Silver N
Ever wondered why some of the most secure locations on Earth are also some of the most mysterious places on Earth?
Whether they’re supposedly concealing the existence of aliens at Area 51, protecting the President at the White House or setting up a fail-safe in case of a global catastrophe at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, there are many locations that can be considered the safest places in the world.
- Vatican Secret Archives, Italy
The storage facility houses a wealth of forms, official documents and ledgers from the Catholic Church. These archives are set apart from the Vatican Library and ownership is passed down from Pope to Pope.
Despite the church’s attempt at openness, critics say the contents aren’t accessible enough since only qualified clergy and academics are allowed inside the facility, and even those granted entry cannot view items without advanced approval.
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Norway
The Svalbard International Seed Vault, is designed to store a wide assortment of seeds in an effort to preserve crop diversity and assure humans will have a source of food no matter what earthly disasters occur.
- Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Inc. (NYSE: IRM) is an American enterprise information management services company founded in 1951 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Its records management, information destruction, and data backup and recovery services are supplied to more than 220,000 customers throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. As of 2016 over 94% of Fortune 1000 companies use Iron Mountain’s services to store and manage their information.
- The 1960’s Bar
Located 100 feet underground within Britain’s secret subterranean Burlington bunker complex in Wiltshire, England, the 1960’s Bar is a recreation of a pub popular with British Government officials. This top secret base was first constructed during the Cold War and designed to be a refuge for the higher-ups to reconstruct Britain in the event of a nuclear attack…needless to say they figured they would need a few pints to wait out the radiation, I like the way these guys think.
- Bank of England Gold Vault
UK’s largest gold vault—second in the world to the Fed in New York—stores 4,600 5152 tons of gold. The bombproof door is unlocked via a sophisticated voice recognition system, aided by multiple three-foot-long keys.
- The White House
Do you know that Barack Obama was the most heavily guarded president in the world and so The White House does also have every safety feature you could or could not think of. For the starters, the iron fence which surrounds The White House seemingly looks ordinary but it is capable to hold an inside or outside impact by any car you can think of.
The property has the special agents on the grounds at all times which make sure only friendly visitors make it through the gates. The food scanning process is quite impressive and is done off-site in order to detonate everything off the premises. The White House also controls the restricted air space by which helicopters cannot come too close and even if they do, the house has bulletproof windows, radars and infrared sensors that can detect any local or unwanted movement miles outside the premises.
- ADX Florence Prison
This is is a supermax prison (for men) in Colorado housing the baddest of the bad. These criminals are considered the most dangerous cons in the US. Described by one former ADX warden as “a cleaner version of hell”, security measures at the prison include attack dogs guarding the area between the prison walls and 12 ft. high razor wire fences, 1,400 remotely controlled steel doors, motion detecting laser beams, pressure pads and cameras. Current residents of the prison include infamous “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, 9/11 terrorist mastermind Zacarias Moussaoui, and Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols among many, many others.
- Korean Demilitarized Zone
The Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula. It is established by the provisions of the Korean Armistice Agreement to serve as a buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea. The demilitarized zone is a border barrier that divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half. It’s the most militarized border on earth.
Barbed wire lined all fences, tank traps enclosed us and the remainder was a laden, active minefield. One million soldiers stood guard overseeing from outposts, gazing across the border into forbidden lands once unified and the eyes of the South Korean military. The peace treaty was never signed, the war between the North and South of Korea still rages over 60 years on, at least technically, anyway, and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the border between two countries now worlds apart, serves as the best reminder. Here in the eye of the storm at Panmunjom a one-metre misstep could see you shot or carted away to a North Korean ‘re-education’ camp.
- Teikoku Bank, Hiroshima
The exterior was fried but the interior was pristine. Mosler, the company that built the safe, saw the incident as a great marketing opportunity. For the next decade, it exploited the tragedy to boast about the quality of its products. Safe? Certainly.
- Fort Knox, USA
The building houses the bullion reserve of the United States and is one of the most closely guarded places on Earth. Fort Knox is heavily protected at all times by armed guards making it impossible to enter the area unless you were invited of course.
