Centralia, PA
(The Real Silent Hill)

I've been to many fascinating ghost towns over the years, & this haunt was certainly no exception - the real Silent Hill 🔥 🤘
Formerly known as Centralia, PA it has been on fire from a coal mine below since 1962. It was 1st noticed in 1979 when a gas station owner there was checking the levels of the underground tanks & they seemed extraordinarily hot. After lowering a thermometer, to his complete shock the gasoline was 172F/78C degrees!
It wasn't until 1981 that things really started escalating when a 12 year old boy fell into a giant sinkhole billowing toxic steam that suddenly opened beneath his feet. Since then the whole town has been abandoned aside from 5 people who fought to remain. Most all the buildings have been demolished, the road sign removed, it no longer has a zip code & the land has been reclaimed by the forest. Passing by on the freeway you would never know a town was there, it has all but been erased aside from a few cemeteries, a church & a series of steam pipes embedded in the ground.. an unintentional monument to its troubled past as it still continues to burn. It is said that a priest who was attacked there in 1869 cursed it & is now the gateway to Hell. Indeed the very place that inspired "Silent Hill" & a few other movies as well. There have been multiple reports of shadowy figures appearing & floating around and what I found fascinating was that when I looked it up on the gps, it still had all the now nonexistent streets & buildings listed as I walked through the overgrowth. Like some kind of parallel dimension, almost as if the town itself were a ghost.