Some of the creepiest photos ever taken have been snapped in hospitals. From the crumbling walls of abandoned hospitals to the bright, stark wards of working ER rooms, there’s a creepy story lurking in just about any hospital. But these snaps have captured some of the darkest and most sinister moments and look more like something from the set of a gruesome horror film than a medical building. Whether it’s chilling graffiti daubed on the walls of a deserted hospital or the unsettling sight of slices of brain found strewn over an asylum’s desk – each photograph is bound to leave you feeling cold.

Take our world tour of creepy hospital photos and see if you can make it through to the end without getting some serious goosebumps. From the bizarre sight caught on camera in a busy Philippines ER dept to one of the many eerie and ghoulish shots snapped in one of the USA’s many abandoned hospitals and mental asylums, we’ve found some seriously disturbing images. When you read the unsettling stories behind some of the pictures, you might start to question your belief in the paranormal. Even the pictures that don’t feature a ghoulish figure are haunting to look at. Check them out, but maybe stay clear of abandoned buildings if you ever want to enjoy a good night’s sleep again.

15. The end is near – Linda Vista Community Hospital – Los Angeles, USA

The chilling graffiti on the wall may be recent, but there’s no doubt that the last few patients through the doors of the Linda Vista Community Hospital may well have felt their time was up. Once a flourishing hospital in the 1930s, this LA hospital fell into disrepair over the next 40 years. Tales of abuse and mistreatment began to be whispered behind the closed hospital doors and the death tally started to rack up to unusually high levels. Closing its doors in the 90s, new life has been injected into this creepy Hollywood hospital. Film producers have shot scenes for films such as Pearl Harbor, Outbreak and End of Days here.

14. The face at the window – Brecon and Radnor Counties Joint Lunatic Asylum – Brecon, Wales

Have you already spotted the sinister figure staring back at you from one of the top floor windows? Taken by a passerby in 2016, there’s a couple of reasons why this snap should send a shiver down your spine. Firstly, this hospital was closed in 1999. So there shouldn’t be anyone inside, and who really wanders around old hospitals dressed like a Charles Dickens extra these days anyway? Secondly, there was at least one recorded death by ‘pre-frontal lobotomy’ at this asylum, which we’re assuming means they were poking about in people’s brains on the regular here. Gross.

13. Abandoned medical waste – Monsour Medical Center – Pennsylvania, USA

If you’re an urban explorer heading into an abandoned hospital, you’re going to expect a few things. Creepy corridors, cold, steel morgues and a few stray gurneys. So far, so Resident Evil. But abandoned medical waste? Hell, no! How about a drawer full of tissue samples to have a rummage through? This is what urban explorer Darryl Moran and his family found in Monsour Medical Center, Pennsylvania. Yep, you read that right, he took his wife and son in with him too. Except they were so creeped out by this place, they fled before they reached the morgue. Despite photographing hospitals like this regularly, Darren charts this one as “the darkest, creepiest, and most un-welcoming place.”

12. Haunted Polish Medical Centre – Legnica, Poland

These eerie images were taken inside a former Nazi hospital. The building has now been abandoned, not because it’s a former Nazi hospital, no – it’s been abandoned because it’s haunted. In 1993 staff fled this once state-of-the-art medical facility and puzzlingly no-one has been back to breathe life into the derelict place since. Locals say that Nazi experiments were carried out here (let’s hope none of them involved that massive saw seen discarded on the floor). An attempt to reclaim the building came to an abrupt end when someone fell 33ft to their death during a meeting in the hospital. Which can only lead to one conclusion: Don’t mess with Nazi ghosts, you guys.

11. Brain Tissue found in West Park Mental Hospital Mortuary – Surrey, England

Some creepy hospital images can perhaps be put down to a trick of the light or just decades of decay. But this one is on a whole different level. In a deserted English hospital urban explorers found brain tissue encased in wax. To make matters worse, they didn’t even have to go searching for them, they were found strewn across a desk, scattered amongst blood samples and a decomposing rat. Many of the blood samples were labelled with patient’s names – though the rat sadly wasn’t wearing a name badge. Jokes aside, it’s a little frightening that these brain slices weren’t destroyed when the hospital was abandoned.

10. The Wandering Spirit – Waverly Hills Sanatorium – Louisville, Kentucky

When an abandoned hospital is labelled the most haunted hospital in America, you know things are going to get real creepy, real fast. And the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Kentucky doesn’t disappoint. Paranormal thrill-seekers who trawled the corridors of this hospital looking for creepy snapshots got lucky. The most eerie of all the creepy photos taken is this photo of the ‘wandering spirit’ snapped by Tom Halstead in 2006. A professional photographer, he managed to capture the image of what’s believed to be a former patient, Mary Lee. Reports say she still wanders the corridors to this day and tours regularly to go searching for the spirit.

9. Rusty Operating Theater – Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital – Beelitz, Germany

This photo of the warped, decaying and rusted operating theater in Germany is creepy enough, without its chilling backstory. If your spidey senses were tingling when you saw the image, they’ll be off the charts when you hear about the former patient once healed within the walls of the Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital. Adolf Hitler was admitted to this very place. Wounded in WWI, nurses tended to his leg and, after a brief stay, they sent him on his way. In WWII it became a hospital for Nazi soldiers and, although most of the hospital is now abandoned, some patients are still admitted to the neurological rehab center.

