Isla de las Muñecas — the Island of the Dolls in Mexico City's canals

The Isla de las Muñecas (Island of the Dolls) in the Xochimilco canals south of Mexico City is one of the most visually disturbing haunted locations in the world. The island is covered with hundreds of dolls — many decapitated, dismembered, or disfigured — hanging from trees, nailed to fences, and strung along clotheslines. The island was the work of Julián Santana Barrera, a hermit who lived on the chinampa (floating garden) for 50 years. According to legend, Santana found the body of a drowned girl in the canal shortly after he moved to the island, and a doll floating nearby. He hung the doll from a tree as a tribute to the girl's spirit, but she was not appeased. Over the decades, Santana collected and displayed hundreds more dolls, believing they would pacify the dead girl's ghost. He reportedly heard the dolls whispering to him at night. In 2001, Santana was found drowned in the same canal where he had found the girl — in the same spot. Since his death, visitors who travel by trajinera (gondola) to the island report that the dolls' eyes follow them, that the dolls change position between visits, and that whispered voices emerge from the trees. EVP recordings taken on the island have allegedly captured both a girl's voice and Santana's. The island's setting in the UNESCO-listed chinampas of Xochimilco, surrounded by the last remnants of the great Aztec lake system, connects it to the deepest layers of Mexican supernatural geography.