Top 10 Places You Can't Go

January 9, 2010 11:53 AM

Top 10 Places You Can't Go. The world is full of secret and exclusive places that we either don’t know about, or simply couldn’t visit if we wanted to. This list takes a look at ten of the most significant places around the world that are closed to the general public or are virtually impossible for the general public to visit.
posted by jjray (56 comments total)

This is an interesting concept, but I was disappointed by their choices. At the top of my list would be the Lechuguilla Cave. I'm glad it's closed to the public, but I'd love to be able to visit it myself.
posted by alms at 12:13 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not sure why Menwith Hill is ranked as Number one on the list. My family lived there in the early 1980's when it was still an American base. Yes, not just anyone could waltz onto the base and snoop around, but it certainly wasn't closed to the public, nor top-secret.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 12:15 PM on January 9, 2010

Reminds me of a recent Ask-Mefi question: I need suggestions of places that are semi-off-limits to the public.
posted by jeremias at 12:16 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

I know several people who've got into Menwith Hill despite it not being allowed. They used high tech tools like, you know, bolt cutters. There's been a peace camp outside it on and off for years. More info here: on the yorkshire CND site.
posted by handee at 12:18 PM on January 9, 2010

I'd say the Pentagon is fairly exclusive, which is sort of a shame, as there are some pretty cool historical displays in various parts.

I hear.
posted by jquinby at 12:24 PM on January 9, 2010

Yeah, I was also surprised to see Club 33 make the list. It's certainly both expensive and difficult to get membership, but once you're a member you can make reservations for any friends/families/acquaintances to go and you don't have to be present. My family has a membership, and thinking of all the countless customers, friends, etc we've taken there....and thinking of all the countless customers, friends, etc that the other Club 33 members must bring....really, it comes down to just having to know someone who will make you a reservation.

So difficult to go to, sure...but virtually impossible? No.
posted by Squee at 12:31 PM on January 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

So this is a list of the top ten places you can't go, and they picked disney over something like, oh, pantex? No mention of LANL? Though admittedly these are places that one can apply for a job to work at. Site R might be a little bit trickier (grr cryptome is down, wiki link)

But really, I'm not complaining that the list is bad, but more that the list should be the top 100 places you can't go. Cause I'd love that list. There's just something exciting about semi-secret cold-war era facilities.
posted by kiltedtaco at 12:40 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes, and talking of places that didn't make the list, what about Mount Athos? Not an easy place to get into without a Y chromosome.
posted by verstegan at 12:48 PM on January 9, 2010

Another spot not included on the list that should've been: the chapel in Ethiopia that claims to hold the Ark of the Covenant. Apparently if anyone other than the high priest sees it, it will "unleash upon [you] its terrible power - [you] would be killed outright, probably incinerated."
posted by learn to read at 12:50 PM on January 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

I was going to wonder at the omission if Club 33 hadn't made the list. It was the first thing I thought of.
posted by cmgonzalez at 12:53 PM on January 9, 2010

My family has a membership

Well, then someone in your family at least, is rich and or highly privileged, since membership costs a hefty sum per year. Most of the world's population is neither. I'd love to go to Club 33, but alas, I don't know any rich people who'd make me a reservation.
posted by cmgonzalez at 12:55 PM on January 9, 2010

but once you're a member you can make reservations for any friends/families/acquaintances to go and you don't have to be present
posted by Squee at 3:31 PM on January 9 [+] [!]


I'd love to go to Club 33, but alas, I don't know any rich people who'd make me a reservation.
posted by cmgonzalez at 3:55 PM on January 9 [+] [!]

Actually, it seems like we all now know Squee.

Meetup!
posted by Comrade_robot at 1:22 PM on January 9, 2010 [33 favorites]

That is my stroller outside of Club 33!!


kidding!
posted by pearlybob at 1:29 PM on January 9, 2010

People would seriously join a 14 year waiting list and pay tens of thousands of dollars in order to drink at Disneyland? It boggles the mind, no offense to squee's family.
posted by fixedgear at 1:45 PM on January 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

Of course there's Lascaux Cave, as well. Many of the caves in France, at least, have been closed to the public for fear of continuing damage to the paintings... I'm grateful that I was able to vistit the Font De Gaume before it was closed.
posted by jokeefe at 1:50 PM on January 9, 2010 [5 favorites]

Oh. It looks like it's opened again. Nevermind. You should all go! It's astonishing.
posted by jokeefe at 1:51 PM on January 9, 2010

Not sure why Menwith Hill is ranked as Number one on the list. My family lived there in the early 1980's when it was still an American base. Yes, not just anyone could waltz onto the base and snoop around, but it certainly wasn't closed to the public, nor top-secret.

MH was and is an RAF base, though it's leased to the US and there are British personnel staffing parts of it. (I'm sure that's the arrangement when you were there; we were there around the same time.) It's not particularly secure - any given day, there were protesters who jumped the stone walls and went over a fence or two, and the perimeter defenses wouldn't have kept your average teenager intent on mischief out.

The kicker? There was and is a public footpath that runs diagonally through the grounds, maybe a couple hundred feet from the golf balls. And sheep owned by local farmers would graze on the grounds, occasionally getting through a loose fence and blocking the road down to the "secured" area.

