'Long a curiosity for people driving along the north coast between Tamsui and Keelung, the “UFO” houses as they are known locally — a group of freakish looking, brightly colored, run-down buildings that were once supposed to become a futuristic holiday village — made the headlines recently following the Taipei County Government's decision to demolish them. Demolition work began on Dec. 29. “We received an order to tear them down and we plan to finish the job within a month. I have no idea what will happen to the site afterwards,” said a site supervisor, who wished to remain anonymous.
'One of the designers behind the UFO houses spoke exclusively to us. This man, who only gave his family name for verification purposes and spoke on the condition that his name not be made public, said that the hundreds of rumors about the site being evil were (mostly) true. “First of all, the site is definitely haunted,” he said, in reference to oft-heard stories that many people have seen ghosts near the complex and the high number of unexplained traffic accidents on the nearby road. He said that more than 20,000 skeletons were discovered at the site when construction work began and that it has been the scene of many unexplained murders. "Most of these reports are factual, and there are police records to back them up. Those of us who are close to the project believe the ghosts have been populating the complex using the unwilling spirits of any human visitors who came within their grasp."
'“They original planned to make the compound into a large beer house, amusement park, and high end resort,” he said. “Construction began in 1978, but work was stopped and restarted countless times due to many serious and sometimes fatal accidents on site during the building. Over the next nine years, three separate owners took on the project only to abandon it out of frustration with the unceasing problems, accidents, and deaths. When Tsai Chin-hsien, the president of a local beer house in Tamsui called Haichungtien, took over in 1987, he decided to hire King Interior Design Co as the subcontractor and that was when I began to be involved in the project.”
'He said that after taking over the project, he found that each UFO consisted of a reinforced concrete construction covered by fiber reinforced plastic. Earthquakes could damage such a construction and cause leaks and there was no way to fix such problems. “We just wanted to finish the construction as soon as possible so we did not redesign or reconstruct the remaining half-completed houses,” he said. "Essentially, we were building a futuristic death trap and we knew it.
'He said construction was halted at the end of 1989 because workers were dying at an alarming rate. It seemed that the ghosts were murdering their fellow workers who were still alive. "It became impossible to work without confronting mobs of ghosts every day and everywhere we went, and so the project was abandoned and stayed derelict for the next twenty years." But the site will not lay derelict for much longer, it seems. “With help from the Sanjhih Township Administration Office," says Tourism and Travel Bureau Director Chin Hui-chu, "we are planning to turn the site into a real tourist attraction by constructing hotels, beach facilities and more."' -- The Taipei Free Worker
Photos by Cypherone
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