Adam Mark is an explorer, with a specific area of interest.
He explores mysterious and abandoned locations, drawn in by a ‘curiosity’ of the unknown.
He admits his hobby, which he shares on his YouTube channel @AdamMark, has become ‘more of an addiction’.
Earlier this month, the 36-year-old from North Wales stepped onto the 18-acre island of Poveglia, located off the coast of Venice – and he now shares his exclusive experience with the Daily Mail.
The island is shrouded in a grim past and is known as the ‘Island of Ghosts’, having been used as a quarantine site for plague victims in the 1700s. It is believed that 160,000 bodies are interred there.
Later on, it housed an asylum before being abandoned completely and declared out of bounds.
Adam reached Poveglia through questionable methods, as the island is officially off-limits to visitors due to the hazardous state of some of its buildings.
He spent three hours there with his partner and explored what he thinks was a ‘derelict’ housing block with a clock tower.
Adam Mark explores mysterious and abandoned locations, drawn in by a ‘curiosity’ of the unknown
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Adam explain how earlier this month he set foot on the 18-acre Poveglia
The island is shrouded in a grim past and is known as the ‘Island of Ghosts’, having been used as a quarantine site for plague victims in the 1700s – it is believed that 160,000 bodies are interred there
‘A lot of the stairs have all crumbled away, ivy coming in through the windows, something you’d see off Tomb Raider,’ Adam recalls.
He describes how the area was ‘completely overgrown’ and he discovered a ‘huge prison’ that was ‘so camouflaged with all the ivy and vines’.
Inside the prison, Adam recalls seeing the original beds and shower blocks, as well as an area where the floor had caved in, causing all the beds to be jumbled with the rubble. ‘It was crazy,’ he remarks.
The Welshman also explored an abandoned hospital that featured ‘metal beds on chains, laying on the floor, which could be lifted up to form bunk beds’.
‘I’ve never seen anything like that before’. That was in the hospital, and then there’s another asylum on there, and then a church.’
During his visit to Poveglia, the explorer was most shocked by ‘how overgrown everything is’.
‘I didn’t realise it was bad as it was, because I’ve been to Chernobyl, and in Chernobyl, you can still see the buildings and everything, but this is just completely taken over,’ he explains.
The wild and derelict feel of the ‘haunted’ island was ‘pretty cool’ to Adam, who was also surprised by the sight of the beds in the prison.
He spent three hours there with his partner and explored what he thinks was a ‘derelict’ housing block with a clock tower
He describes how the area was ‘completely overgrown’ and he discovered a ‘huge prison’ that was ‘so camouflaged with all the ivy and vines’
‘That was quite shocking, because I didn’t know they were there,’ he adds. ‘To be fair, I don’t like to do too much research on a place before I go – it’s like spoilers, isn’t it?’
However, something even stranger happened while he was exploring the abandoned location.
Adam captured some spooky incidents on camera and seemingly managed to tap into the spirit world with paranormal equipment he brought along.
‘We did take some equipment just to see, you have to don’t you, the most haunted place in the world,’ he says.
‘We did get some stuff on there, we got a few things come through on a spirit box, like words coming through.’
The creepiest moments happened on camera, with Adam and his partner spooked out by footsteps in the housing block.
‘When we was recording, you could actually hear footsteps, they were so clear and the way I had the camera, you could see that me and my partner were just both stood there, and then you can just hear these footsteps run through the room,’ he recalls.
Adam explains how when he watched some footage back from the housing block, he could hear something horrifying.
The Welshman also ventured into an abandoned hospital that had ‘metal beds on chains, so they’re on the floor, and then you pull them up and they become bunk beds’
Adam captured some spooky incidents on camera and seemingly managed to tap into the spirit world with paranormal equipment he brought along
‘When we were walking through the housing block, you can actually hear a scream on the video, and we didn’t hear it at the time, so that was pretty weird,’ he says.
Adam spends hours pouring over Google Maps looking for overgrown and derelict places to explore, as well as news articles and hearing tips from other people.
From haunted islands to asylums, Adam’s favourite abandoned place he has visited so far is Chernobyl in Ukraine, abandoned after nuclear power plant exploded in 1986.
‘Just because it’s a whole city,’ he says.
‘It’s like living in the apocalypse, the roads are just overgrown with trees and the skyscrapers are coming up out of a forest. It’s strange.’
