The Darkness at Castle Houska

Castle Houska

     Deep within the dark forests and swamps of the Czech Republic stands a mysterious place.  Thought by local inhabitants to be the gateway to hell for hundreds of years, it is known as Castle Houska.  The location chosen for this castle is highly unusual.  It is completely isolated, does not protect any border or resource, and does not reside on a known trade route or vantage point of any kind.  Why would someone use the significant resources required to construct this castle, but choose to build it in a completely useless and inconsequential plot of land in the middle of nowhere?

Castle Houska is a gothic structure that was likely commissioned by Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1253AD.  The castle was built without access to water, a kitchen, or fortification, and was left completely uninhabited for the first portion of its existence.  It appears the castles primary function, especially the chapel, was to close the unfathomable well or “hole” on the property that was reported to lead to the underworld.  Some of the oldest mural paintings and iron work in Eastern Europe adorn the walls of Castle Houska, and are simply ripe with images of knights slaying dragons, demons, and winged monsters galore.   

Ancient legends have people reporting half-man half-beast creatures crawling out of the earth below where the castle's chapel now sits, and dark winged shapes circling the skies above the courtyard.

Chapel over hell hole

Upon examination of the castle's architecture, it is apparent that the design is completely backwards.  All of the defensive positions are located on the inside of the structure, and are designed much like a prison to keep something in rather than out!  It was so unusual that it did not even contain stairs to the first floor in an attempt to prevent unwanted entities from making it to the ground floor, residents at the time would have had to use ladders or ropes.   The present day owner describes the building as being built like “a cube within a cube, within a cube, with all of its defensive positions faced inward.” The torture room in the basement of the castle, also known as Satan’s office, is even complete with a demonic throne.  The castle is said to be home to a faceless black entity that many have reported is a priest that oversaw the tortures and executions which occurred here.

Numerous reports of shadows, demonic voices, unusual feelings of anxiety, and a host of other visual and auditory anomalies have been reported by visitors and locals for centuries.  To add to the overall macabre nature of Castle Houska, throughout WWII Nazi Germany commandeered the structure and used it not only as a headquarters, but also a laboratory, where fringe physics experiments like dimensional portals, time travel, and various other unusual studies were supposed to have been performed.  When the castle underwent modern renovation, the bodies of three Nazi soldiers were found in the courtyard, all of them had been executed.

In 2009, the SyFy channel aired an episode of Ghost Hunters International that featured Castle Houska.  The teams of investigators were thoroughly bombarded by a string of unexplainable events from start to finish. The investigation left no doubt that Castle Houska displays massive amounts of paranormal activity, and was declared by GHI to be one of the most haunted locations in the world.