OUT OF STATE | Poveglia Island: The True Paranormal Story Behind the World’s Most Haunted Island

Just off the coast of Venice lies a place so feared that even locals refuse to go near it.
Poveglia Island has been called the world’s most haunted island — a former quarantine zone and plague hospital where tens of thousands perished, and where the echoes of suffering seem impossible to silence.

In this episode of State of the Unknown: Out of State, Robert Barber uncovers the true paranormal history of Poveglia — from plague pits and asylums to ghostly sightings and modern-day bans. It’s a haunting unlike any other… and one that still lingers over the waters of the Venetian Lagoon.

🎧 Haunted history. Real places. True fear.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Content Warning
• 2:29 The Forbidden Island of Poveglia
• 5:03 The Black Death's Dumping Ground
• 9:00 The Asylum and the Doctor
• 11:35 Modern Encounters and Experiences
• 15:14 Theories of Haunting
• 19:33 Final Reflections on Poveglia

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

A quick note before we begin. This episode contains references to plague deaths, human remains and accounts of psychiatric mistreatment. Some details may be disturbing and, as always, what follows is a mix of documented history, folklore and reported experiences. This is a story of how trauma, tragedy and legend have shaped one of the world's most infamous places. Listener, discretion is advised. More than 100,000 people were burned alive on this island and the ground is still thick with their ash.

Speaker 1: 0:39

It's called Poviglia, a speck of land off Venice, sealed off by the Italian government. There are no ferries, there are no tours. Fishermen won't even sail near it. First came the plague Bodies piled up so fast, they lit pyres that never went out. The air was black, the soil turned gray and the screams carried across the lagoon. Then came the asylum, a hospital where no one got better. Patients whispered about shadows that stalked them. A doctor cut and drilled in secret until he climbed the bell tower and either jumped or was thrown. Today the island rots. Windows gape like broken eyes. The bell tower leans over empty courtyards. But people who sneak ashore say the island isn't empty. They hear moans, smell smoke, see figures watching from the ruins and sometimes bones still wash up with the tide.

Speaker 1: 1:54

This isn't just haunted ground, it's curse. I'm your host, robert Barber, and this is Out of State, a companion series to State of the Unknown. Short journeys into legends beyond America's borders, stories of folklore, hauntings and shadows from the other side of the map. Let's step into the dark. Polviklia isn't large. From a distance it looks like nothing more than a smudge of green floating in the Venetian lagoon. But step closer and the details start to emerge. A crumbling bell tower leans above the tree line, its windows hollow Around it. The ruins of brick buildings collapse in on themselves, roofs gone, walls cracked, wide open to the sky. Half swallowed by ivy and brambles, the ground sinks in places as though the island itself is rotting. Locals say that's because the soil is mixed with ash and bone. The air is damp, heavy with the smell of the lagoon. On calm days, the silence feels suffocating. On windy nights, the water slaps against stone, echoing through the ruins like footsteps. It doesn't feel abandoned, it feels watched. But Polveglia wasn't always this way. Before the plague it was just one more island in the Venetian lagoon, a quiet patch of land with families who fished the waters and tended their gardens. Children played in the courtyards where the ruins now stand. The bell tower rang across the water not as a warning but as a call to gather. It was small, ordinary and unremarkable, and maybe that's the cruelest part that a place so unassuming could become one of the darkest corners of Venetian history.

Speaker 1: 4:23

In the 1300s, the Black Death swept through Europe like wildfire. Venice was one of the hardest hit. The city was a hub of trade, with ships sailing in from every direction carrying silks, spice and plague. At first, the Venetians tried to contain it within the city. Doctors in long beaked masks moved through the streets. Those are the plague doctors. We see Halloween costumes of today stuffing herbs and vinegar into their strange bird-like noses, hoping it would keep out the infection. They didn't understand germs back then, but they knew. The air itself seemed poisoned. And still people died by the thousands.

Speaker 1: 5:13

So the Venetian Senate made a decision the sick, anyone showing the black sores, the fever, the rattle in the chest, would be taken away, not treated, not cared for, just removed. And where did they send them? Here To Poveglia. Picture it A ship pulls into the lagoon, men with poles and hooks prodding at bodies already half dead, hurting them down the gangplank. Families, separated mothers screaming for children as they're dragged onto shore Soldiers watching from a distance, their faces wrapped in cloth.

Speaker 1: 5:56

There were no hospitals here, no churches, just crude wooden shacks hastily built to hold the infected until they collapsed. And collapse they did by the hundreds, by the thousands. The dead piled up so quickly. There was no time for coffins, no priests to bless the ground. They dug pits where they could, and when the pits filled up they lit the pyres. Day and night, the fires burned, the smoke rolled across the water, drifting into Venice so thick people claimed they could taste it on their tongues.

