Case file · Haunting
Humberstone ghost town
Humberstone, a saltpetre works in the Atacama desert abandoned in 1960, is a preserved ghost town where visitors and guards report voices, footsteps and figures in empty buildings.
1960 CE · -20.21, -69.80 · status: claim
The account
Founded in 1872 as La Palma, it housed thousands of workers until the nitrate industry collapsed. Together with Santa Laura it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005. Its theatre, school and hotel are frequent backdrops for paranormal investigations.
The sceptical view
Wind through corrugated iron and wooden buildings, and the suggestive emptiness of the place, account for most reports.