become part

of the lore of the island.

The legend of the brujos continues.

Whether those brujos are still there,

nobody really knows,

but belief is what makes curses strong

and what keeps them going.

Does a secret sect

of dark wizards still inhabit chilo�?

Well, the local people certainly believe they do.

But there's another island,

just across the river from New York City,

whose eerie reputation is not due to evil acts,

but rather... The haunting of lost souls.

More than eight million people live,

work and play in this iconic Metropolis,

making it the most populous city in the United States.

But just off the coast in long island sound,

there's a tiny, 131-acre outpost known as hart island.

With its pockets of trees and grassy fields,

hart island would seem to be free

of the hustle and bustle of the nearby city.

However, appearances can be deceiving.

Because this unassuming strip of land

actually has a larger population than most small cities.

The only difference is,

the residents of hart island are all dead.

New York City is divided into five boroughs.

Only one of those is on the mainland

that's the Bronx.

Now, from the Bronx, you can see a small island.

That is hart island.

If you're a Jane Doe or John Doe dying in New York City,

you get buried on hart island.

Hart island is the country's largest Potter's field.

Potter's fields are mass graves that are anonymous people,

people who were forgotten about,

people who didn't have family members to Bury them.

There are over a million dead bodies on hart island.

These burials are often unmarked

or they're in just mass burials.

But that's how this "island of the dead" was created.

Before hart island became new York city's island of the dead,

it was originally used in the mid-1800s

as a quarantine station, a military base,

and even a jail.

So how did it become a massive graveyard

for over a million people?

In the late 1860s,

there are lots of immigrants in New York City and around there.

And many of these people of course died.

Many of 'em were penniless.

And you have to Bury people somewhere.

Hart island became the city's Potter field

because the city was just growing.

And they just didn't have places to put

all the bodies in the city.

Most of the parks in New York are all ex-cemeteries

Bryant park, Washington square park.

So they started using hart island.

New York City's department of charities and correction

purchased hart island from a private owner in 1868

as a location for an industrial school for destitute boys.

Within a year, the first unclaimed body

was brought to the island and buried there.

Since then, hart island has become the city's cemetery

for everyone from unidentified union soldiers

killed during the civil war

to the victims of the Spanish flu in 1918,

the aids crisis of the 1980s, and, most recently,

the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than one-third of the people buried there

have never been identified.

Hart island in the past has sometimes been thought of

as a bit of a cursed place or a place with some foreboding.

Mostly just because it was kind of kept secret by the city.

They stopped all ferry service in the 1970s.

Rikers Island inmates were burying the bodies,

and nobody could actually go to hart's island.

So it started gathering this forbidden aura around it.

For decades, the cemetery was strictly off-limits

to the public.

But in 2023,

the city's department of parks and recreation

was given permission to lift restrictions

and open hart island

to tours and grave site visits.

Today,

hart island is at the beginning of a new chapter.

People are allowed to go there now.

People who just want to see this place of history.

It's becoming less secretive, more open.

The parks department now runs it,

just like any park in the city.

These days, hart island is becoming

a place for the living as much as it is for the dead.

The transformation of hart island from city cemetery

to public park is indeed remarkable.

Nevertheless, the fact that there are still hundreds

of thousands of unidentified bodies

resting beneath the surface is unsettling.

And it raises a fascinating question.

Can an island of the dead be brought back to life?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining another island

7,000 miles from New York City

that has become one of the most toxic places on earth.

In the middle of the pacific ocean,

thousands of miles away from solid land,

is a ring of 23 small islands known as bikini atoll.

It's a geological formation of coral reefs

that grew along the rim of an ancient volcano.

Once part of the U.S. territory known as the Marshall Islands,

this atoll surrounds a vast, 230-square-mile lagoon

famous for its deep blue waters.

From afar, it would appear to be a tropical oasis.

But almost 70 years ago,

a devastating event took place here.

Five, four, three, two, one.

On march 1, 1954,

the U.S. military detonated an explosion here

1,000 times more powerful

than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

It was a nuclear weapons test code-named castle bravo.

The castle bravo test was the largest thermonuclear test

that the United States ever did.

The scientists at the time thought it was gonna be

about a five to six-megaton explosion.

But when it went off, it was actually a 15-megaton explosion.

So it was much bigger than they thought it was gonna be.

Over the next decade,

bikini atoll would serve as the U.S. military's testing ground

for nuclear warheads.

In fact, from 1946 to 1958,

23 nuclear devices were detonated in the area

generating enough fallout to cover

more than 7,000 square miles in deadly radiation,

transforming this tropical paradise

into one of the most toxic places on earth.

The entire area basically became uninhabitable.

Bikini island itself was obviously just wasted.

But some of these other islands

had really, really bad nuclear fallout.

It started to "snow."

Of course, this wasn't snowflakes

this was nuclear fallout.

The water was full of radiation that people were drinking.

And they couldn't raise crops in the soils,

'cause those were still contaminated.

They were far too irradiated for human consumption.

It was all just the stuff of nightmares.

70 years after the United States completed its nuclear tests,

bikini atoll remains one of the most irradiated places on earth.

Many experts believed it would never be habitable again.

But recently, a team of scientists

from Stanford university

discovered something astonishing.

Life has apparently returned.

In 2017, scientists returned to the bikini atoll

and found that it's thriving.

It's teeming with life, with marine life.

There are coral reefs the size of cars.

Somehow life has found a way to keep building itself

in a radiation-rich environment.

You've got to think

that all of this nuclear testing in the pacific

is about the worst things humans have thrown

at an isolated island community.

And yet bikini atoll

showed just a crazy variety of marine life thriving.

We're talking schools of thousands of fish,

sharks and snappers, tuna.

The earth found a way to adapt,

to regenerate, to come back.

Is it possible that the return of life to bikini atoll

is an indication that the earth is reclaiming these islands

from human abuse?

And if so, could there also be hope

that the many other islands of the damned

will one day become healed as well?

Every island has its own spirit.

And with human interaction across the centuries,

negative energy can be embedded within an environment,

within a landscape.

It's almost like an invisible bloodstain.

So go there at your own peril.

Once one bad thing happens in a place,

bad things start to just happen

and kind of stack up there.

And then the superstition, I think,

embeds itself into the local culture.

But as we see in bikini atoll,

nature always finds a way to survive.

It's encouraging to think that life can return and flourish

in a place as damned as the bikini atoll.

And might that be the case for other islands that suffer

from dark forces, terrifying monsters,

or unimaginable misfortune?

It's certainly worth hoping for.

But for now,

if you ever decide to visit one of these sinister sites,

pay close attention to what the locals are saying.

Because the true dangers of these islands of the damned

remain... Unexplained.

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