Ghost towns aren't just the stuff of distant history. Nestled in Missouri, this eerily lifeless settlement of deserted mansions was once a promising luxury development with a price tag of $1.6 billion. But when it found itself at the heart of one of the largest real estate fraud investigations the US has seen, the palatial project was abandoned to the elements. Click or scroll on to discover the unbelievable tale behind this desolate modern outpost...

What was meant to be a lavish, multibillion-dollar development soon turned into a nightmare for the people that chose to buy homes at the proposed Indian Ridge Resort Community. Now known as the McMansion ghost town, this eerie place proves that money can't, in fact, buy you everything.

Plans for the ultra-exclusive community in Branson West, Missouri, were announced in 2006 and the project was set to cost $1.6 billion to complete. Keen investors were promised that the state-of-the-art Ozarks compound would come equipped with everything a millionaire could need, from a shopping mall to a luxury hotel, as well as dozens of contemporary, castle-like houses.

Yet, sadly for those that invested in the project, the community would never come to fruition. The financial crisis hit, bank loans were defaulted on and construction work came to a swift halt. Only 13 homes were started and 15 years later, the 900-acre development is still not finished. Left to languish, the abandoned mansions are far from luxurious. The couple behind YouTube channel Our 80s Life even ventured to the site to shoot a fascinating video of what the eerie community looks today.

Up close, you can see the ambition behind the development. The unique ghost town features grand, incomplete mansions that have lost the fight with Mother Nature. Weeds and trees have taken over the homes' interiors and many of the windows are smashed or missing.

Shrouded in controversy, the abandoned estate was at the center of one of the largest real estate fraud investigations in American history back in 2017. At least three of the community's developers were imprisoned for bank fraud and money laundering, KY3 reported. Those found guilty have also been forced to pay back the $14 million that they borrowed under false pretenses.

Despite being funded by ill-gotten gains, there is hope for this abandoned town. Exclusive property developers Brookwood Group purchased the expansive estate and in 2018 they unveiled their plans. The company's proposed community will be called The Ridge at Table Rock Lake and will offer luxury homes as well as hospitality, entertainment and healthcare facilities, right on the doorstep of the Ozarks. But the McMansion ghost town is far from the only lifeless landmark that fell by the wayside in the 21st century. Read on to tour the most fascinating deserted villages around the world...

Born from big ambitions, there's a whole host of eerily empty modern towns dotted across the globe, including this time-capsule town in the USA. Uniquely positioned on the state line between Texas and New Mexico, Glenrio began life as a railroad town in 1903. A stopping point on the Rock Island and Pacific Road, the quaint town was once home to a motel, grocery stores, service stations, and cafés.

With the dawn of the national highway system in the 1930s, Glenrio became a popular stopping point for road trippers driving the iconic Route 66. Despite the population barely rising above 30, the small town was thriving and even played host to film crews when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was shot there in 1940.

Former resident John Paul Ferguson worked at the gas stations during the summer and recalls the constant streams of traffic through the town. However, Glenrio's luck ran out in 1975 when Interstate 40 bypassed the town, cutting it off from the passing tourist trade.

All that remains now of the once-booming spot are 17 time warp buildings untouched for decades and the old Route 66 roadbed. An evocative location harking back to America's mid-century heyday, the remarkable ghost town was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. 

Located 93 miles west of Riga, lies the sleepy Latvian settlement of Skrunda. Made up of farms, fields and quaint hamlets, the region also harbors a rather spooky secret. Known as Skrunda-1, this former Soviet metropolis stands derelict in the middle of the countryside. In its prime, the clandestine city housed more than 5,000 people but now serves as an eerie reminder of Latvia's turbulent history.

The communist-era city was constructed in the 1960s and featured 10 Brutalist apartment blocks, a supermarket, gymnasium, school and even a nightclub. The site also boasted a network of underground bunkers and several radar stations, which were strategically important to the Soviet Union. Covering western Europe, the stations detected objects in space and tracked possible incoming ballistic missiles that could have devastated the country.

