Inside abandoned UFO-shaped holiday park ‘haunted by a dragon’ that’s been left to rot after string of mystery deaths

A STRANGE holiday park with pods shaped like UFOs has been left to rot after a series of mysterious deaths and suicides.

Bizarre conspiracy theories surround the Sanzhi Pod City in Taiwan – built in 1978 for rich holidaymakers and abandoned just two years later.

Alamy

The holiday park was once filled with brightly coloured UFO-shaped pods[/caption]

AFP

Sanzhi Pod City was designed for military officers posted to Taiwan from the US, and wealthy holidaymakers[/caption]

AFP

Built in 1978, the site was abandoned just two years later and left to rot[/caption]

Several workers on the site reportedly committed suicide despite never showing any signs of being depressed.

Others also died in car accidents on a street close to the resort.

Some conspiracy theories suggested the park had been cursed because of a Chinese dragon sculpture that was broken.

The large concrete dragon apparently sat at the entrance of the site and stories have swirled that someone destroyed it in order to widen the path.

Dragons are considered symbols for success and good luck in many Asian cultures, sparking rumours that its destruction brought the opposite.

And the dragon was not the only “ghost” at the resort.

Others suggested the park – also intended as a holiday bolthole for military officers – was built above a graveyard full of Dutch soldiers.

Some construction workers even said they saw creepy spirits during the project.

Many of them apparently believed they were the spirits of men protecting the land.

And rumours even swirled that 20,000 skeletons of 17th-century Dutch soldiers were discovered there.

On top of that the materials used were poor and not earthquake-proof.

And the oddly-shaped pods were so expensive, most of them couldn’t be sold.

For years the homes, once painted in bright colours of red, purple, blue and yellow sat wasting away.

The grass on the lot became overgrown, the water in the pools filthy and the windows smashed.

Graffiti was scrawled over the dismantled attractions and walls crumbled to rubble.

For a time people visited the supposedly haunted site to see for themselves if the rumours were true.

After rotting for years on the holiday lot, the buildings were finally knocked down completely in 2010.

But it wasn’t the only abandoned holiday destination that was once built with big hopes.

Buried in the jungle on an idyllic island in Bali lies a seven-storey cruise ship once refurbished to make a luxury hotel.

Now abandoned, it has been left to rot in the tropical paradise where locals have dubbed it a “ghost ship”.

The pods were not built with the best materials and were thought to not be earthquake-safeAlamy

The windows of the odd houses were smashed up over the years as it went uninhabitedAlamy

The doomed holiday spot quickly became a dark tourism attractionAlamy

AFP

Workers said they saw ghosts during construction, with many believing they were the spirits of soldiers protecting the land[/caption]

The site was destroyed in the years after it was left to rot – with glass and debris everywhereAlamy

Eventually in 2010 the remaining buildings were knocked down