Florida is one of the world’s top tourist destinations with its sugary, white sand beaches, emerald waterways and sun-drenched vacation hot spots, but plenty of people don’t realize there are also dark forces at play in the Sunshine State.
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From a mysterious stretch of highway to an abandoned NASA launch complex, the state can lay claim to a few of the scariest ghost stories and hauntings ever recorded.
Here are the top haunted places in Florida:
1-The Don CeSar Hotel
St. Petersburg
The Pink Palace is one of the most recognizable hotels in Florida, if not the country. In operation since 1928, the Don has played host to "the world's elite, stars of the silver screen, renowned authors, baseball players, U.S. presidents and even a gangster or two," according to the landmark's web page. The stunning resort has spectacular ocean views, luxurious accommodations, and gourmet dining, but it also has a darker and stranger side.
The luxury resort is haunted, as least if you believe numerous visitor and staff accounts.
The hotel was constructed by Thomas Rowe, who is said to have built it as a monument to the love of his life, a beautiful Spanish girl from an aristocratic family, but the couple's love went unfulfilled when her parents spirited her away from the young American while he was visiting London in the late 1800s, according to writer Tom Williams.
Other weird goings on have also been reported at the Don, including unexplained door openings and showers turning on by themselves. A kitchen staffer once reported a sink full of dirty dishes mysteriously turned up clean and stacked in the middle of the floor when he was out for a break, Williams wrote in a story about the hotel. And in another incident, a maid refused to work on the fifth floor where Rowe once lived because of mysterious door knocking.
The Pink Palace was also used as a hospital for wounded soldiers during World War II and some people have reported hearing noises and, and even seeing a nurse from that era, at the Pink Palace.
2-Apollo 1 Launch Complex 34
Cape Canaveral
It's not hard to imagine that the desolate and abandoned Launch Complex-34 at Cape Canaveral is haunted. Actually, just one look at it is all it takes.
What's left of the windswept and barren former NASA launch site near the Atlantic Ocean, once a crown jewel in America's space program, is eerily deserted most of the time, with just the grim remains of the concrete launch platform and rusted steel left as reminders of its ill-fated history.
The lonely remains of NASA’s Launch Complex-34 at Cape Canaveral is all that’s left 50 years after a flash fire inside the Apollo 1 spacecraft on the pad killed three astronaust in 1967. Visitors and former Space Coast workers swear the grusome landmark is haunted. (Photo: The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Three astronauts, command pilot Gus Grissom, senior pilot Ed White and pilot Roger Chaffee died at the site in a flash fire, while trapped inside the Apollo 1 capsule in 1967, just two weeks before they were scheduled to blast off. NASA shuttered the complex in 1968. In the decades since, former employees and visitors have reported unusual occurrences at the site.