In some countries, there are isolated, lonely stone stairs in forests or national parks. Some were built a thousand years ago, others several centuries ago, and still others in the twentieth century.
A halo of mystery unites them all, since with rare exceptions it is not known what used to be in this place, who built a house or a tower far from civilization in the forest, and why only a staircase remained from them later (Paranormal News - paranormal-news.ru) …
There are many stories on the Internet associated with mysterious staircases leading to nowhere and located in the middle of the forest. These are mainly the so-called Urban Legends and we will touch on this topic below.
Etruscan stone steps
One of the oldest unusual forest stairs is the Etruscan pyramid of Bomarzo. This is a structure of incomprehensible purpose with several steps carved in stone from different sides at once.
Presumably the date of its construction is 700-400 BC and for what purpose this remote structure was built is impossible to say now. Scientists suggest that it was most likely a sacrificial altar.
Promotional video:
To find this "altar", you have to walk a long way through the forest of Bomarzo, so it was probably not a secret place for everyone. And that is why this structure was discovered quite recently in 1991, and they began to study only in 2008.
It is curious that although this complex of stairs was attributed to the Etruscan civilization, most of all it resembles a product of … Mayan culture. Also, although its official name is "Pyramid", this object is not pyramidal in shape. Unknown craftsmen very neatly hewed the edges of the huge megalith and cut steps in its sides.
Staircase in the jungle of Cambodia
Lost in the jungles of the Cambodian province of Siem Reap, a 600-meter liana-covered stone staircase neatly climbs up the slope of Phnom Kulen Mountain. Its name is Pleu Cere, but it is mainly used only by archaeologists.
The date of the creation of this staircase is approximately 9-13 centuries AD, however, this is only an estimated date, since it is not known what culture built this staircase and why. It may be several centuries older.
On Mount Phnom Kulen, there are also the ruins of the ancient city of Mahendraparvat, which is completely swallowed up by the jungle and maybe the stairs were the way to this city.
But in the same place on the mountain there are quarries, in which stones were mined for the construction of the Cambodian miracle palace Angkor Wat. So the staircase could have been built in the 12th century to ease the path of workers to the quarries.
Madame Sherry's stairs
In the depths of the forest of the British county of New Hampshire, near the city of Chesterfield, there is another stone staircase. From its appearance, one might think that it is also very ancient, but in fact it was built in the 1920s.
It was the idea of the Parisian singer Madame Antoinette Sherry, who dreamed of her own British "castle" as a summer house. Despite its modest size, the house ended up being very impressive, and the large stone staircase, made according to the traditions of the Middle Ages, was especially good in it.
The staircase was with Roman arches and led to the second floor of the "castle".
In this house, Madame Sherry was rumored to have thrown rich and noisy parties, but after a few years her income fell significantly and she could no longer afford to maintain the "castle".
And in 1962 there was a big fire here and the summer house burned down completely. All that was left of it was the stone staircase and foundation.
Nowadays Madame Sherry's stairs are quite a popular tourist attraction and people like to take pictures of themselves on the stone stairs. In their opinion, there is something mysterious here. And by the way, the cause of the fire in the "castle" was never found.
City's legends
Lost Time Ladder
This story was allegedly told by a certain tracker named Torkik, who was looking for people who disappeared in the Philippine jungle. One day, while searching for another missing person, Torkik stumbled upon two stairs in the wilds, leading somewhere up.
One staircase was made of a material imitating stone and with intricate patterns, the other was made of real stone. Torkik would not have climbed them at another time, but at that moment an angry-looking feral dog ran out to the stairs and Torkik quickly began to climb the steps of one of the stairs.
After waiting a couple of hours and finally waiting for the dog to run away, Torkik descended the stairs and returned to the base of the forest rangers. Everyone there looked at him with great surprise, and then someone said that he had been fired long ago. It turned out that Torkik had been absent for 5 years!
Disappearing stairs
This story was told by a man who worked as a specialist in infectious diseases in animals in the 1940s. He was once asked to participate in a disease analysis project in a forested area that was supposed to take a couple of weeks at most, but then stretched out over 6 years.
Most of this time, the specialist lived in a forest camp and other project participants from time to time reported that they observed strange wooden stairs in the forest, as if from burned down houses, which seemed to emit signals at a rare frequency.
Once, several researchers set up a temporary camp 30 meters from such a ladder, and when they woke up in the morning, they found that the ladder was gone. And in the place where she was in the evening, a large coal spot was found, as if from something burned out.
The ghost staircase in Sweden
Two Swedish students named Isaac and Axel once went on a forest hike and stumbled upon a clearing in the middle of which there was a lone staircase leading to nowhere. They were puzzled what she was doing here, and then decided to climb to the very top.
At that moment, when they were on the very last top step, both heard an eerie heart-rending cry and he did not stop. In a panic, both guys rolled down the stairs and ran away. And when they stopped to rest a little later, Axel felt someone put a hand on his shoulder.
The young man turned around and saw no one, and Isaac was standing in a completely different direction and could not do it. According to Axel, the touch was very cold.
Killer ladder
This story was posted on Reddit on behalf of a young park ranger who had not yet completed his training as a ranger. Once this guy and an older ranger stumbled into the thicket of the forest on a lonely wooden staircase. They thought it was weird and then the senior ranger decided to climb the steps.
Having reached the top, he accidentally touched a tree branch and at that moment something with lightning speed … cut off his hand. The brush fell down the stairs and was never found, and the senior ranger nearly bled to death as the young man sought help.
Later in the same park, another ranger saw a lonely staircase and a female tourist who decided to climb it. Upstairs nothing happened to her, but when she went downstairs, she suddenly fell down dead. When she was taken to the hospital, the pathologist discovered that she had a ruptured aorta (aneurysm).