8 Forgotten Giants . . . . . .
1 – Lighthouse hidden in the sand
The lighthouse is on the top of Lønstrup Klint (cliff), 60 metres above sea level. Until 1908 it operated on gas which it produced from a gasworks on the site.
It ceased to operate on August 1, 1968.
The lighthouse was consumed by the moving sandmasses of a gigantic dune during the last 15 years. Up to the late 90s the lighthouse was a working one with a museum and a tea house attached. Nowadays there is only a ruin left of the once nice and impressive lighthouse.
Shifting sands and coastal erosion led to the buildings being abandoned in 2002.
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2 – The “American Star”
One of the most remarkable shipwrecks on record, the S.S. America was beached off the coast of the Canary Islands, after a storm broke the towlines from a tugboat dragging the ship near the coast of Morocco. After it beached, the America’s hull split in two, and the stern section eventually sank. An interesting note: locals from the Canary Island of Fuerteventura have ransacked the ship, and much of their home furnishings, etc. are former pieces of the great merchant liner. The bow of the S.S. America (actually called the American Star at the time of its demise) still remains beached about a mile from shore.
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3 – The church which stood over a sea of lava
On February 20, 1943, a volcano suddenly rose from the ground at the Mexican state of Michoacan, and buried two villages in lava and ashes. Today, 64 years after the eruption, the only trace of the villages is the church tower of San Juan Parangaricutiro, a little building which stood above a sea of rugged lava.
The church of San Juan is now a ghostly and abandoned ruin in the middle of nowhere. During the eruption, the lava flowed around and into the church, and covered 3/4 of the town. Just beneath the church, the old houses and buildings keep buried under the rocks.
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4 – Construction Crane Buried in Ice Sheet
In the mid 1960s, ITT built a power transmission line in Antarctica. The transmission towers stood 115 feet tall.
As you can see in this photo, all but the top 40 feet of the towers are now buried in ice, and the crane used to build the towers will soon be totally covered by ice
Not only are the power transmission towers being buried, so are the Antarctic research stations themselves.
The old Byrd Station has been shut down because it is buried beneath 40 to 50 feet of ice and snow and is slowly being crushed.
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5 – The incomplete Ryugyong Hotel.
If Dr. Evil was a real person, he would need a real hideout, and that real hideout may very well be The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea.
The giant dark monolith , has 105 floors, yet it is completely empty without a single window.
This is the striking (and huge) Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. It’s a 330-metre-tall pyramid-shaped building with 3,000 rooms, and was supposed to have 7 revolving restaurants, except they never actually finished it.
Newspapers estimated the cost of construction was $750 million – 2% of North Korea’s GDP – and it is generally assumed construction came to a halt in 1992 due to lack of funding, acute electricity shortages, and the prevailing famine.
The building itself is complete, however it has no windows, fixtures or fittings – which makes it officially the world’s Tallest Unoccupied Building! In fact, it’s the tallest building by far in North Korea, the 18th tallest building in the entire world, and if it were ever to be completed, would be the world’s tallest hotel.
The Ryugyong Hotel appears in the game
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, where a wanted North Korean official has turned it into a fortress. The building is destroyed with a bunker buster bomb.
Update: After 16 years Ryugyong Hotel is starting to get back to life. Egypt’s Orascom group has recently begun refurbishing the top floors of the tower. The company has put glass panels into the concrete shell and installed telecommunications antennas. South Korean estimations say that it would cost $2 billion to finish the hotel and make it safe, that is the same as 10% annual GDP of North Korea.
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6 – Maunsell Army Sea Forts
The Thames Estuary Army Forts were constructed in 1942 to a design by Guy Maunsell, following the successful construction and deployment of the Naval Sea Forts. Their purpose was to provide anti-aircraft fire within the Thames Estuary area. Each fort consisted of a group of seven towers with a walkway connecting them all to the central control tower. The fort, when viewed as a whole, comprised one Bofors tower, a control tower, four gun towers and a searchlight tower. They were arranged in a very specific way, with the control tower at the centre, the Bofors and gun towers arranged in a semi-circular fashion around it and the searchlight tower positioned further away, but still linked directly to the control tower via a walkway. All the forts followed this plan and, in order of grounding, were called the Nore Army Fort, the Red Sands Army Fort and finally the Shivering Sands Army Fort. All three forts were in place by late 1943, but Nore is no longer standing. Construction of the towers was relatively quick, and they were easily floated out to sea and grounded in water no more than 30m (100ft) deep
This forts saw action during the Second World War, and there is no doubt that they proved their worth. So much so in fact that anti-aircraft command called for the construction of more sea forts on the Thames in the immediate post-war period, and various new fort designs were put forward.
The Fort was dismantled in 1959, but the Red Sands and Shivering Sands Forts are still standing today. They have been used as pirate radio stations during the 60′s and 70′s, but since then have remained abandoned.
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7 – The Abandoned Pod City
The area is called San Zhi. There are no named architects since the whole site was commissioned by the government and several local firms. They were trying to create a posh luxurious vacation spot for the affluent and rich streaming out of Taipei. Now this is where things get weird. The local papers say there were numerous accidents during its construction, and as news spread to the urbanites of the island state, nobody wanted to vacation there, much less visit. Locals say the area is now haunted by those who died in vain and because they are not remembered, they linger there unable to pass on.
