The Devil’s name has seeped into countless objects, legends, and locations around the globe. From eerie rocks to haunted furniture, these ten spooky spots prove how the infamous figure continues to inspire chilling stories and curious travelers.

Objects Legends That Echo the Devil’s Name

10 San Juan, Puerto Rico

Sitting on the northern tip of San Juan, the historic Castillo San Cristóbal once guarded Puerto Rico against pirates and later saw action in the Spanish‑American War. Among its many stories, a 17th‑century legend tells of a lone guard named Sanchez who loved to strum his guitar while on watch.

One night, during roll call, Sanchez didn’t answer. His comrade called his name again, but only silence returned. When the watchmen finally investigated, they found Sanchez’s rifle and clothes, but the soldier himself was nowhere to be seen. Some claimed they smelled sulfur and discovered his garments singed, insisting the Devil had taken him.

In the days that followed, other soldiers reported hearing the faint echo of guitar strings drifting from the empty sentry box, sometimes accompanied by a low, demonic laugh. The mystery of Sanchez’s disappearance still haunts the fortress.

9 Glossop, England

Between Glossop and Woodhead, the B6105 twists around a sharp curve known locally as the Devil’s Elbow. Legend says the bend marks the spot where a forbidden couple met, only to draw the Devil’s wrath.

When the lovers reunited, the Devil materialised and chased them across the moor. As he lunged for the woman, his bent arm supposedly turned to stone, snapped off, and was flung into the road, creating the notorious curve.

8 Normandy, France

The medieval tale of Robert the Devil emerges from 12th‑ or 13th‑century lore. Desperate for an heir, the Duke and Duchess of Normandy turned to the Devil, who birthed a son—Robert Le Diable. Inheriting his father’s malevolence, Robert grew into a ruthless brigand, leading raids that even claimed seven hermits.

When his conscience finally stirred, his mother revealed his infernal origins. Determined to atone, Robert abandoned his comrades, journeyed to Rome, and was guided by a hermit who prescribed a penitent path: feign madness, argue with dogs over food, and live as a humble fool.

His fortunes shifted when an angel supplied him with armor, enabling him to fight the Saracens and rescue Rome. Rewarded with a crown and the emperor’s daughter’s hand, Robert married, returned to Normandy, saved his mother from a tyrant, and later avenged his father‑in‑law’s murder. He and his wife eventually had a son named Richard.

Today, the ruins of Château de Robert le Diable—also called Château de Moulineaux—stand near Rouen, a tangible reminder of this dark legend.

7 Aukštadvaris, Lithuania

The Devil’s Pit plunges deep within Lithuania’s Aukštadvaris Regional Park. Archaeologists trace human presence back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, yet the pit’s true origin remains a mystery.

Two popular theories compete: a glacier once draped the area in rock, melting to leave a cavernous void, or a powerful waterfall, fed by the same meltwater, carved the pit through relentless force.

Local folklore adds a chilling twist: the Devil is said to have hosted a midnight feast inside the pit, and travelers report eerie screams echoing from its depths after dark.

6 Las Vegas, USA

Zak Bagans’s The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas showcases a notorious piece of furniture: the Devil’s Rocking Chair. Its provenance is murky, but the Glatzel family acquired it in the 1950s, soon after which two family members fell under demonic influence.

In 1980, 11‑year‑old David Glatzel awoke terrified, describing a beast‑like apparition with hooves, horns, and razor‑sharp teeth. His mental state deteriorated as the creature—dubbed “the Beast”—appeared everywhere, especially in the rocking chair, which was often seen moving on its own.

A priest’s exorcism only enraged the spirit. Legendary investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren intervened, ultimately freeing David’s soul. Yet the curse persisted: David’s sister’s fiancé, Arne Johnson, experienced a similar possession, culminating in a murder. He was convicted and served five years.

The chair remains on display, and museum staff report strange occurrences whenever it’s moved. Visitors are warned to tread carefully.

5 Blythburgh, England

On August 4, 1577, a violent storm battered Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh, Suffolk. Lightning repeatedly struck the spire, causing it to collapse through the roof onto the congregation.

Amid the chaos, a massive black dog—known as Black Shuck—allegedly appeared, leapt onto worshippers, then vanished down the nave, leaving behind deep, claw‑like scratches on the wooden doors. Locals dubbed these marks “the Devil’s Fingerprints.”

Modern researchers suggest the marks were likely made with a taper or candle, perhaps intended as protective symbols against evil rather than evidence of demonic activity.

