TOP 15 Mysterious Places You CANNOT Visit

we live in an age where the world is far more accessible than has ever been the case before but still there remains a number of places that for various reasons very few people are allowed to get close to whether for national security purposes to prevent contamination or simply for the safety of potential visitors it's time to count down the 15 most secret places that you're not allowed to see number 15 the svalbard global seed Vault the svalbar global seed Vault opened in Sweden in 2008 and it's specifically designed to store and protect seed samples for future Generations it serves as a backup for the other 1750 seed banks in the world and in theory can preserve each specimen for at least a thousand years no matter the effects of climate change or political attitudes each seed is kept in a three-ply foil package at a constant temperature of negative 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit and to make this as efficient as possible the Vault itself is in an extremely remote region of the island of spitzbergen which is in the arctics fallbard archipelago temperatures there rarely rise above freezing and it's so difficult to reach that only authorized Personnel have any way of getting there the Vault was designed to be able to store over 4 million samples in these conditions and currently just a quarter of the capacity has been used up eventually they hope to have seeds from every known plant species on Earth kept in storage there and it may become an invaluable resource should those plants for any reason become extinct in the wild the building essentially works the same way as a safety deposit vault in a bank whereby the owners of the seeds are the organizations that send them to svalbard to be stored there have only been two instances so far when a withdrawal has actually happened however as the intent is normally for them to be kept there for at least several decades with the importance of the preservation of everything held within it isn't the type of place that you're allowed to enter only a very limited number of people have ever set aside in that Vault since it's open with it mostly being remotely operated and there being no permanent on-site staff and each person who's been allowed in has had to pass an extensive Security check and can only enter while wearing the correct protective clothing to eliminate any chance of contamination number 14 Kyle Santiago Kyle Santiago is an island off the coast of Puerto Rico it's commonly referred to as Monkey Island but don't be under the impression that it's full of cute little animals ready to play with you because the reality of this place is a lot darker the story began in 1938 when an American primatologist Clarence Ray Carpenter released 400 Reese's macaques rather than try to populate the island he was the first of many to conduct experiments looking at the behavior in adverse situations he realized that it would be much easier to breed a population close to home instead of chasing around for specimens in Africa so his idea test site was born for the following 80 years the site was used to conduct tests that range from the harmless-like observation to the more Sinister such as disease research up until recently there were almost a thousand monkeys living on the island and most of the time it seemed like they were observing the humans rather than the other way around but you shouldn't get too close to them because their own natural carriers of a virulent strain of herpes be which is a form of the virus that can be deadly to humans it's such a risk at the first thing any visitor to the island is told is to not let the monkey pee on you as things stand now the site is technically public property so anyone can visit but in reality it's just official researchers who are able to visit the island and tourists can only look at it from a distance I think he's coming to get me number 13 tomb of chinchi Huang while digging a well in the Chinese town of Xiang in 1974 a farmer made one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Chinese history this hole suddenly opened up into a vast Cavern and inside were thousands upon thousands of statues that have since become known as the Terracotta Army after extensive studies it's been determined that they were crafted over 38 years between 246 and 208 BC as a fitting tribute for the mausoleum of the first chin Emperor each figure is modeled after an individual person so no two look alike and they're believed to be as many as 8 000 of them as well as the human figures there are a hundred chariots 400 horses and more than 10 000 weapons which represent the largest known project of its sort to have ever been built originally they would have been painted with Vivid colors but these have now faded to become what we see today but beyond the famous Army is a much wider complex that's virtually an entire underground city that includes an Imperial Palace almost a quarter of the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing while some of the statues have been removed and even taken around the world to display only a select few have ever been allowed into this city itself in modern times because of the risk of causing irreparable damage to any of the treasures and secrets that it holds and this means that only a fraction of the discovery has so far been explored number 12. Poveglia most people think of Venice as being the most romantic city in the world and with somewhere between 22 and 30 million visitors each year space is definitely at a premium there's an island in the lagoon though which no one's allowed to go to because of a serious health risk and because it's believed to be haunted paveglia was first inhabited in the year 421 but from 1776 it was used as a quarantine facility every ship that arrived in the area had to stop there first to be checked and after several arrivals of crew infected with the Bubonic plague it became where infectious people were sent to either recover or die without