8 – Shipwrecks on the coast of Mauritania
The Bay of Nouadhibou, seven miles south from the Mauritanian city, hides one the biggest ship cemeteries in the world. There are more than 300 wrecks around the harbour, resting for years and coming from all nations.
A brief walk through Google Maps will show you hundreds of skeletons piled here and there, at the biggest collection of rusty giant ships you could ever imagine.
10 Spectacular Places Completely Abandoned
Abandoned Underground Nuclear Submarine Base
Straight out of a James Bond movie.
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Balaklava was one of the most secret towns in Russia. 10km south eas of Sevastopol on the Black Sea Coast, this small town was the home to a Nuclear Submarine Base.
Almost the entire population of Balaklava could not visit the town of Balaklava without good reason and identification. The base remained operational after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until 1993 when the decommissioning process started and the warheads and low yield torpedos were removed. Then in 1996 the last Russian Submarine left the Base, and now you can go on Guided tours round the Cannel System, Base and small Museum, which is now housed in the old weapons stowage hangers deep inside the hillside
Staten Island Boat Graveyard
Off the shore of Staten Island New York rests a veritable graveyard of decommissioned, scrapped, and abandoned ships of various sizes, ages, and states of decay. Things are constantly changing here; new boats are brought in and old ones are chopped up or sunk into the muddy banks of the harbor.
The beauty here is in the untouched rust and rotting wood, where weather and salt water accelerates the rate of decay, transforming these ships of the past into sculptures of steel rising from their watery grave.
NRL Satellite Facility
In terms of industrial archeology, this is very recent. The NRL Satellite Facility is only 40 years old – and derelict.
In the mid-1960s the Naval Research Laboratory built an experimental satellite-communications facility at a former Nike missile control site near (W-45). The facility contained a 60-foot parabolic dish antenna, transmitters, and a low-noise receiving system. It was also equipped fully for satellite tracking, data processing, and communications modulation experiments. The installation was completed in 1967.
The facility was used during the Vietnam War as part of a special operation called “Compass Link”, established by the Defense Communications Agency to pass high-quality target photography from Vietnam to Washington, DC. Compass link was established using two DSCSI satellites, providing two hops: Vietnam to Hawaii, and Hawaii to Maryland. From Maryland the imagery was transmitted by land line directly to the White House and the Pentagon. Compass Link was used extensively until the end of the Vietnam War.
The facility was decommissioned by the United States Government General Services Administration (GSA) and were publicly auctioned off in 1998 and then repurchased by a private investor in early 2000′s.
The right to demolish and scrap the dishes and other structures was auctioned off on ebay on March 13, 2005 for $136.20. The buildings have been demolished and removed. All that remains are the two dishes, some storage tanks and a bunch of concrete slabs.
Cincinnati’s Abandoned Subway System
The site of the country’s largest abandoned subway tunnel. The subway was built and never used, no track was laid and no subway cars were ordered. No passengers ever rode between the six stations that were built.
Stalin’s Lost Railway
Built under Stalin’s order in the middle of nowhere – deep inside Northern Siberia between Salekhard city and Igarka town.
It was not connected with any other Russian Federal Railway System and the purpose of it still is not very clear, so as a senseless toy it way abandoned pretty soon and now rusts accessible only with a helicopter.
California Aircraft Boneyards
Excellent photo set from West Coast aircraft boneyards, where the stable dry climate is perfect to mothball large items such as aircraft, outdoors. The most famous of these is not in California, but in the dry desert of Arizona near Tucson.
Battersea Power Station
Famous to many as the building that appears on the cover of Pink Floyds Animals.
Battersea power station was Designed by Gilbert Scott, who was also the architect of the Bankside power station that was developed into the Tate Modern, by Herzog and de Meuron. The superior architecture of Battersea has had a less successful outcome. Aggressive developers ripped out the beautiful art deco control room to try and turn it into a condo development in the 80′s.
Abandoned SFO
The abandoned International terminal at San Francisco International Airport.
This structure first opened in 1954 and was renovated and converted to international flights only in the early 80s. Closed since 2002 and sealed from the public when the new IT opened.
There’s still a few lights on, but most of the disco-era fixtures and furniture are gone
Abandoned Island Fortress
Fort Alexander sits abandoned on a man-made island off the shore of St. Petersburg. Constructed in the 1800s, the fort has over 100 cannon ports providing 360-degree defense. After the Crimean War it was initially used as a military storehouse before being converted by the Soviets into a dangerous plague research center due to its physical isolation from the mainland. The fort is now deserted and most of its interior objects have been stripped and metal has been melted down for other uses. Even now, however, visitors coming by boat (or snowmobile) are advised to wear a respirator and rubber boots.
Giant Soviet Excavation Machine
The abandoned Lopatino Phosphate Mines. Located close to the Voskresensk city (70 km from Moscow), the area is still famous for its fossil beds (and even dinosaur skeletons) from the Jurassic period
This is what they called heavy machinery in Soviet Russia. This giant excavation device was used for exploitation of phosphorus-field somewhere near Moscow and abandoned after the collapse of the USSR.
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