Thanet Village

Thanet Village is a ghost town at the southern boundaries of Greater Manchester. It was deserted due to mysterious circumstances sometime between 1943 and 1979. Since the abandonment, many strange occurrences have been reported, and every so often the Territorial Police Force will visit the area to ensure its security, however, many operators are nervous of the area.

Due to its pseudo-super-natural status, much of the area has been fenced off and is inaccessible to the public, though many thrill-seekers and urban explorers have sought to enter the village.

There have been a slew of theories, many of them conspiratorial in nature, which range from war-time evacuation to a mysterious disease that wiped out the population.

Government closure
In 1991, to protect the area from thieves and squatters, the British government sealed off the village from the general public, tall metal fences, topped with barbed wire, now surround the area. In addition, some buildings were boarded up or fenced off individually. These buildings were selected as those most likely to be ransacked or to attract squatters, in particular the church. The government maintain that the closure is to prevent harm to the public and to keep the area safe and clean.

Territorial Police Force security scans
Following the government's actions in 1991, the Territorial Police Force perform monthly security checks of the area. Arriving at 6:00 AM on the first day of the month, a team of five cars and ten operators drive from Manchester Central Station to the village, where one unit will remain at the gates and the other four will enter the restricted area.

For their own safety, the operators remain in their vehicles for much of the time they're there. From their cars, they survey the surrounding area, searching for any movement or sign of habitation. While humans are restricted from entering the area, wildlife is unrestricted, so woodland fauna is often sighted in and around the fenced premises.

Points of interest

 * Village Church & Cemetery: Built in 1654

Theories
Many theories have come about regarding the ghost town of Thanet Village, ranging from those grounded in logic and historial knowledge of the area, to the unfounded bizarre ideas.

Mining disaster
Through the years of 1887 to 1937, a coal mine existed inside the village, this coal would be transported to a coal-fired power plant in Cheshire. The mine ceased operations in the March of 1937, after an incident of some kind. While the reports of the incident are vague and exact details are dubious at best, it is generally accepted that a collapse or gas leak of some form occurred in the mine and resulted in the death of multiple miners. In December of 1937, the mine was closed and sealed off, some say the bodies of the miners are still in there.

Evacuation
As the earliest reports of the deserted village surfaced during the Second World War, many have come to suspect that the residents simply moved away from the village to a potentially safer part of the country. While the timelines coincide correctly, Manchester was relatively safe from air raid bombardment during the war, especially the southern rural parts. Some historians believe it was "paranoia and a fear that any shelling that targeted Manchester could hit them instead"

Mass murderer
A grizzlier theory on the disappearance of the population lies in murder. Some believe that a psychotic killer plagued the village for many years and possibly murdered the entire population, or enough to frighten the rest into fleeing the quaint village.

Little evidence is present to properly support this idea, with the main pieces being newspaper clippings, dated between the years of 1919 and 1925, which report on multiple murders, each one ended up being cold cases.

Mystery disease
Some subscribe to the theory that a mysterious disease wiped out the population. The source of such an epidemic are equally varied, with some saying it's a genetically modified disease produced in a lab and tested on unsuspecting residents of the village, while others rely on a more common agricultural occurrence of Foot-and-Mouth disease or Swine Flu.

Alien abductions
Among the most far-fetched theories of Thanet Village is that of extraterrestrial intervention, an alien abduction. Those who believe in this idea think that aliens visited the quiet, little village shortly before the start of the Second World War and took the residents away, either for their own safety or for scientific experimentation. This is widely believed to be heavily influenced by film and television, thus the hypothesis is heavily discredited.