The town is thought to be one of 40 secret settlements that the Soviets built during the height of their power. Once a thriving military and civilian community, Skrunda-1 soon fell into disrepair when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. The last remaining residents are said to have moved out of the town in 1999 and it has remained untouched ever since, with many of the buildings still containing photographs, clothing, furnishings, newspapers and children's toys.

Yet the future of Skrunda-1 looks positive. In 2015, the Latvian government paid a private company roughly $14,000 to purchase the town. As part of an important development plan, half of the town will be utilized by the military, while the other half will consist of housing that can be rented out to locals. Once a haunting reminder of the past, Skrunda-1 looks set to gain a new lease of life following more than 20 years of neglect.

The Spanish island of Tenerife is loved for its rugged volcanic landscape, black-and-white-sand beaches and spectacular azure waters, but the picturesque holiday resort also harbors a rather unique addition that very few people know about...

Sanatorio de Abona can be found nestled on a scenic cliff face on the island's southeast coast. The sanatorium was designed in 1943 by the Spanish architect, José Enrique Marrero Regalado, after an outbreak of leprosy looked set to take over the country. 

At the time, many believed that isolating in a hot, dry climate was the best way to cure people of the progressive bacterial infection, so Tenerife was the perfect place to create purpose-built colonies where the sick could quarantine together. Named Sanatorio de Abona, the small town was set to be made up of forty buildings, including a church, a crematorium, a hospital and various types of accommodation.

Yet by 1945 a new antibiotic proved effective against the symptoms of leprosy, rendering the sanatorium obsolete before it was even finished. Construction work was halted, leaving many of the buildings partially finished and wasting the $77,630 that had already been spent on the project. Sat unoccupied for almost 80 years, Tenerife's abandoned leper colony is now an off-the-beaten-track tourist attraction.

Situated in the southern Italian province of Matera, in one of the world's most beautiful countries, Craco must be among the unluckiest villages in the world. After decades of bearing the brunt of Mother Nature, the town was finally abandoned in 1980.

The hilltop village has been occupied since the 10th century BC and, at its height in 1881, the population exceeded 2,000 residents. However, 1963 signaled the start of a downward spiral with a landslide that saw inhabitants moved to a neighboring valley. The situation worsened in 1972 when floods struck, and a subsequent earthquake in 1980 proved the final nail in the coffin of this historic town.

Inside the remaining buildings, signs of domesticity remain, with a hearth and bed frame still visible in this dilapidated house. These days Craco is blocked off for safety reasons, however, guided tours are now available for curious tourists.

Thanks to its dramatic landscape, the town has also been used as a backdrop for some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters, including The Passion of Christ and Quantum of Solace. Decades later, Craco's mystical charm still endures – inside the San Nicola church, vaulted columns hint at the former grandeur of this historic settlement.

From its red telephone boxes and black cabs to the winding cobbled streets and Victorian terraces, this copycat ghost town is a pastiche of all things British. The only difference is, this London lookalike is 30km from downtown Shanghai.

Dubbed the real-life The Truman Show, this odd development was completed in 2006 to the eye-watering tune of $706 million. The project began as part of an initiative to lure half a million people away from overcrowded Shanghai and into smaller satellite suburbs, which were designed to resemble European cities.

Once a field of rice paddies, Thames Town is now home to a gothic church, scenic canals, mock-Tudor pubs and elegant Edwardian townhouses. The only thing missing is people. With properties priced well out of reach for Shanghai's middle-class residents, most houses were purchased as investments or second homes and now lie vacant.

While the location is a popular backdrop for wedding photographs, no one is hanging around. Behind the grand façade, retail units and restaurants lie empty. Even the town's bronze James Bond statue holds no sway in pulling in residents to this perplexing place.