Speaker 1: 6:36

Ash fell back onto the island like gray snow coating the soil, seeping into every crack of earth. Some records claim 160,000 people died here, others say even more. However you count it, the ground became less dirt and more bone. To this day, people claim that over half the soil is made up of human ash. Even the plants seem sick here. Like the ground is made up of human ash. Even the plants seem sick here, like the ground is poisoned from the inside out. Could that be why the grass withers in strange patches, or why the trees twist in ways that don't look natural?

Speaker 1: 7:19

Even the fishermen keep away. They'll tell you, if your net drags too close to poloveglia, you won't catch fish, you'll catch bones, a femur, a skull, a jawbone, with teeth still inside. They say when that happens, you don't keep it, you throw it back fast before it curses your family. Before it curses your family, poveglia became a word you didn't say out loud, a place you didn't look at when you passed. Everyone knew what it was Not an island, but a graveyard. But the thing about graveyards is at least the dead are meant to rest On Poveglia they didn't. The island was too full of pain, too full of terror, too full of bodies that never had last rites, never had prayers, just screams that faded into smoke. And in that silence something darker took root.

Speaker 1: 8:25

By the 1900s you'd think this island would finally be left alone. Too many dead, too much ash in the ground. But no, they built a hospital here and before long it turned into an asylum. Patients were brought in with real illnesses, but what they claimed they saw wasn't human. They said voices called to them at night. They said shadows followed them through the halls. Some swore they saw faces at the windows, faces that didn't belong to the living. The doctors laughed it off, said it was madness.

Speaker 1: 9:07

But the rumors about one doctor, well, those never went away. He worked in the upper floors of the hospital and what he did there no one really knows. The stories say he drilled into people's skulls, cut them open, burned them, treatments that weren't treatments at all. And then there's the bell tower, the only piece of the island you can still see standing tall from the water. They say one night that doctor climbed to the very top. Maybe the gills got to him, maybe the voices pushed him over the edge. Voices pushed him over the edge, literally. The story goes he jumped, or maybe someone pushed him. Some say he survived the fall. But when he hit the ground a black mist rose up from the island itself, wrapped around his neck and choked the life out of him. The nurses claimed they saw it happen, said his screams carried across the lagoon hours before he finally died.

Speaker 1: 10:16

The tower still stands and people who sneak inside swear. They can still hear it, the clang of a bell that hasn't rung in a hundred years. And when the bell tolls, that's when they see her, a woman moving through the corridors, her face burned, her eyes hollow, trailing smoke like the pyres that once lit the island. No one agrees on who she is Plague victim, patient, nurse. But they agree on this. When the bell calls, she walks.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Today, poveglia is sealed. The Italian government has banned visitors for decades. But bans don't keep everyone out. People sneak in and what they bring back aren't just stories. They bring back recordings of screams captured in empty corridors. They bring back scratches on their arms, burns on their skin. They bring back nightmares that keep them awake long after they've left the island.

Speaker 1: 11:24

The first thing they notice is the silence. It isn't normal quiet. It's heavy, like the whole place is holding its breath. Even the wind sounds muted. Then the noises start Footsteps on stone floors above them, though the rooms are empty. Doors slamming shut down the hall, a whisper that seems to come from behind your ear, though you're standing alone. One group of thrill-seekers swore they heard screaming in the bell tower, a man's voice, raw and desperate. But when they climbed the stairs the room was deserted no one there, no bell, just dust. Others described the smell a sharp, choking stench of smoke and iron, as if the fires never went out. It clings to their clothes long after they leave.

Speaker 1: 12:20

And then the figures Shadows moving across walls where there should be nothing, doctors in white coats who vanish when you blink. Women in gowns drifting down hallways. Their faces scorched, their hands reaching. Visitors say they've been touched, cold fingers brushing their necks, sleeves tugged hard enough to pull them off balance. Some claim they've been shoved so violently they were thrown to the ground. And outside the lagoon carries its own reminders, fishermen say their nets sometimes drag up bones, skulls, teeth, fragments of spine. It's the kind of catch that makes them hurl everything back into the water and row hard for shore. Even those who laugh it off at first, who say we didn't see anything, it was just an old ruin, end up changing their tune. Weeks later they report whispers in their homes, shadows in the corners, dreams of fire and smoke they can't wake from, because Poveglia doesn't let you leave clean, it follows you.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Some say the island is haunted because of what happened here the trauma, the death, the fear that soaked into the ground and never left. There are a number of theories for why these souls can't rest. Theory one energy of mass death. The idea is simple Places of violence hold echoes and Poveglia is nothing but violence. Tens of thousands of lives ended in terror, their screams carried on the wind, their bodies turned to ash. If that kind of suffering leaves a mark, this island would be branded forever.

