Bird Suicide Grounds of Jatinga, India

Jatinga is a small village located in Assam, a state in northeastern India, Commonly known as valley of death for birds.

that small village of Jatinga in north of India seems like any other quiet, isolated village in the world except for one reason…every year around the months of September and October hundreds of birds dive to their deaths within its city limits.

During these late monsoon months, several migratory and local birds commit mass suicide at the village.

Just after sunset, between 7 and 10 pm, hundreds of birds descend from the sky, plummeting to their deaths by crashing into buildings and trees.

Locals believed that evil spirits living in the skies were responsible for bringing down the birds, but that isn’t true.

Various studies have been conducted to unravel the causes behind this phenomenon.  The record maintained show that 44 species have been attracted to the light sources. It has been established that the birds are not attracted to the entire Jatinga Ridge but only to a well-defined strip, 1.5 km long and 200 metres wide. Invariably the birds come in only from the north and attempts at placing the lights on the southern side of the ridge to attract the birds have failed. Another interesting fact has been brought out is that no long distance migratory bird gets attracted to the light traps. The victims are resident birds of the adjacent valleys and hill slopes.  

Wildlife and bird societies in India have gone to the village to educate them about the phenomenon in an attempt to stop the mass killings of the birds. Since then bird deaths have decreased by forty percent. Government officials in Assam are hoping to use the phenomenon to attract tourists to the small city, and some work has gone into creating accommodations for visitors in Jatinga.

Jatinga is not the only place in the world where such weird behaviour of birds is noticed. This phenomenon is also seen in Philippines, Malaysia and another state of India Mizoram.

Bannerman Castle - Pollepel Island, New York

About 50 miles north of New York City, and only a thousand feet from the Hudson River's eastern shore, there is a small, rocky island named Pollepel. On it stands what appears to be a crumbling Scottish castle. It is indeed the remains of an empire.

Francis Bannerman VI purchased the island in 1900 for use as a storage facility for his growing surplus business. After the Spanish-American War Bannerman bought 90% of the US army surplus, including a large quantity of ammunition. Because his storeroom in New York City was not large enough, and to provide a safe location to store munitions, in the spring of 1901 he began to build an arsenal on Pollepel

The castle, clearly visible from the shore of the river, served as a giant advertisement for his business. On the side of the castle facing the eastern bank of the Hudson, Bannerman cast the legend "Bannerman's Island Arsenal" into the wall. Construction ceased at Bannerman's death in 1918. In August 1920, 200 pounds of shells and powder exploded in an ancillary structure, destroying a portion of the complex. After the sinking of the ferryboat Pollepel, which had served the island, in a storm in 1950, the Arsenal and island were essentially left vacant. Once an uninhabited place, accessible only by boat, it was considered haunted by some Indian tribes and thus became a refuge for those trying to escape them.

Hellingly Hospital (The Lost Asylum), England

Hellingly Hospital (The Lost Asylum), England

Sitting on top of a hill oversight the East Sussex Countryside sits the battered remnant of Hellingly hospital, Formerly Hellingly Asylum. If the name of this English hospital isn’t enough to persuade you of its creepiness consider the fact that it’s not really a hospital at all. It’s actually an insane asylum; or rather it was an insane asylum before being abandoned several years ago. It was built close to the small village of Hellingly, in South West England.

That East Sussex County Asylum of Hellingly was designed by leading Victorian architect GT Hine and built to a late Victorian design during a period of huge extension for mental health facilities in Britain.it was built with the concept that relaxing views and extreme isolation were beneficial to psychological cure, the asylum's remote location was to provide the patients with a relaxed and isolated setting (ideal for rehabilitation) and to create a world far removed from the officious eyes of daily life outside the hospital walls.

Somehow something went 'wrong' with the design of Hellingly, and Hine produced the plans for a spectacularly decorated theatre, maybe something to do with the hospital being towards the end of his career or maybe he just woke up in a frivolous mood that day. Hellingly's main hall remains the hospital's centerpiece, an adjoining point at which every sprawling corridor can find its way from.

Patients & staff used to live under the same roof in the many red bricks buildings linked by closed hallways, and offering "therapeutic" and relaxing views on the surrounding quiet and green countryside.

The hospital, as with most from the Victorian era, was fully self-sufficient and the hospital's program ensured that patients from all over the site were allocated various jobs in the hospital such as the farming, laundry work or grounds keeping. An onsite railway station with an electric tramway provided the hospital with additional supplies and visitors but was closed in the 1950s due to high upkeep costs.

The capacity of the hospital was originally deemed at 700 patients, although wards were packed with 1,250 by 1955. The overcrowded conditions led to beds in hallways and a general decline in the quality of care, until the Mental Health Act of 1959.

A medium-security unit called Ashen Hill was added in the mid-1980s; however the main hospital campus was slowly closing. It was eventually shuttered in 1994 with the exception of Ashen Hill. A housing complex eventually replaced the abandoned hospital around 2012.

The Hospital today has suffered over 10 years of remissness badly; arson has destroyed several buildings most remarkable the administration block. Vandals have been removing all the windows; the easier to access ground floor areas have received the brunt of these attacks.

Despite the harshness of destruction and chaos systematically inflicted on the buildings by time and man, but a few hidden gems tucked away in remote parts of the site still remain.