How 'world's most haunted island' got its title after man spent a night there and shared 'alarming' encounters

I'm sure you could hazard a guess as to how a place earns the title of the 'world's most haunted island', but when it comes to Poveglia, it's not as self-explanatory as you might think.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of people are said to have died there and if you believe in the paranormal, you might assume that all of their spirits are still trapped on there - but it's the manner of their demise which is really intriguing.

The fact that YouTuber Dara Tah - who was the first person to step foot on the island in a very long time - had some 'alarming' encounters there only adds to the eeriness of the place, too.

But a quick flick through the history books is what will quickly help you understand why authorities have forbidden people from visiting Poveglia. Put it this way, it's no Disneyland.

It might be a stone's throw away from one of the most prettiest places in Italy, but this island's past is quite ugly.

Poveglia, which is situated between Venice and Lido, was originally a very serene - and supposedly ghost free - place to live, seen as though they were out of the way from invasions and taxes which were enforced on Italy's mainland.

The island of Poveglia has quite the chequered past (Blom UK via Getty Images)

But when Venice came under attack from Genoa amid the three-year Chioggia War in 1379, those who resided there were forced to flee and it remained uninhabited for centuries as a result.

That was until it was repurposed in 1776, when it came under the jurisdiction of Italy's Public Health Office, seeing Poveglia become a check point for all goods and visitors heading to Venice by ship.

However, it all started to go downhill in 1793 when it was discovered that there were several cases of the plague on board some of the boats - forcing authorities to again repurpose it.

But this time, it was transformed into a makeshift 'black plague isolation zone' where the infected were sent to quarantine.

Poveglia subsequently became the third plague quarantine island - known as a 'lazzaretto' - close to Venice, with it serving as an 'overflow' station when Lazzaretto Nuovo and Lazzaretto Vecchio were fit to bust.

It is suspected that those who died there - which is said to be as many as 160,000 people - were buried in 'plague pits'.

The leader of the French Republic, Napoleon Bonaparte, decided to make this the island's permanent role in 1805 and he ordered for the old church which still stood there to be destroyed.

These days, it's a ghost town (Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)

It remained this way until 1814, before Poveglia was rebranded once again.

The buildings which Bonaparte didn't bulldoze were later converted into an asylum for the mentally ill in 1922, while there were also facilities for long-term care too.

Some pretty disturbing stuff is said to have gone down during this period, with content creator Dara explaining he had come across a lot of chilling reports while researching the place.

While documenting his daring visit, he told viewers: "The doctors conducted terrible experiments on their patients away from the eyes of the public."

For example, according to Far Out Magazine, there were rumours about one certain medic in particular who had a penchant for performing lobotomies.

He is said to have believed the terrifying procedure was the 'best cure' for mental illness, and he reportedly performed them on his patients against their will.

Disturbing things are believed to have taken place at the asylum (Marco Secchi/Getty Images)

Other claims suggest he kept those who he liked the best in the Bell Tower - which is said to be the most haunted place on the entire island - and carried out sick experiments on them, before he is said to have died by suicide in the same spot.

I'm sure you can gather, you wouldn't want to get stuck on Poveglia after dark - even though that's exactly what Dara did.

The asylum was eventually closed for good in 1968, while the land was briefly used for agricultural purposes.

It has been abandoned ever since that wrapped up - and Italian authorities apparently want to flog it to private owners.

The state auctioned a 99-year lease of Poveglia - which would remain state property - to raise revenue back in 2014, with hopes a wealthy investor might redevelop the asylum and transform it into a swanky hotel.

But ultimately, the deal fell through.

A private investment group then attempted to raise millions to add a 'public park, a marina, a restaurant, a hostel and a study centre' to Poveglia in 2015, but this also never came to fruition.

It's still vacant to this day - but if you've got a spare few quid, I'm not so sure this would be the best place to spend it on.