4 Glenreagh, Ireland

Rising in County Tipperary, the Devil’s Bit is a striking gap where a rock formation seems to have been bitten away. Legend claims the Devil took a bite out of the mountain, breaking a tooth that later turned into the Rock of Cashel, 20 miles to the south.

Geologically, the gap is simply an oddity, but the mythic aura endures. In 1789, an 8th‑century manuscript known as the Book of Dimma was reportedly discovered near the Devil’s Bit, adding another layer of intrigue.

3 Island of Sanday, Scotland

On Scotland’s Sanday island, the ruins of the Lady Village’s parish church reveal a stone scarred with massive claw‑like gouges. According to legend, a minister who preached against sin was himself guilty of adultery.

One night, after leaving his lover’s house, the Devil awaited him, ready to drag the priest to hell. The minister slammed the church door shut, trapping the Devil outside. In a fury, the Devil scratched the stone, leaving the infamous claw marks.

2 Craighat, Scotland

Deep within Scotland’s Finnich Glen, a mushroom‑shaped rock sits beside blood‑red water, earning the nickname “the Devil’s Pulpit.” Folklore says the Devil used the stone as a platform to address his followers.

Other tales speak of secret Druid gatherings and witch executions at the site. The crimson hue of the water isn’t supernatural—it results from red sandstone beneath the surface, yet the atmosphere remains undeniably eerie.

1 Wyoming, USA

Carved by the Sweetwater River, the Devil’s Gate is a 1,500‑foot limestone passage in Natrona County, Wyoming. In the 1800s it guided fur traders and emigrants on the California, Oregon, and Mormon trails.

One story attributes the name to a series of murders, but an 1843 New Orleans reporter suggested a more mythical origin. According to legend, a savage beast thwarted Native hunters, prompting a brave warrior to confront it. The enraged creature allegedly tore the rock passage with its tusks, creating the gate.

With the advent of modern transport, the trail fell into disuse. The land was later purchased by a Mormon church, which now operates a visitor center that educates travelers about the historic passage.

In 1972, Scottish biologist Ivan T. Sanderson described a new geography of the globe: an “energetic planetary grid” based on twelve ‘vile vortices’ or ‘devil’s graveyards’ where “funny things happen”. The Bermuda Triangle was the first on his list. According to Sanderson, hot and cold air and sea currents in this and other regions create electromagnetic anomalies that ultimately cause ships and planes to fail.

Numbering six in the northern hemisphere and six in the south, the vortices mostly lie in the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The only two that don’t are the North and South Poles, but Sanderson himself was dismissive of these. 

While the theory seems kooky, it didn’t come from nowhere. It was actually part of a wider parallel “science”. In fact, it seems to have elaborated on copies of two “ancient” maps – the Piri Reis and Buache – found in 1929 but dated (allegedly as copies of earlier versions) to 1523 and 1737 respectively. These featured similar geometry to Sanderson’s, as well as a detailed survey of Antarctica not possible until 1958. In turn, Sanderson’s theory inspired many others – like the three Soviet scientists who added 50 more sites to his list.

OK, so it is kooky. But as alternative science and history grow in popularity, you may hear a lot more about it. Agree with him or not, here’s a quick primer on his ten devil’s graveyards – listed in the order he found them.

10. 26.57 N 76.80 W (The Bermuda Triangle)

Known for its turbulent, unpredictable weather patterns and disappearing ships and aircraft, the Bermuda Triangle is the best studied site on this list. It’s the one that got Sanderson thinking. Although the official line – which refuses to even acknowledge the Bermuda Triangle – says there are no more disappearances here than anywhere else, there are many strange things about it. For example, true and magnetic north sometimes align in the region. It’s also the source of many hurricanes and, while much of it is shallow, parts around Puerto Rico are the deepest in the whole Atlantic. In any case, Sanderson had just one incident in mind: Flight 19. 

On December 5, 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers vanished without a trace shortly after taking off from Fort Lauderdale. Allegedly, the pilots were able to maintain radio contact with each other for a time – and could be heard wondering where they were and why the ocean looked wrong. A Martin PBM Mariner dispatched to find the missing aircraft also disappeared – according to Sanderson, within 15 minutes.

Although “debunked” by Larry Kusche, Flight 19 was almost two decades before the words “Bermuda Triangle” came into use. An even earlier incident in March 1918 saw the unexplained (to this day) disappearance of Navy collier USS Cyclops – the wreckage of which has never been found.