Speaker 1: 14:21

Theory two restless spirits without burial rites In Catholic tradition. The dead need last rites In Catholic tradition. The dead need last rites. They need a priest, prayers, a grave. The plague victims here got none of that Just fire, just ash. Some believe their souls can't move on. They're trapped, condemned to wander the same halls and courtyards where they died. Theory three the curse of the doctor. And then there's the asylum doctor, you know, the one who fell or was pushed from the bell tower.

Speaker 1: 15:03

In Venetian folklore, when someone dies unjustly, they can become something worse than a ghost, a warden, a keeper. And if that's true, maybe he isn't gone at all, maybe he still stalks the ruins, making sure no one ever leaves. All right. So let me step out of the story for a second, because I've been thinking about this while writing, and here's where I land.

Speaker 1: 15:31

I don't think you need folklore to be afraid of Poveglia. If you know the history, if you know tens of thousands of people suffered here, that alone is enough to mess with your head. Fear primes you. It puts you on edge before you ever set foot on the island. It puts you on edge before you ever set foot on the island. So maybe that's all it takes. You hear an echo and you swear it's a voice. You see a shadow move and you're convinced that it's some kind of figure. Your own mind turns the silence into screams and honestly, that makes sense to me. That explanation feels safe. It keeps the world ordinary. But then there are the details. I can't shake the burns, the scratches, the recordings of voices when no one's there. Those aren't hallucinations. You can't chalk that up to fear. So maybe there is something more here. Maybe this island really does hold on to its dead. And if that's true, if this place really is a cage for every soul lost in it, then maybe the scariest part isn't that people hear voices when they visit. Maybe the scariest part is that some of those voices are still calling for help.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Of course, skeptics have their own theories. They point to toxins in the soil, gases from centuries of burned remains. They point to mold in the ruins capable of warping the brain. Some even suggest magnetic anomalies that scramble compasses and electronics. And maybe they're right. Maybe Poveglia is haunted by science, not spirits. But then you ask the locals, the fishermen, the families who've lived in Venice for centuries, and they'll tell you the same thing every time we don't go there.

Speaker 1: 17:34

Poveglia sits in silence. Now the hospital is empty, the bell tower leans over the ruins and the lagoon laps against the shore like it's keeping a secret. History says it was a quarantine site, an asylum, nothing more. But if you walk through what's left, if you stand in that courtyard where ash still clings to the soil, it doesn't feel like nothing more, because this isn't just where people died, it's where they were erased. No names, no graves, no prayers, just fire. And maybe that's why they linger. Maybe that's why people still hear the screams, because when you burn the voices of the forgotten, you don't silence them, you just scatter them on the wind.

Speaker 1: 18:28

Now skeptics will tell you it's toxins in the soil, mold in the walls, magnetic fields, and maybe that explains part of it. But it doesn't explain the bruises, it doesn't explain the burns, it doesn't explain the bones that still wash ashore and it doesn't explain why, even after centuries, venetians all agree on one thing you don't go there. So maybe Polveglia is haunted, or maybe the haunting is in us Our fear, our guilt, our refusal to let the past rest. Either way, step onto that island and you're not walking on ordinary ground, you're walking on ash, you're walking on bone, you're walking on the dead themselves. And that's the thing about places like this Some stories don't stay buried, some places don't forgive and some questions follow you home.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Poveglia may be closed, abandoned, left to rot in the lagoon, but silence doesn't mean peace. Eglia may be closed, abandoned, left to rot in the lagoon, but silence doesn't mean peace. And forgetting doesn't mean the past is gone. This island is more than stone walls and empty corridors. It's a graveyard without headstones, a wound without healing. And whether you call it haunted, cursed or just scarred by history, one truth remains Polveiglia doesn't let go. Some say the screams are echoes of the plague years. Some say the shadows belong to the asylum's dead. Others believe it's the island itself that hungers, feeding on fear. But maybe the scariest part isn't what waits there now. Maybe it's what was always true that human suffering leaves marks you can't erase that, even after centuries. Ash still clings to the soil and bones still rise with the tide.

Speaker 1: 20:41

And if this story unsettles you, I'd urge you to look deeper, because the history of Poveglia is just as fascinating as the legends. There are records, reports and testimonies stretching back centuries. Some explain parts of the story, others raise more questions than they answer. It's a place where history and folklore blur until you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. This has been Out of State, a companion series from State of the Unknown. Short journeys into legends beyond America's borders. If you've been enjoying the show, follow rate and share it with someone who can't resist a story that lingers. And until next time, remember. On some islands, the ground itself remembers what we'd rather forget.