There are a lot of places in the world that are off-limits. There are even more places that you just do not want to go to.
RAF Menwith Hill
In North Yorkshire, England, there is a bizarre plot of land that is dedicated to intelligence and communications data for the UK and US. It’s basically just a land of huge golf balls.
The Dulce Base
The Dulce Base in New Mexico is allegedly the home to extraterrestrials intercepted by the US. Some believe that it’s a joint human and alien facility, with the two working together.
Mezhgorye, Russia
Rumor has it that the town of Mezhgorye, Russia is the site of a secret missile launch facility. The town around the facility is off limits, which makes it even sketchier!
Area 51
At this point, who doesn’t know about Area 51? It’s by far the most famous military base as many believe that this place is an alien hot spot. In the 50s, it was mainly used to test aircrafts. Naturally, the rumors began to swirl around that time since it was very secretive, and many people claimed to have seen UFOs in the area.
Pine Gap
This facility in Australia is a huge computer complex with nearly 1,000 employees. It’s basically a ground control station for satellites in our atmosphere. What kind of secrets are they hiding?
Zone Rogue
“The Red Zone” is a chain of off-limits areas in France. The French government sectioned off many areas after WWI and never re-opened them. It was said to be too dangerous, but they never ended up cleaning the area.
Yanomami Village
This is Yanomami village. It is located in Brazil, very close to the shared border of Venezuela. They have never made contact with the outside world and are one of the few civilizations left like that.
Chapel of the Ark of the Covenant, Ethiopia
This extremely significant and biblical structure with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Many believe that the Chapel contains the wooden chest with gold inside. Although that fence looks small and unintimidating, it’s heavily supervised.
Club 33
Club 33 is the very exclusive, full-service bar of… Disneyland? Yeah, kinda weird! The initiation fee is $40,000!
Jiangsu National Security Education Museum
Only Chinese citizens are allowed inside of this museum. It showcases classified documents and equipment used for Chinese spying. No cameras allowed!
Coca-Cola Vault
Coca-Cola literally kept their recipe locked behind this vault in Atlanta. Tourists were allowed to tour the facility, but they’re nowhere allowed near this thing! The Atlanta facility is pretty cool, though. They have a 4-D theater with moving seats and a 7-foot-tall animatronic Polar Bear to pose with!
The Google Data Centers
The Google Data Center sounds pretty terrifying, right? There are tons of rooms with CPUs containing trillions of bits of data. Naturally, Google does not release these rooms to the public. Honestly, who would want to see this in person? Sounds kinda overwhelming!
The Bank of England Vaults
This is the second oldest central bank in the world and it is completely off-limits to the public. There are hundreds of thousands of gold bars inside, and they aren’t messing around! The keys to open the vault are three feet long! There is an estimated 156 billion pounds residing within this vault.
Lascaux Caves
These caves are in Southern France. They’re about 17,500 years old and were formed in the Palaeolithic era. Inside the cave, there are around 2,000 figures of animals, humans, and conceptual. The cave was opened to the public in WWII but was quickly closed as people didn’t respect the caves.
Moscow Metro-2
The Russian government will never say if this is theirs or not. It was allegedly constructed during Joseph Stalin’s reign.
Room 39
Room 39 is a secret operation in North Korea. It was established by Kim Il-Sun in the 70s, but no one knows the true origin or what really goes on within the confines of the organization. Supposedly, they contain over a dozen bank accounts in China and Switzerland… And, they someone bring it between $500 million and $1 billion a year.
Vatican Secret Archives
In Vatican City, there are documents that contain state papers, papal account books, and other secret correspondence. Only people with the highest clearance have an entry card to get into the archives.
Snake Island
This is an island off the coast of Brazil that has tons of rare and native snakes. They are extremely endangered, so anyone without clearance that enters the island is trespassing.
White Gentlemen’s Club
This is the outside of the most famous gentlemen’s club in England. Established in 1693, it only accepts male members who are personally invited by a current member.
Bohemian Grove
This encampment is located on 3,000 acres of land in Monte Rio, California. Bohemian Grove hosts a two-week excursion with some very prominent men. After 40 years of membership, they earn “Old Guard” status, which means they are in charge. Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Edwin W. Pauley were members.
Surtsey
Icelandic Surtsey erupted over the course of a four-year period from 1963 to 1967. Scientists are the only ones allowed to be near the remote location so that the island can try and heal itself. The island itself has been losing height since the eruption, and many believe it will be below sea level by 2100.
North Sentinel Island
The Sentinelese inhabit a portion of the Andaman Islands, where no one is allowed to go. Not even the highest of government officials. They are an ancient tribe with absolutely no contact with the outside world. If someone were to make it to their shore without them noticing (nearly impossible, people have died trying to do that) they would then be exposing these people to disease.
Diavik Diamond Mine
This region produces 3,100 pounds of diamonds a year. Since they are constantly digging in the Earth’s crust, there is a huge hole that is constantly open up in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
Mirrny Diamond Mine
This mine is 1,700 feet deep and 3,900 feet wide in the middle of Russia. Underground mining here has been active since 2009, but it’s extremely restricted.
US Bullion Depository – Fort Knox, Kentucky
Fort Knox is a very important safeguard for America’s gold. It holds 2.4% of the worlds refined gold, which is the most concentrated area of gold in the world.
Svalbard Seed Vault
This is a vault in Norway that holds a crazy amount of doomsday necessities for a global catastrophe in case something destroyed Earth’s crops.