9. 26.57 N 139.2 E (The Devil’s Sea)

The next site to get Sanderson’s attention lies off the east coast of Japan. Also known as the Formosa or Dragon’s Triangle, the Devil’s Sea sits at the intersection of three ocean ridges. Like the Bermuda Triangle, it has – allegedly – been the site of numerous disappearances, attributed by Sanderson to hot and cold currents.

The most famous was the research vessel the No. 5 Kaiyo-Maru, which disappeared in September 1953 along with its 31 crew members. But, as Skeptoid points out, since it was in the vicinity of an erupting underwater volcano – and debris from the wreckage was found – this isn’t that much of a mystery.

That said, other ships – including military and fishing vessels – are also said to have vanished. For example, Sanderson was surprised when, appearing on The Dick Cavett Show to debate his theories with skeptic Arthur Godfrey, the latter had his own tales to share. Among them were firsthand reports of instrument failure while flying over the region.

8. 26.57 N 4.8 W (Algerian Sahara)

At Tindouf, Algeria – on the edge of a dune sea – lies the next devil’s graveyard on the list. Linked to “mysterious plane disappearances over the Sahara,” this oasis rich in minerals is where many birds spend the winter.

The specific location varies depending on the source, with El Eglab (300 kilometers southeast) and the mysterious Jedars – the Algerian pyramids or megaliths – (1400 kilometers northeast) being the most commonly mentioned. Considering the size of the Bermuda Triangle, though (at least 805,000 sq. km.), this actually does make sense. 

In fact, Sanderson’s interest in the region was originally piqued by reports of two submarines and four small vessels disappearing in the Mediterranean – not in the Sahara but off the north coast of the country.

7. 26.57 N 67.20 E (Pakistan)

Shortly after identifying the Algerian “vortex,” Sanderson got a letter saying planes carrying gold were disappearing over Afghanistan. Some of the gold had been found but there was still no trace of the planes. Of course, this being the Afghani-Pakistan border, it was hardly a case for The X-Files. But what was surprising was that the sender of the letter had no idea Sanderson was looking into this stuff. Needless to say, the coincidence led Sanderson to his next devil’s graveyard. 

Centered on the Sindh-Balochistan border north of Karachi, Pakistan, the area he settled on isn’t too far south (100 kilometers or so, as the crow flies) of Mohenjo-Daro – an ancient capital of the Indus Valley Civilization. Although he didn’t mention it in his article, the “lost city” – obviously once luxurious and powerful despite its absence of palaces or temples – remains a mystery to archaeologists. We still don’t know who lived there, or why, around 1900 BC, they seem to have disappeared. Allegedly, model aircraft have also been found in the city.

Proximity to Mohenjo-Daro aside, though, this site was chosen mainly because it fit the emerging pattern of Sanderson’s planetary grid. Interestingly, it’s also linked by a fault line to the Algerian devil’s graveyard.

6. 26.57 N 148.80 W (Hamakulia volcano, Hawaii)

References to “Hamakulia volcano” appear solely in articles about Sanderson. It doesn’t exist in the real world. In fact, there’s no known volcano by any name at the coordinates for this vile vortex. Nevertheless, having identified four sites along the 26.57°N line of longitude – each separated by 72° – the next one had to be here.

Allegedly planes have disappeared over this region. Arthur Godfrey from The Dick Cavett Show once told Sanderson that an experimental flight he was meant to be on but missed vanished while he followed by radar. And a pilot flying a plane full of passengers over the zone claimed to have lost comms for 560 kilometers. When contact finally returned, he was shocked to be told that no time had passed whatsoever.

Intriguing as these tales are, Hawaii’s volcanoes are mysterious enough as it is. We still don’t really know how they form. Being in the middle of the Pacific Plate, thousands of kilometers from any fault lines, they don’t fit with what we know about how volcanoes form.

5. 26.57 S 40.80 W (The South Atlantic Anomaly)

Turning his attention to the southern hemisphere, Sanderson placed his next vortex southeast of Rio de Janiero. The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), the point where the Earth’s magnetic field is at its weakest, is – unlike the Bermuda Triangle and so on – officially recognized as a place where “funny things happen”. NASA has called it a “pothole in space”. It’s where charged particles from the Sun are able to penetrate closer to the surface and, as a result, cause problems for orbiting spacecraft.