Back in 2008, the global financial crisis caused chaos around the world but some countries were affected more than others. Spain's housing market all but collapsed, leaving many developers bankrupt and significant housing projects across the country incomplete. Some 12 years later and one of the country's largest developments, Ciudad Jardín Soto Real, still sits unfinished. 

The town was captured by photographer Markel Redondo in 2018 and highlights the colossal damage that the financial crisis caused almost overnight. Located in the municipality of Buniel, just 312 of the estate's proposed 1,400 homes were ever built and stand in various stages of completion. The development was abandoned in the summer of 2008, when the construction company behind the project, Martinsa-Fadesa, entered into voluntary liquidation.

The site sits behind a high-security fence but over the years thieves have stripped the development of its valuables, from copper wiring to bricks and even the manhole covers on the estate's roads. Yet due to its semi-remote location, many have forgotten that Ciudad Jardín Soto Real even exists. 

Sadly, Ciudad Jardín Soto Real is just one of many similar development projects across Spain that have been left to decay. By capturing the estate in its current state, Redondo hopes to encourage the Spanish government to put the properties to good use. In 2018 he told WIRED: "We could do a lot of things with these abandoned projects. People are being kicked out of their houses in every major city because they can't afford them. We have a lot of people who need homes."

Once home to thousands, this Pennsylvania mining town's population upped and left following a bizarre fire that began in 1962 and still rages on today – more than 55 years later.

The blaze began the day before Labor Day. In a strange series of events, the fire was intentionally set in order to burn out an old landfill beneath the town. However, the site was connected to a system of disused coal mining tunnels and the inferno quickly spiraled out of control. Here, a crack along the town's deserted Highway 61 still billows out sulfurous gases.

The blaze spewed toxic fumes into the atmosphere and over the years the ground beneath the borough reached over 900 degrees in some locations. With gas pouring into basements and sinkholes suddenly opening up, a $42 million relocation plan saw most of Centralia's residents up sticks and leave the poisonous district in the 1980s.

As a mass exodus swept the toxic town, most of the homes were demolished. Single properties like this are a stark reminder of the town's former life. Still alight today, it's said that there's enough coal underground to fuel the blaze for a further 250 years.

Designed as a seaside holiday resort for US military officers and middle-class Taiwanese, the Sanzhi Pod City is giving us all sorts of heebie-jeebies. The eerie development was never completed, having been left to wrack and ruin in 1980. 

Located on the northern coast of Taiwan, the futuristic resort town featured a complex of bright UFO-shaped homes and a large swimming pool complex. Construction was halted on the site two years after it had begun, with the developers citing financial constraints following investment losses.

Designed in a retro style that was popular at the time, the price of these unique homes was so high that almost none of the pods sold. Now losing the fight with Mother Nature, they were abandoned on the overgrown coastline, reduced to graffitied ruins frequented by curious tourists. 

The deserted development, which would have offered residents tranquil sea views, was demolished in 2010, with plans to turn the site into a resort and waterpark. Here's hoping the new project is more successful than its predecessor...

This next abandoned outpost has been described as one of the most dangerous and contaminated places on the planet. Located in the dry, dusty climes of Pilbara, the unassuming small town of Wittenoom belies a toxic surprise hiding underground...

From the 1930s to the 60s, Wittenoom was home to around 20,000 people, many of whom worked in Australia's only blue asbestos mine which was located there. More than 2,000 deaths have been linked to the town's toxic mining activities, and the mine subsequently closed its doors for good in 1966.

After the closure, the population began to rapidly decline, leaving buildings like Doc Holiday's Cafe to the dust. In 2007, the Western Australia Government officially struck Wittenoom off the map and cut off the town's electricity supply and mail services.

It's been labeled one of the most significant industrial disasters in Western Australia, and while the Government has tried to dissuade visitors from venturing into the contaminated area, Wittenoom remains a popular destination for those seeking so-called dark tourism.

