Ever wondered which places are the most secure in the world? The most secure places in the world house very important persons, things or information that need to be safeguarded. As a result, a combination of location, building architecture, security systems and personnel keep these places highly secured. Here are the most secure places in the world.
Vatican Street Archive, Rome, Italy
The Vatican Street Archive in Rome, Italy is one of the most secretive and secured places on earth. The Vatican’s Street Archives only has a few numbers of images ever published of what lies inside. It houses some of history’s most precious religious papers with an estimate of 35,000 volumes of papers over a stretch of 53 miles of shelving.
Access to the archives is only granted to academic scholars who are 75 years or older, and this access must be renewed every six months. They are permitted to access the Vatican at a specific entry point guarded by the Swiss Guard. They are then led into the archives, where they can view up to three previously requested documents every day.
Federal Reserve Bank, New York, USA
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York houses a gold vault belonging to the United States Government, foreign governments, and other central banks. The vault offers the account holders a secure facility to secure their monetary gold reserves. Therefore, as you can imagine, it’s a highly secured facility. The security of the gold vault begins by locating it at the bottom floor of the main office building. Individuals or businesses from the private sector are not permitted to deposit gold in the vault.
The bank currently holds approximately 497,000 gold bars weighing over 6,000 tonnes and can withstand this weight because it’s built on the solid bedrock of Manhattan Island.
The facility is secured by multilevel security which includes a 90-ton steel cylinder guarding the single-entry point. The nine-foot-tall cylinder is housed within a 140-ton steel-and-concrete frame that forms an airtight and watertight seal when closed. When the vault is closed, four steel rods are placed into holes in the cylinder, and time clocks are activated, effectively locking the vault until the next business day. Massive steel-reinforced concrete walls surround the vault, and security cameras monitor activities inside and outside the vault 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as motion sensors when the vault is closed. The vault control team’s constant surveillance also guarantees that the highest security measures are followed at all times. In addition, the gold is safeguarded by the New York Fed’s sophisticated building security system and the armed Federal Reserve police force.
Individuals are allowed to tour the bank’s museum and vault.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Norway
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is one of the most secure vaults in the world, built to resist an asteroid strike or any nuclear event. The vault contains approximately 1,165,041 variations of seeds in the event of a mass extinction disaster, with the goal of having a spectrum of crop diversity if Earth ever had to rebuild. The vault has a maximum capacity of 4.5 million seed variants. The seeds are kept at a temperature of -18°C in custom-made three-ply foil containers. This reduces metabolic activity and preserves the seeds’ health for a long period of time.
Unlike many other facilities housing things of great importance, Svalbard’s security comes from the forces of nature. The fact that it’s built 120 metres into a mountain with only a modest entry on the outside before a succession of high-security tunnels and doors is what makes this facility so safe. The dangerous climate and wildlife around it is another deterrent to visitors. The area is prone to massive avalanches, which can be fatal. As well as this, the likelihood of getting frostbite is very high, with all year round having freezing temperatures. The facility is also surrounded by polar bears.
The Svalbard facility is not a tourist site, so you can’t walk inside to see what’s beyond the closed doors.
Fort Knox, Kentucky, United States
Fort Knox is regarded as “the safest spot on the planet.” It’s the United States’ bullion vault located in Louisville, Kentucky, where the United States keeps the majority of its gold supply. The vault door, in the core of this seemingly impregnable fortress, is secured using a combination entered by at least ten different staff members, none of whom know more than their own piece of the code. The Fort protects gold rumoured to have a value in the existing gold market of $190 billion. The vault also contains a reserve of drugs and historic documents, including the original copy of the US Constitution’s Declaration of Independence as well as the original draft of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Fort Knox is surrounded by Apache helicopters, gates, guards, tanks, concrete lined granite walls, and hundreds of alarms, so even getting close to Fort Knox is a challenge, especially given that the entire fort is encircled by a US military base home to 40,000 soldiers. To further secure Fort Knox, it is believed that the grounds are surrounded by land mines, electric fences, radar sensors, laser-triggered machine guns, as well as its own power plant and water supply, so any effort to break in will be promptly shut down and usually result in serious consequences. In fact, no one has managed to break in before because no one has ever even attempted it.
Area 51, Nevada, United States
Area 51 is a high-security military research facility renowned for storing some of the world’s biggest secrets and coverups. Many conspiracy theorists believe it is also famous for concealing information about aliens and UFO encounters. It has become so secretive about what happens on this site since it was constructed during the Cold War that it has only just become visible on satellite images. The near-mythical US military research complex in the Nevada desert is guarded by motion sensors, armed guards, and a no-fly zone that extends across the whole site, making it one of the safest places on the planet.
Even though Area 51 comprises 38,400 acres, the large expanse of open land is patrolled with armed guards and motion sensors that can discern the difference between human and animal activity, so there is no place to hide for any trespassers.
The 1,500 personnel of Area 51 are unable to travel by car and instead will board a private aircraft from a special terminal at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, flying under the name “Janet Airlines,” with air traffic control referring to the airport as “somewhere.”
The White House, Washington DC, United States
The White House, which houses the President of the United States, is one of the most secure structures in the world. The first line of defence for the White House is a very robust iron fence that provides the White House with excellent perimeter protection. Alarms and infrared sensors identify intruders, further securing these barriers. It’s then backed up by security stations with bulletproof glass. The roof is continually manned by a crew of some of the world’s most highly trained snipers. The building houses around 1,200 informed secret service operatives, meaning that the White House has a private security force of some of the world’s most trained bodyguards.
The White House also has a no-fly zone within a 15-mile radius, and the city of Washington has surface-to-air missiles strategically placed across the city to intercept any unauthorised aircraft. The White House also contains a “situation room,” which has appeared in a number of films. Even in the case of a nuclear explosion, activities would be able to continue in this underground bunker. The bunker is also said to include a network of underground tunnels that may be used to escape the house in the event of an emergency.
The White House is, however, open to individuals to go on a tour. But you must book at least 21 days in advance to give time for background checks to be made on all guests.