Whether you love or hate Halloween, we’ve all felt the creeping tendrils of doubt when confronted with things that don’t meet our expectations of reality—that light you’re sure you turned off, or the bedroom door that randomly creaks open. It’s easy to dismiss plastic masks and fake blood as the bargain bins of costumes start cropping up, but unexplainable mysteries, documented then debated, continue to persist even in our day and age of waning privacy. In occult theory, paranormal activity can spike around 3:00AM as a supernatural dig at the Holy Trinity. In the supernatural spirit of the season, here are three of the creepiest incidences of horror that have captivated the world.

1. Mexico’s Isla de las Muñecas

Just outside the busy capital of Mexico City exists an island, known by locals as Isla de las Muñecas—the Island of the Dolls. Buried within the winding canals, this interesting/horrifying collection of dead-eyed dolls began in the 1950s. Don Julian Santana Barrera, a farmer who moved to the island, found in one of the canals a drowned, young girl—and later, the first doll. Barrera initially displayed the doll on a tree to comfort and perhaps appease the girl’s spirit, but then began doing the same with whatever other dolls he found in the waters, and later with the dolls that other locals would bring to trade for farm produce from the island, a former Aztec floating garden. Some also believe that Barrera was possessed by the spirit of the girl, who drove him to collect and display the dolls until his death in 2001—when Barrera's nephew found him floating in the canals, in the same spot the young girl's body appeared.

2. Japan’s Suicide Forest

Aokigahara, or the Sea of Trees, is a forest located near Mount Fuji, famous for its thick foliage and preference as a suicide destination. Popularized in the United States early this year by “The Forest”, Suicide Forest is estimated to be used as the final destination by as many as 100 people every year. The forest is said to be haunted by the spirits of those who died there—those that committed suicide, and those who were abandoned in ancient times by their impoverished families. Additionally, the iron-rich soil makes cellphones, GPS, and even compasses unreliable, though many purport this is another sign of demonic presence. The Japanese government enacted a formal plan to reduce suicide rates 20% over the next seven years, including the implementation of patrols and signs (bearing messages such as “Think carefully about your children, your family”) throughout the forest.

3. Philippines’s Clarita Villanueva

In 1953, the world watched as news stations broadcasted from Manila, creating one of the most documented cases of demonic possession in recorded history. The exorcism was conducted on an 18-year-old girl named Clarita Villanueva who believed she was seeing and being bitten by two creatures. Visitors to the supposedly possessed girl included the medical examiner and Mayor Arsenio Lacson, who claimed he saw bite marks appear on Villanueva. Rev. Lester Sumrall led the apparently successful exorcism—and a reported 150,000 people who had followed the story in the news converted to Christianity.