There were quite a few people who have seen events which make no sense. We call these events paranormal today, but in the future we could be calling them quantum events because we are discovering some very strange things as we investigate quantum science. One type of event which I am talking about has to do with people seeing things which happened in the past. There have been many reports of people in Italy who have toured the catacombs. The catacombs are underground areas and tunnels where the ancient Christians used to worship to avoid being captured practicing the Catholic religion. Quite a few of these people have made an astounding claim. They state they have seen a group of Roman soldiers led by a commander riding a horse coming down the tunnels and then disappearing. It seems this sight is more like a movie than anything else since it seems to repeat in exactly the same way every once in a while.

The catacombs in Rome were mostly built not by the Romans, but by a race which was there before them known as the Etruscans. These catacombs were expanded by the Christians when they decided they would make a good hiding place. There was some pretty gruesome practices in the old days which would be totally unacceptable today and some believe these practices led to the catacombs becoming haunted. An example of these practices was using human bones to create archways and standing up human skeletons against the walls. There are no human bones left, because they have been removed and one of the reasons for this removal is the fact tourists would take them as souvenirs. I think this seems pretty gross to most of us today. There has been a lot of paranormal activity recorded in the catacombs. People claim to see ghosts and poltergeist activity has been reported. When we talk about poltergeist activity we are talking about things moving, people being touched then pushed and various other physical events. Voices have been heard in the catacombs when nobody else was in there.

There are many other places which have catacombs inside Italy. Another famous place in Italy for catacombs is that Capuchin catacombs in Palermo. The reason it is called Capuchin is this set of catacombs was originally designed to house the dead bodies of the Capuchin monks. As time went by others were allowed to be buried there and eventually it became a status symbol for your family to be allowed to be buried in the Capuchin catacombs. There are over eight thousand bodies there and they line the walls. Bodies assume all different poses. Many reports have been received from people who have gone through these catacombs and have come out of them a bit shaken. One of the things which has been reported is skeletons have moved and taken up different poses. Noises are heard by some including whispering and even whistling. The first body was put into these catacombs in 1599 and the bodies which the catacombs contain are in different stages of decomposition. Personally I don’t see why anybody would want to see this, but to each his own.

If we are talking about underground areas in Italy where tourists have reported seeing paranormal events, no report would be complete without talking about the Museum of the Mummies of Ferentillo. There is a church in Italy named the Church of Santo Stefano. What makes this church so strange is the fact it has an underground chamber where people were buried and where a fungus prevented some of the decomposition of the bodies. Bodies date back about four hundred years and some of them still have their hair and skin. The area contains about twenty bodies which become mummified. I am sure this display of bodies has made a lot of tourists uneasy and in some cases have made their imaginations run wild. I haven’t checked the paranormal experiences people have had at the church, but I am sure there was quite a few.

Moving on, we find another place in Rome which claims to have a tortured history. This site is called the Museum of Purgatory. There is a small church near Sacra Cuore Suffragio near the Castle Sant’Angelo in the center of Rome. The Museum has only one room and that room is called the Museum of Souls in Purgatory. Those who have seen it claim it was able to capture souls who were begging people to pray for them, because they were trapped between heaven and hell. On display are prayer books with handprints burned into them and many different photographs.

Everybody knows about Venice. It’s a beautiful place with many waterways where people travel by boat from one area to the other. What many people don’t know is a forbidden Island sits in the Venetian Lagoon. It is close to tourist’s areas and thus gained the name of forbidden island, but its real name is Poveglia. Originally the island had been cursed by a witch who stated it will never be inhabited again. People then refused to live there, but eventually people who died from the Black Death were buried there. It became a place where passengers from ships who had the black plague was sent to. Later it became a mental hospital. So far this island has all the makings of a horror film and coincidentally it is said to be one of the most haunted places in the world. A Doctor was found torturing and butchering patients in the hospital there and since the island was being used records indicate at least 160,000 people died there. It is one of the places in the world which has the highest amount of deaths per square meter. It is said the island is haunted by the people who died there and many have reported hearing their screams as they passed by the island.

Italy is riddled with places which are said to be connected with the paranormal. The fact Italy has a long history which goes back far before the Romans helps to contribute to these types of stories. Can people be influenced by legends and believe they are seeing and hearing things which they are not, because they are extremely frightened at the time? It certainly has been known to happen. I am not saying everyone who claims to have heard or seen something which borders on the paranormal is imagining it, but there is a good possibility some are due to different factors such as fright, mental illness and just mistaken sights.