passing it on to others following this it was converted into a psychiatric hospital that became renowned for experimenting with new techniques and the remains of some of these horrific treatments can still be seen on the island to this day the ghosts of those who were mistreated are said to still roam the beaches and workers who sail Too Close return with paranormal stories there are plans to completely redevelop the island but for now the crumbling buildings are finder of its cruel history and a warning to anyone who dares Venture near its Shores It's relatively easy to access though which means that footage occasionally emerges of the rundown structures on the island it is still classified as a health risk however so anyone doing so could end up regretting it number 11. Fort Meade named after a union general from the United States Civil War Fort Meade which is in Maryland is one of the most secretive places on American soil it was first opened as Camp Admiral in 1917 as a military training ground a signal training school as well as a tank school will open there soon after in the following decades it became the place where new vehicle designs were tested and as a prisoner of war camp during the second World War II it went on to become one of the crucial locations for radar equipment and various other Technologies to provide air defense during the Cold War Fort Meade is now not only home to several Army divisions but also the headquarters of the NSA the United States cyber command and the Navy's cryptologic Warfare group six and it's seen as so secure that it also serves as a backup storage facility for the most valuable items owned by the Library of Congress while it is fairly easy to find out which organizations are based there and even which buildings they're located in that's about as much as the information about Ford me that we get actually what happens on the site from the new technologies being developed to the new techniques being used to keep the nation safe their highly guarded secrets and ones that the average citizens don't have a chance of getting close to number 10. Chernobyl exclusion Zone once a bustling town with more than 16 000 inhabitants Chernobyl in Northern Ukraine was the site of one of the world's worst ever nuclear incidents in 1986. on April 26 that year the nearby nuclear power plant was conducting a systems test on its fourth reactor but something went terribly wrong there was a sudden surge of power and the emergency shutdown was initiated the further search happened and triggered a series of explosions the core of the reactor became exposed and caused a fire that sent a plume of Highly radioactive smoke into the atmosphere this plume drifted across large parts of the Soviet Union and across Europe and turned Chernobyl into a wasteland today there's a 19 mile or 30 kilometer exclusion Zone around the reactor to prevent people from coming into contact with the dangerous parts that will take hundreds if not thousands of years to fully recover it is one of the most radioactive areas in the world and draws scientists and tourists from all over although the time you can spend there is limited the town was abandoned in such haste that you can still see shoes cups and toys where they were left in the panic and the Chernobyl Fairground which was due to open a few days after the incident lays in Ruins having never been used there's one unexpected positive to the evacuation though and that's the effect it's had on the local Wildlife species now roam free and even rare birds have increased their numbers in the area tests are regularly carried out to see if the local fauna is being affected by the radiation and while levels are present it's not affecting animal populations in fact they're thriving which just goes to prove a pretty Stark reality the presence of humans has a far more detrimental effect on animal habitats than even a nuclear disaster does it's pretty eye-opening number nine Porton down port and down is probably the most famous government facility in the UK but even though its existence has been officially acknowledged the projects that take place there Remain the most secretive that the country's involved in it was first opened in 1916 in response to the new chemical weapons being used by the Germans on the battlefields of the first world war and soon started looking for ways to defend against them and to create new ones of their own in the time since the operations at Port and down have been scaled up and down depending on how government policy and the threats being faced around the world and it's now only home to classified military research Labs but it's also the country's health authority and several private companies are there too what's known about the experiments that have taken place there is that between 1949 and 1989 as many as 20 000 people took part in various trials and it was also the place where VX nerve gas was first developed in 1952 also involved in the creation of Cs gas and now where samples are some of the world's most dangerous pathogens such as Ebola anthrax and the plague are kept you can wonder about what still takes place behind those secretive walls and why things are just being kept as secret as they always have been who knows number eight herd Island Australia despite falling under the jurisdiction of Australia herd island is one of the most remote places on Earth lying around 2 547 miles or 4099 kilometers to the southwest of Perth and about 2 600 miles or 4 200 kilometers to the southeast of South Africa and the Indian Ocean it's herd Island along with the surrounding McDonald islands that you'll find Australia's only two active volcanoes and one of them mustn't Peak is the tallest mountain in Australia reaching an elevation of 9006 feet or 2745 meters because of where the islands are they're also covered in 41 separate glaciers and are home to a wide range of different plant and animal species although they're volcanic in origin they're made up of mainly Limestone and