The Mormon Church Secret Vault
Granite Mountain is close to Salt Lake City which is composed of quartz monzonite. There is a vault about 600 feet into the mountain that is owned by the Mormon Church. It houses a lot of important documents and some other secrets…
Ise Grand Shrine
There are over 100 shrines within this sacred space. It is dedicated to the goddess Amaterasu-Omikami and has been there since 4 BC. It’s a holding place for sacred objects of historical importance.
Chernobyl
Chernobyl was the worst nuclear disaster in history. On April 2nd, 1988, a nuclear reactor exploded and spewed out radioactive particles everywhere. Many died, and the surrounding area is extremely toxic and off-limits.
Poveglia
Poveglia is a small island located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. Its history includes serving as a refuge, a stronghold, a place of exile, and a dumping ground for the diseased and dead.
The Negev Nuclear Research Center
The Negev Nuclear Research Center is in Isreal, about 13 km from Dimona. It was constructed in 1958 with France helping. The info about this place is extremely classified…
Tomb of Qin Shi Huang
This place is home to the very famous Terracotta Army, which is the tomb of China’s first emperor guarded by terracotta army men. The Chinese government has done an awesome job of keeping it safe from the public.
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center
This is FEMA’s center of operations. Dick Cheney and members of Congress were held here during 9/11. There offices, dorms, and a dining room in a location safely outside the city of D.C.
Island of the Dolls – Mexico City, Mexico
The Island of Dolls is ticked away deeply south of Mexico City. It’s a popular tourist attraction because of all of the creepy dolls.
Aokigahara – Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
“Suicide Forest” os near Mount Fuji, situated in Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. It’s known for being a huge and dense forest that many sad souls come to in order to end their life. It’s noted that between 50-100 people commit suicide here annually.
The Stanley Hotel – Colorado, United States
The Stanley Hotel is a 142-room Colonial Revival hotel in Colorado. This is where Stephen King got his inspiration for The Shining. It’s been noted to have tons of paranormal activity…
Capuchin Catacombs – Palermo, Sicily, Italy
These Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo are burial crypts in Sicily, Italy. This is a pretty gruesome tourist attraction! There are about 8,000 mummies within those walls.
Bran Castle – Bran, Romania
Dracula’s Castle is a national monument in Romania. Vlad the Impaler lived here hundreds of years ago. He was best known for his barbaric way of living, including impaling the heads of his enemies and displaying them outside of the castle.
The North Yungas Road – Bolivia
This is a TWO-WAY road in Bolivia. Yes, two-way. Somehow. There’s pretty much no room for error on this 12-foot-wide path. It’s about a 2,000-foot drop down that hill.
The Village of Nagoro – Nagoro, Japan
This village is facing a drop in population over the years. The young people who grew up here are moving out, leaving the elders behind. Artist Ayano Tsukimi moved back one year to find it a desolate ghost town. She decided to create life-size dolls to place around the village to give it more “life.” Not sure if that’s the most fun idea, but it seems to work!
The Door to Hell – Derweze, Turkmenistan
This is a natural gas crater in Turkmenistan. It’s a direct result of a natural gas field that collapsed back in 1971.
Hanging Coffins of Sagada – Sagada, Philippines
These hanging coffins are actually a part of cliffside burials that were pretty common hundreds of years ago. The placement of the coffins corresponded with status. The placement also prevented animals from getting the bodies.
Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital – Beelitz, Germany
This place used to be a sanatorium to house people ill with tuberculosis. Later, it was made into a military hospital during WWI. Rumor has it that Hitler had even been treated here at one point.
Sedlec Ossuary – Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
There are about 40,000 skeletons residing in this chapel. Their bones have been arranged as if they were ornate decorations. It’s a very popular tourist attraction in the Czech Republic.
Centralia – Pennsylvania, United States
Centralia is a mining town in Pennsylvania that is nearly completely abandoned. There are about seven people that still live there, although government officials don’t believe it is safe. It was evacuated in 1962 because of underground fires in the mines. They’ve been burning ever since.
Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland
This Nazi concentration camp is where about 1.1 million Jewish prisoners died. It’s one of the most famous of WWII because of all of the horror stories that came out of it. It was also one of the biggest.
Beelitz Sanatorium, Germany
The Beelitz Sanatorium is a huge campus of 60-buildings that housed tons of patients. Since it was abandoned, a lot of people have broken in and made it a graffiti haven.
Hill of Crosses, Lithuania
No one knows the true reason for this bizarre crucifix graveyard. There are about 250,000 crosses.
Freeman Ranch, Texas
This is a plot of land in Texas that is designated solely for forensic anthropology. Officials place real human remains to rot so students can see the decomposition process.
Oradour-sur-Glane, France
This used to be a small and quiet village before the Nazi Germans came through and massacred it to the ground. This site now serves as a memorial to the victims lost in the Holocaust.
Akodessewa Fetish Market, Togo
This is one of the biggest voodoo markets in the world. They even offer human skulls…
Kolmanskop, Namibia
After WWI, this diamond-field was exhausted of its resources. The town started to decline and was officially abandoned in 1954.
Tugboat Graveyard, New York
These tugboats have been neglected at a port in Staten Island. It’s pretty much a rusty wasteland and looks straight out of a post-apocalyptic movie.
Lier Sykehus, Norway
Yet another creepy abandoned hospital! This campus is mainly abandoned, but some buildings still have living occupants. Squatters tend to call this home… Those the ones who can stand the ghosts!