5. The Vanishing Mayans
In around the 10th century AD, a whole vast empire that stretched from northern Central America to southern Mexico seemed to abruptly cease to exist and its people abandoned their large stone cities forever. They were the ancient city-states of the Mayan, whose people numbered in their millions.
No one knows exactly what happened to these people or why. There is evidence that a combination of drought, climate change, war, food shortages, and even disease contributed to their sudden downfall. But some theorists point to Mayan carvings that famously seemed to suggest a link with aliens and spaceships.
Whatever the cause, these highly sophisticated cities were swallowed up by the jungle and are only now being rediscovered with their magnificent pyramids and temples. An eerie reminder of a mysteriously vanished empire.
6. Oradour-sur-Glane – The Massacred French Village
This empty village is a testimony of the cruelty of the Nazi Waffen SS, who massacred virtually the entire population of this small rural village in 1944. Approximately 642 people were murdered (including 205 children) in retaliation for local partisan activity.
A lot of those murdered had been locked up in the local church. The Waffen SS soldiers had set the building ablaze and then opened fire on it with machine guns. There was just one survivor.
The village was never re-inhabited and has been left as a memorial. The ruined church lays untouched and rusting shells of cars still remain parked where they had been that fateful summer morning, nearly 80 years ago.