Scattered pieces of other rocks this means they're relatively fragile compared to most other islands and this is why the Australian government forbids visitors from going there there are some parts of the island that have never been seen by a person before and the government wants to keep it that way in order to preserve it of course this is a place that's so remote that there's virtually no chance that anyone would reach herd Island without it being their specific destination so with the rules in place there have been fewer voyages to investigate the islands in the past half century that have been sent to the Moon number seven the siachen glacier there are some places in the world that militaries take far more interest in than you would expect but perhaps the most mysterious of these is the siachen glacier it's located within the Eastern karakora Mountain Range lies on the border between India and Pakistan but despite being officially under Indian control the two countries have fought over it since the 1970s the 47 mile long Glacier ranges in elevation between 18 875 feet above sea level to about 11 875 feet and see temperatures at certain times of the year plummet as low as negative 58 degrees Fahrenheit or negative 50 degrees Celsius these treacherous conditions haven't stopped it from being known as the highest Battleground on Earth and to enable their control over the glacier it's believed that the Indian military has built a sub-glacial base to support the troops that Patrol the surface just how vast this base is isn't known but there have been estimates that the Indian Army's presence produces as much as a ton of waste per day which is being dumped on the glacier it's also known that India has installed large networks of oil pipelines throughout the glacier to supply outposts and camps as well as using chemical blasting to change the landscape to their needs which is causing severe environmental consequences for the surrounding area all of this activity however causing the glacier to retreat at a far greater rate than ever before so even if there's no official confirmation of the base we'll probably all know for sure by 2035 at which time the glacier is only expected to be around a fifth of the size it was in 2011. number six Nihao Island United States the westernmost and seventh largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago is known as nihau and it covers an area of 69.5 square miles or about 180 square kilometers it's 17 and a half miles or 28.2 kilometers to the southwest of Kauai now despite being a lush Wetland region that's as beautiful as the rest of Hawaii you won't find any resorts to stay in there and the closest you'll get to it is half a day helicopter tour to see the island from a distance that's because of an unusual political agreement that means only people authorized by the Island's owners are allowed to go there and they're notoriously restrictive with who they welcome the island was sold to Elizabeth Sinclair by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1864 for ten thousand dollars which is the equivalent to around 170 Grand today and it's her Descendants the Robinsons who are still in charge only members of the family and their relatives along with U.S Navy personnel government officials and the occasional invited guests are allowed on the island and this is allowed for the development of a community that's detached from the outside world now this doesn't mean that they have nothing to do with anyone else though and they've had a long-standing relationship with the US military to the point where there's a small installation on the island and it's also occasionally used as a site for specialist training operations there are now believed to be around 170 residents on the island and after building an economy that was mainly sustained by farming they are all virtually self-sufficient no rent has to be paid by residents and meat is free to everyone that lives there all electricity is provided by solar power and there are no vehicles with Islanders instead relying on horses for their transport number five the grand Shrine of issei Japan there are said to be as many as 80 000 Shinto shrines across Japan with people being just as likely to worship at home as they are in a public building and while most welcome anyone who wishes to make use for them in their spiritual beliefs there's one that only a select few people can enter it's known as the grand Shrine of issei it was built to honor Amaterasu the goddess of the sun and the universe amazingly the construction of the shrine made use of traditional Japanese wood crafting techniques which means not a single nail was used it was first built more than two thousand years ago but in accordance with the Shinto ideals of death and rebirth it's actually fully rebuilt every 20 years and the last time this happened was in 2013. today in respect of how important the shrine is the only people allowed to enter are priests and members of the Imperial royal family the closest anyone can get to see the shrine is from the outside through the wooden fences that surround it but it is permitted to walk around the grounds which include a forest and a series of ornamental walkways that were built around 150 years ago number four the superconducting super collider the largest particle collider in the world right now is hidden beneath the ground near Geneva in Switzerland but there were once plans to build something on a completely different level keeping true to the state's ethos that everything's bigger in Texas the desert outside the town of Waxahachie was chosen as the location for the superconducting super collider which if it had been completed it would have been more than three times as big as the one in Europe with a length of almost 55 miles or 87.1 kilometers construction began in 1991 but after spending two billion dollars on the project work was suspended because of the spiraling costs 14 miles or 22 and a half kilometers of tunnels had already been dug by this