8. Shocking electrosurgical device – Metropolitan State Hospital – Massachusetts, USA

The rusted deck of this electrosurgical device photographed in Metropolitan State Hospital in Massachusetts opens up a whole series of questions. What was it used for, who on, and how did it work? You can just make out the words ‘cutting’ and ‘coagulating’ which apart from putting us all off our lunch, hasn’t revealed too much. Modern electrosurgical devices are used today but in surgical operations. When you realized that this hospital was exclusively a place for the mentally ill, you have to wonder, just what sort of procedures were carried out on the patients there with this creepy machine?

7. Ghostly young girl caught on Snapchat in a hospital hallway – Leeds, England

We’ve all seen some things we’d rather forget on Snapchat. From celebrities revealing a little too much to more tedious Snaps of people’s meals – it seems some people have no filter. But then you see a Snap like this creepy one captured in an English hospital and it makes the app so worthwhile. Andrew Milburn was about to start his nightshift at Leeds General Infirmary when he captured this eerie image of a young girl in the hospital hallway. Sharing the image initially with his girlfriend, he put the pic on Facebook, and it went viral. The result of all this? Workers in the hospital are now afraid to use the loo, incase the ghoulish spirit comes back to haunt their stall.

6. A headless doctor chilling at an ER workstation – Metro Manilla, Philippines

When this image of an apparently headless doctor hit the internet in early 2017, people FREAKED out. A viral image in the Philippines, it was accompanied by a caption saying: “What would you do if you saw this while at the ER?” Well, you can’t exactly call an ambulance. What makes this extra creepy is that the doctor’s colleagues seem to be carrying on life as normal. So the person who captured the image turned to social media for help. Big mistake. Concerned onlookers started to discuss superstitious beliefs and told the woman who snapped the pic that seeing a headless ghost can be a premonition of someone’s death.

5. The Grim Reaper stalking a nursing home hallway – Unknown

So we don’t know where in the world this was taken, but we do know it’s creepy AS. 13thSage – a reddit user – uploaded this sinister snap along with some seriously spooky details about what was going on around the time it was taken. They said: “Prior to the photo being taken, members of the staff and other residents heard the sounds of a door opening and closing along with the appearance of a call light turning on and off, yet nobody was in the room.” So far, so spooky. They continue, adding: “this picture had been taken roughly 15 minutes after a patient in the facility had passed on, is it possible this is the person? Or perhaps ‘The Reaper’?” Welp, that’s us all not sleeping tonight, huh?

4. A dying man’s guardian angel photographed by his hospital bed – Countess of Chester Hospital, England

This spooktastic shot was captured by Bob Large’s grandson as he sat in hospital. A vicar sat next to Bob praying, as doctors had just told him he had days to live. Suffering from bladder cancer and kidney failure, the family gathered around him to share his final days. Creepy fact one: Bob was released from hospital soon after, avoiding death’s mortal grip. Creepy fact two: When they told hospital staff something weird had happened in that room, staff described the ghost perfectly, despite not seeing the photo. Bob went on to recover at home, and tells everyone that the figure in the photo is his guardian angel.

3. The image of a dark demon dancing on a hospital patient – Location unknown

The ghostly figures in the creepy hospital photos that have made our list all had one thing in common up until now. The ghoulish visions all looked human. But this photo captured in an unknown hospital is sure to make you wonder just what the actual F is stood on top of the poor unfortunate patient lying in the bed. Can anyone say Babadook? The dark ‘demon’ appeared on a nurse’s viewing monitor and a screenshot was captured. It’s reported that the nurse saw the ominous creature walking up and down the bed on top of the patient. Creepy additional fact: The sickly soul under the demon died just a few hours after this photo being taken.

2. Creepy little ghost boy photographed in a Phoenix hospital – Arizona

You might expect to get a creepy chill in an abandoned hospital, perhaps catch a glimpse of something sinister and inexplicable. But what about in a brightly lit, busy hospital? Not so much. But that’s exactly what happened to a student nurse in Arizona. After completing a task she took a photo to show her supervisor. Just one problem, she appears to have snapped a hair-raising photo of a ghostly little boy. Stood alone in the hospital hallway, the scary child looks like he’s staring RIGHT. AT. THE. CAMERA. This is truly the stuff of nightmares, people. Hospitals are creepy enough without this shizzle happening on the regular.

1. Dude in a straitjacket photographed in a creepy Salt Lake hospital – Utah

Paranormal investigators roaming around the Fort Douglas Hospital in Salt Lake City must have had a fright when they checked out this image. Appearing to show a man wearing a straitjacket in one of the hospital hallways, the eerie lighting does nothing to make this image any less chilling. Even more sinister is the fact that this photo was taken on the third floor of the hospital – the floor which was once the hospital’s insane asylum, where we’re guessing plenty of patients were restrained in straitjackets. If you haven’t got serious chills looking at this image, you might want to consider a career as a paranormal investigator.

Sources: metro.co.uk, walesonline.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, cntraveler.com, dailymail.co.uk