Once home to 225 people, the rural village of Tyneham in the south west of England is now no more than ruins. Its population deserted the town just before Christmas in 1943, though it wasn't exactly by choice...

As the Second World War raged on, the War Office requisitioned the town to use as a tank firing range prior to D-Day. Residents were promised that they could return to their homes once the war was over. As they left, a note was pinned on the door of Tyneham Church that read: '"Thank you for treating the village kindly."

However, Tyneham's residents never did return. Decades later, the village's manor house (pictured) is a relic of its former self, and the post office, rectory and cottages stand roofless and crumbling. While the evacuation was intended to be temporary, the Army placed a compulsory purchase order on the land in 1948 and has retained it for military use ever since.

With its eerie abandoned spaces, the strange beauty of Tyneham's ruins has fascinated passing walkers for decades. We can only imagine the gorgeous sea views that former residents once enjoyed from this dilapidated farmhouse. In late 2019, parts of the village were closed to the public after the Ministry of Defence found seven of the buildings to be unsafe. Now, its fate hangs in the balance...

On April 26th, 1986, the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded during blackout tests. Pripyat, only a few kilometers from the disaster and home to over 49,000 people, was evacuated within 36 hours.

Declared radioactive and unhabitable for at least 24,000 years, nature has taken back the city. Towering trees compete with derelict apartment blocks, breaking up the concrete of the once-bustling pathways and roads. Despite being one of the world's most inhospitable cities, the landscape has proved fertile ground for Mother Nature to take hold. 

Residents here fled as soon as possible, taking only the essentials with them. Belongings are still strewn inside residential homes and public buildings. In this classroom, notebooks and stationary litter the desks, with the last lesson's notes still visible on the blackboard.

A reminder of the city's carefree heyday, Pripyat Amusement Park's yellow Ferris wheel now stands in stark contrast with its overgrown surroundings. In the heart of the Exclusion Zone, it's unlikely that life here will ever return to normal, however, that hasn't kept curious tourists out, with tens of thousands visiting the tragic region every year.

Nestled in an arid canyon in San Benito County, California, the town of New Idria is a relatively recent relic of days gone by. A collection of rickety steel buildings is all that remains of the former mining settlement, which was abandoned in the 1970s.

Built to service the New Idria Mercury Mine which opened in 1854, the town flourished as around 300 workers moved to the area, with a school, post office and residential homes built on the previously vacant scrubland. However, when mining came to a halt in 1972, the town's livelihood was stripped away and its last residents relocated to more prosperous parts.

Now reduced to a desolate ghost town, over one hundred structures still remain on the deserted site. Over the years, fears of mercury contamination have plagued the ghost town and in 2011, the Environment Protection Agency added New Idria to its Superfund List of polluted locations.

A yellow posted sign warns trespassers away from this abandoned clapboard home; however, we have a feeling that swaths of visitors are no longer a problem in New Idria...

Nestled in a rural mountainous spot, halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, this modern abandoned ghost town is a surreal sight to behold. Hundreds of mini chateaux, in various stages of completion, stand in a deathly silent valley after funding for the project dried up.

Construction of the Burj Al Babas development in Turkey began in 2014, led by the Sarot Group. 587 chateaux have been finished, however, following the collapse of the Turkish economy in 2018, the company declared bankruptcy and the project was brought to a standstill.

Once complete, the complex was intended to accommodate 732 villas, a shopping center, cinema, restaurants and fitness facilities. Worth between $400,000 and $500,000, the identical three-story castle-like dream homes, which look like something from the pages of Cinderella, feature turrets and elaborate circular balconies.

The abandoned construction site can still be seen just beyond the boundary of the $200 million estate. However, in a recent turn of events, having managed to write off half of their debt, the Sarot Group's deputy chairman Mezher Yerdelen now hopes the project will finally be completed in 2021, according to the Hurriyet Daily News. Here's hoping this fairy tale development has a happy ending after all...

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