Instruments aboard the International Space Station, Skylab, NASA space shuttles, and SpaceX’s Dragon craft are all prone to glitches and premature aging. The Hubble Space Telescope is also affected, spending nearly 15 percent of its orbit here. Even astronauts have issues – reporting weird ‘shooting stars’ in their vision.

Although the anomaly seems not to affect life on the surface, Sanderson claimed to know of “alarming disappearances” in the region. It also appears to be growing. According to NASA, the SAA is “expanding westward” and splitting into “two lobes, creating additional challenges for satellite missions.” 

4. 26.57 S 31.20 E (Eswatini, formerly Swaziland)

Though focused on the Eswatini town of Luyengo on the Maputo River, this devil’s graveyard has been linked to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe – 900 kilometers to the north. It’s unclear what “alarming disappearances … off the southeast coast of South Africa” Sanderson had in mind here, but the ancient city is a mystery in itself.

Built around 900 years ago, it was once a global center of trade and religion. Artefacts from as far as China have been found there, along with copper crosses thought to have been used as a currency. The ruins themselves have features that we still don’t understand. One of these – “the largest single prehistoric structure in sub-Saharan Africa” – is a 10-meter-high, 5-meter-wide conical tower, surrounded by a wall that’s 250 meters long and 11 meters high.

The city of Great Zimbabwe was thought so advanced by early (racist European) explorers that it could never have been constructed by Africans. Instead, they believed it was evidence of a “civilized” (i.e. white) African nation. In any case, for reasons unknown, it was abandoned in the 15th century.

3. 26.57 S 175.20 E (The Loyalty Islands)

The Loyalty Islands are an archipelago 1,600 kilometers east of Australia. Known for cyclones and earthquakes, it’s no surprise that a ship carrying 75 passengers once mysteriously disappeared here. Part of this has to do with the 1200-kilometer New Hebrides Trench, which reaches depths of more than 7,500 meters in places and remains largely unexplored. What we do know about it is that it’s ecologically very different from any other deep sea trench.

Taking these features together as one devil’s graveyard, it’s interesting that an entire landmass also “disappeared” here. Sandy Island, which has appeared on maps (including Google Earth) for many decades, has long been assumed to exist. Someone must have seen it at some point. But when scientists set out to visit in 2012, they found only open ocean – 1,400 kilometers deep.

2. 26.57 S 112.80 W (Easter Island Fracture Zone)

Sanderson found the next vortex by measuring 72 degrees from the South Atlantic Anomaly, which led him to Easter Island – and the ,5900 kilometer Easter Fracture Zone on which it sits.

There’s not a lot to be said about this one in the way of documented disappearances, except of course for the island civilization that built the mysterious Moai. The mainstream theory for how these people disappeared is their precipitation of ecological collapse. Once they’d cut down all the trees – for agriculture, fuel, and transporting their iconic statues – the soil depleted and people starved. It’s thought rats prevented regeneration by eating all the seeds and disease-ridden European explorers killed off any survivors.

Alternative theories, meanwhile, suggest the statues are alive or left by UFOs.

1. 26.57 S 103.20 E (Wharton Basin)

72 degrees from the Loyalty Islands is Wharton Basin – “an area of deadliness,” Sanderson heard – in the northeast Indian Ocean, 400 kilomdgdfx off Sumatra. It’s here, from a seafloor riddled with fracture zones, that many large earthquakes originate.

It’s also where Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in 2014. Pings from the black box narrowed the plane down to a 32 by 16-kilometer stretch before falling silent forever. It’s thought the Boeing 777, which disappeared in March of that year, lies buried in the Basin’s silt floor. However, the region is largely uncharted, the depth abyssal, and, despite early optimism, the wreckage still hasn’t been found.

More recently, we’ve learned Flight 370 didn’t fly straight into the sea but circled for 20 minutes first – similar to the ‘holding pattern’ while waiting to land at an airport. A number of explanations have been offered for this: The pilot may have been communicating with the Malaysian government, or checking to see if he was followed, or simply thinking things through. But what this new information makes clear is that the pilot – or a pilot – wasn’t unconscious as previously thought but “deliberately flew the plane into oblivion”. We just don’t know why.

Just to conclude, the North and South Poles are – as mentioned – the final two devil’s graveyards. Suggested by professional pilots, they’re places where time is “a little off”. While Sanderson did include them in his grid, he was also mostly dismissive, attributing the phenomenon to simple disorientation caused by compass malfunction. Which makes one wonder – is his skepticism here (which wasn’t out of character) enough to lend credence to his theory?