The lascaux caves – France
Located near the village of Montignac in Southwest France, The Lascaux cave is the largest within a complex of caves and has been sealed off from the public since 1963. The reason isn’t due to it leading to some mystical underground world or hosting a military secret, but rather to protect the caves contents.
The cave is home to more than 600 paintings done by early humans, who covered the walls and ceilings in images of people and animals, as well as some unidentified symbols. The paintings seem to have been done over several generations, but the most agreed on date that the cave was occupied since is as early as 17,000 BC.
The reason the cave was closed is due to the deterioration of the paintings caused by mass amounts of visitors. After World War II the cave was receiving as many as 1,200 people a day and the lingering moisture from their sweat and breath, combined with frequent temperature changes in the air caused by so many people constantly moving in and out saw the images start to fade.
A white mold formed on the ceiling and lichens began to grow on the walls, causing the paint used to rot and peel. Since 1979 the lascaux caves have received additional protection by being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site who contribute to the cave’s maintenance.
Today the only people allowed to visit the cave are a small selection of scientists who receive special permission from the French government to do so.
North Sentinel island – Bay of Bengal
This beautiful tropical island is located within the bay of Bengal and covers just under 60 km². It would be the perfect place to go on holiday, if it weren’t for the locals who kill people on sight of course.
The island is home to a native tribe who are known only as the Sentinelese, but ever since they were discovered they have been very hostile to anyone who tries to land on their beach’s, always attacking on sight and consistently refusing any opportunity to talk to outsiders.
The tribe is quite primitive and uses crude bows and spears, lives in basic grass huts and hasn’t even discovered metal yet. The reason they are so hostile is unknown, as ever since they were first found they have either tried to kill anyone they’ve come into contact with, or they ran and hid.
In January of 1867 a British led team went ashore in force to find out more about the people living here after seeing lights on the beach one night during a voyage. The locals hid and the expedition only found a series of abandoned villages and pathways. They did finally managed to find a few people hiding and took 6 prisoners back to the mainland. Upon making contact with people outside their island they quickly got sick and some of them died, with the 2 surviving children being sent back to the island before they died in the custody of the British and made them look bad.
Today no one is allowed to visit the island under any circumstances, as the inhabitants still sometimes make the headlines by killing the occasional lost fishermen or more recently in 2018, a missionary who went to the island to try and spread the word of god, it didn’t work.
Snake island – Brazil
Snake island is a small rocky island located off the coast of Brazil that is completely restricted from civilian visitors. The island isn’t surrounded by armed guards to stop people from going there, because it doesn’t need them, the reason its restricted is to stop anyone who goes there from dying.
As the name suggests the island has a large population of snakes, to the point where its impossible to move without stepping on one. The snakes who inhabit the island are all Golden Lance-head Vipers, a poisonous snake that is considered far from friendly, and with the shear number of them its almost guaranteed that you’ll be killed unless your wearing proper anti-snake clothing.
The island is thought to be home to around 430,000 snakes, and since its surface area is about the same in square meters, that would work out to 1 snake per square meter, however there are various places such as cliffs were the snakes cant go, and so bunch up in places were they have been recorded as several hundred per square meter.
Today the island can only be visited with special permission from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, and access is only granted to particular people such as scientists and biologists.
The Vatican Archives – Italy
This is one of the most secretive places on earth, but access to it is not strictly forbidden, its just very hard to get and comes with many restrictions. The archives allow no more than 60 people a day inside, which may seem like a large amount but the shelving of the archives are believed to be around 53 miles long, and contain hundreds of thousands of books and papers.
To get access to the Vatican secret archives you must submit an application for entry, which requires you to be someone of high standing within a related field, and also to provide a letter or recommendation from a credible institute or individual who again has very high standing within a related field, Not to mention your full personal details.
Even though access is granted to most of the archives, there are sections which are completely restricted to anyone except the current pope or other figures of authority within the church. One interesting thing about the restrictions is that only records from before 1939 are viewable to visitors, with anything after being completely off limits, with no visitors allowed to view them under any circumstances.
This action has led to many conspiracy theories about the reason as to why they banned the viewing of records at the same time that World War 2 started, with the most common being the most obvious, that the church had some kind of relationship with the Nazi party, which is something the church vigorously denies.
There are various other sections sealed off from the public eye for various reasons, but some of them are so secretive that it isn’t publicly known whats even in them. As for the people who are allowed to visit, they are under strict rules to not share what they have read with the public, and may only publish small snippets with the permission of the church.
Area 51
Everybody has heard of this secretive American military base, and whenever people hear the name they normally think of aliens. This was the site where the supposed Roswell alien ship and body was taken for study, but this is only an unproven rumour.
Area 51 is an installation of the United States Air Force, acting as a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base with its purpose officially being listed as “classified”.
All public access to the site is strictly forbidden and enforced with armed response units. Anyone straying into the region surrounding Area 51 will be approached by armed guards and either arrested, shot or turned back. Both the government and the military have given next to no information as to what goes on here, with very basic answers like “that’s classified” and “military exercises”.
The base is believed to be the site of developing experimental aircraft and weaponry, though this is something that no one can confirm and there isn’t any evidence for. It wasn’t until 2006 that the CIA even acknowledged the existence of the base, and the installation isn’t even officially declared as a secret base, its simply just “there so stop asking questions”.
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