Published: 13:23 BST, 15 August 2026 | Updated: 13:55 BST, 15 August 2026
The abandoned Gold Rush town of Bodie is said to be one of the most cursed places in America.
According to local legend, anyone who removes so much as a rock, nail or speck of dust from the California ghost town will be struck by terrible misfortune.
Visitors have blamed stolen souvenirs for car accidents, severe illnesses, lost jobs and years of turmoil.
Some became so frightened that they mailed the objects back, accompanied by desperate letters begging the town for forgiveness.
Park employees have received so many of the confessions that a collection of them has been displayed in the Bodie museum.
One visitor admitted that their trail of misfortune was so long and depressing that they could not bear to list it.
Others warned that their lives began to unravel only after they dismissed the curse as harmless folklore.
But the sinister legend may have been created by a park ranger to frighten tourists into leaving the town's historic treasures untouched.
Anyone who takes home anything from the town falls victim to terrible ill luck
Bodie stands in the Bodie Hills, east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and close to California's border with Nevada.
The former mining settlement is now preserved in a state of 'arrested decay,' with buildings stabilized but not restored and interiors maintained largely as they were left by their last occupants.
The town is also reputedly haunted by several ghosts, including a Chinese woman, a mysterious figure who peers from an upstairs window and a little girl whose laughter can supposedly be heard in the cemetery.
Kieron Connolly, author of Abandoned Places, a book about some of the world's most mysterious abandoned locations, said Bodie's eerie emptiness made it fertile ground for supernatural stories.
Connolly told the Daily Mail: 'Whether you believe in the curse or not, you can see how the eerie emptiness of Bodie lends itself to the supernatural.