time along with several buildings along the Route and while most of the structures were flooded to help retain their stability the others were locked down and forgotten about access to the site is strictly prohibited because of safety concerns and the possibility that there's still some top secret equipment lying around which makes it all the more surprising than most people who live nearby I have no idea that any of it actually exists number three Jagger Air Base when building an airport or more specifically an Air Force Base one of the things that designers often do is choose a location as far away from obstacles like mountains as they can the complete opposite happened with the Jada Air Base in Albania however and that's because they wanted to carve out an operation Center within the mountain that would become the country's most secretive facility after landing aircraft can turn directly into a tunnel underneath the mountain and the base is said to contain enough space for up to 50 aircraft to be in there the idea of course was to protect the aircraft particularly from the Yugoslav Air Force and the landing strip welcome its first aircraft in 1973. it began solely under the control of the Albanian forces but its secretive Nature Made It ideal for other uses too in the 1990s the CIA used the air base to fly unmanned spy missions over neighboring countries and in the mid-1990s the base was used to fly predator drones over to Bosnia because aircraft could deliver components and supplies to the base without prying eyes from satellites being able to see it's perfect for launching classified operations but as of the year 2000 it's been regulated to nothing more than an aircraft storage facility there are rumors of course that the base isn't as decommissioned as the authorities would have us think and there's no way to definitively know how active the command center deep within the mountain truly is number two HARP Research station Alaska the HARP Research station which stands for high frequency active auroral research program first started being built in gacona Alaska in 1993 as a joint project between the United States Air Force Navy the local University and the defense Advanced research projects agency which is more commonly known as DARPA the official reason for the station was to study the Earth sciatosphere and to try to develop enhancement Technologies for communications and surveillance within it essentially the facility is a high-powered high frequency transmitter that directs a 3.6 megawatt signal into the ionosphere and this can either be continuous or pulsed on the face of it the authorities running the research station have been fully transparent with the work they're trying to do to unlock the secrets of the highest level of our atmosphere but there are plenty of suggestions that all may not be how it seems and they certainly don't let anyone just walk around the site to see it for themselves having cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars to build with a number of agencies of involved in its operation not only have the emissions from the station affected the ability of local communities to use technology but they've also interfered with the local ecosystems for an as yet unexplained reason there are suggestions that the true nature of the research station is to try to weaponize weather systems to secretly hijack electronic signals as they pass through the ionosphere or even to try to develop a form of Mind Control quite whether harp is a super secret weapons facility with a science experiment as a cover story or is exactly what they claim it is can't be known for certain but it surely wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility number 1.30 Island Iceland on the 14th of November 1963 a huge underwater volcanic eruption began off the southern coast of Iceland and it would set in motion a series of events that would become known as the most unique scientific experiment ever by the time the eruption ended in June of 1967 a brand new chain of islands had been formed the largest of which was called sarzi and it gave scientists an incredible insight into the way that islands are created the other formation soon wore away in the face of oceanic erosion but certain is still there to this day and it's only expected to fall back beneath the waves in around a century or so it has long been a protected site with only authorized researchers allowed anywhere near it but this isn't anything to do with safety instead it's to prevent contamination on the island so researchers can further study the development of new islands bacteria fungi and molds were for example the first living organisms to appear on certsy and these provided the basis for the ecosystem that could support more complex life now it's believed that there are 89 issues of birds and 335 invertebrates in the area and this number is only expected to increase as time passes and while there's a solitary Hut on the island this is for researchers to conduct observations without contaminating the rest of the island and any other visits are completely out of the question there have been two instances when this strict biosecurity was breached once when some kids were believed to have rode over to the island and planted some potatoes and another one an unknown culprit relieved themselves in an improperly managed way and this led to a tomato plant beginning to grow in both cases these plants were quickly removed and the island remains an important way of learning how new species manage to establish themselves in new places I'll see you next time watch our binge watching playlist if you'd like to watch all of our most popular top 15 videos grab a drink grab a snack and get ready to binge

Channel: Top Fives

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Keywords: Mysterious Places, Mysterious Places You Cannot Visit, secret places, secret

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Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 25 2023