An abandoned asylum once on the cutting edge of lobotomies may be reborn as a Christian college.

Government testing at the asylum briefly explored using marijuana as a "truth serum" on Nazi prisoners of war.

This former asylum for Black Americans is haunted by its history of violence and racism.

An exhibit of items from the mental institution where Mary Todd Lincoln lived after her son conspired to have her committed.

A subterranean world of tunnels links several buildings of this rare 19th-century asylum.

Home of mutant livestock.

Homestead Cemetery hold the remains of the United States' first known professional tattoo artists.

Stories of sightless fish and ghostly cowboys are only a fraction of the legends surrounding this Kansas sinkhole.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

Eons old volcanic activity created one of the most stunning rock formations in the United States.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

Hidden in a hotel parking lot is a strange historical plaque erected by an obscure fraternal society.

A black and white painted wall creates an optical illusion in the California desert.

A hidden world of exotic succulents and cacti.

This graffiti-covered bridge is the quintessential vision of a place for disillusioned youth to escape the complexities of burgeoning adulthood.

Each summer, the migratory bats living beneath the bypass form "batnadoes" at dusk.

This museum boasts the ninth-largest collection of insects in North America.

This mother-daughter run curiosities shop is a beautifully odd mix of taxidermy and exotic plants.

Eastern zen meets Western grit in these four little trees growing out of a rock on Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shore.

Bits and pieces from the ill-fated Donner Party's winter cabins.

The now-abandoned tunnels were built for the transcontinental railroad on the route where the first wagon train entered California.

In this roadside "community for the small," abandoned toys gain new lives.

Crumbling pink walls and murder memorials preserve the pioneer history of Joshua Tree.

Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.