Man visits ‘world's most infected island' that's home to human skulls and '500-year-old coffins'
The island was a mass burial ground
Featured Image Credit: Dara Tah/YouTube
A YouTuber has visited the world's most infected island.
Located in the estuary of the River Medway in Kent, UK, Deadman's Island, and certainly lives up to its name.
The island is uninhabited and currently under the ownership of Natural England as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and is used as a breeding ground for birds so visitors are not permitted.
But YouTuber Dara Tah managed to take a trip there and shared his journey on his channel.
Advert
'I have visited Dead Man's Island once before. It is a small marsh island in the south of England that was used as a mass dumping ground for possibly thousands of skeletons infected with the Black Plague but this time we're spending the night,' he explained.
It's believed that the remains belong to men and boys who died of disease on board prison ships that were moored in the area about 200 years ago.
Diseases such as cholera and typhoid were common among the prisoners and anyone who passed away was buried in unmarked graves on the island.
Some victims of the plague from 1665-1666 are believed to be buried there too.
The story of these graves remained mostly unknown until 2016, when coastal erosion and rising sea levels exposed about 200 sets of human remains.
Dara Tah set out to find Coffin Bay, 'the most infected part that has the most bones [...] and it's rumoured to be full of treasure.'
But, much of the island is underwater, so he had to spend the night: "It's only at midnight that Coffin Bay will emerge."
The thing was this part of the island was much more dangerous as the YouTuber waded through heaps of quicksand.
Then, he found it.
'I've stepped into it. We're looking at a massive mound of coffins,' he described. 'And then right next to the coffin, rib bone.'
He saw the plague bones and coffins dating back over 500 years ago.
'There's literally bones everywhere, oh my god, there is a rib bone, a leg bone, an arm bone.'
He continued: "Seeing that stuff is very freaky, you just totally dissociate from it being a person but it's a person that lived a long time ago and they just end up on this island and no one does anything about it. It's quite sad."
Among the uncorked wine bottles and remains, Dara also discovered some treasure - a flask remnant from the 1600s, a Victorian bottle over 150 years old and a 'fully intact bottle' that's 400 years old.