This article is somewhat dumber than those sheep.
posted by el_lupino at 2:05 PM on January 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

The unfortunately named (in English) White Gentlemen's Club.
posted by NorthernLite at 2:06 PM on January 9, 2010

What, no Gramercy Park?
posted by A dead Quaker at 2:08 PM on January 9, 2010

Discussion of Area 51 always reminds me of this bizarre question.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 2:16 PM on January 9, 2010

Please! White's with an apostrophe. Ruins the joke, I know, but let's be official in our monikers.

Speaking of subways, there's the capital hill underground that is probably they chief reason some people want to be in congress. (Yeah, technically you can go, but only with an escort).
posted by IndigoJones at 2:16 PM on January 9, 2010

Gramercy Park's pretty damn easy to get into. They sometimes just leave the gate open.
posted by Football Bat at 2:24 PM on January 9, 2010

Top 10 Places You Can't Go

You can't tell me what to do!
posted by Dr.Enormous at 2:27 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of Taryn Simon's photoseries about Hidden and Unfamiliar places / things that was posted on the blue some time ago. It includes such things as the U.S. terminus of the transatlantic internet cables (kind of ordinary looking), a retarded tiger, an interior shot of some art at the CIA, etc. It's worth a look.
posted by marble at 2:43 PM on January 9, 2010 [6 favorites]

What a bullshit article.
posted by jsavimbi at 3:25 PM on January 9, 2010

Isn't Area 52 is so secret that it wasn't even mentioned.
posted by drezdn at 3:32 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

#1 place you can't go: home again.
posted by newfers at 4:00 PM on January 9, 2010 [12 favorites]

Some of these are certainly rather strange choices, and don't really fit - from my reading of the article, Room 39 is more of a North Korean Government agency than a physical room, so it makes no sense to say you "can't go there".

The UK has a surprisingly large number of secret places, for such a small country. One that I've seen (from a distance) is RAF Fylingdales, an early-warning radar station. The current structure, looking rather like a concrete sandcastle, doesn't officially exist - it's not included on Ordnance Survey maps. This doesn't prevent local shops from selling postcards with it in the background, and nor does it apparently stop Google Maps from publishing high-res images of the place. Complete with map labels.

Another, which I only heard about very recently, is Q-Whitehall, an underground government communications facility running along the length of Whitehall in London. I wouldn't trust the Wikipedia article completely - for one thing, it mentions Trafalgar Square tube station, which doesn't exist (it's been called Charing Cross since 1979) - but the facility does apparently exist, and is rumored to connect to Buckingham Palace.

And let's not forget Mail Rail, which was taken out of service in 2003. Presumably, the railway could still be used. Anyone up for an illicit rail-based underground meetup?
posted by ZsigE at 4:11 PM on January 9, 2010

Yeah, I was also surprised to see Club 33 make the list.

I'm glad it made this list (however suspect some of the list is) because I'd never heard of it before!
posted by crossoverman at 4:17 PM on January 9, 2010

What about all of North Korea?
posted by Lobster Garden at 4:22 PM on January 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

it will "unleash upon [you] its terrible power - [you] would be killed outright, probably incinerated."

In the spirit of scientific progress¹ I hereby volunteer to view it while wearing whatever apparatus all y'all wish me to wear. It sounds like a one-way trip, with the incineration and all, but I don't think of it as giving up my life: I think of it as getting my name into the history books for all eternity.

I suggest using WiFi-enabled video at the very least. Of course you won't be able to view the video, for if mere replicas of the ark are deadly to viewers, the live video stream must also be deadly. There's no need for more than one of us to go up in smoke!

What you can do, though, is have a computer analyse the images! It can then create a safe model of the object. I should think archaeologists will have a heyday deciphering whatever mysterious writings and symbols appear on the ark. Plus, of course, all those Indiana Jones fans will want to know how accurate Lucas was in his documentaries.

Of course, if I'm not incinerated, and do walk out of there, we're all going to be really disappointed. But that's a risk I'm willing to take.

¹“Boink”
posted by five fresh fish at 4:59 PM on January 9, 2010 [7 favorites]

But that's a risk I'm willing to take.

We have top men working on it now. Top...men.
posted by jquinby at 5:15 PM on January 9, 2010 [6 favorites]

Hm. These are all too people-centric for my tastes, but that's probably just me. I was personally hoping to see something like the Nanda Devi sanctuary on the list, being that it's been closed to all visitors since 1982, although you can still climb the surrounding peaks from the outside. In a way it's the perfect place for a national park due to its 'ring' of mountains with, basically, only one entrance.

I'd heard rumor of it recently, but further reading suggests they've opened the park to extremely limited numbers of visitors. I have a colleague who is currently writing grants to allow access for some geologic study, which I'd thought was going to be shot down. Looks like he's got a better chance, after all.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 6:26 PM on January 9, 2010

I do not see the point of waiting fourteen years to drop five figures annually to have a fucking beer at Disneyland. There's a great bar five minutes from here where Ulysses S. Grant once got drunk, and I can have a glass of Laphroaig for nine bucks or, if I'm feeling fancy, a sazerac.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's just because I can see it from where I'm sitting, but I kind of thought
this place would be on there.
posted by kaiseki at 7:27 PM on January 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

RAF Menwith Hill

Hard to see how it gets to 1. I assume pretty much any suitably accedited member of the GCHQ, allied spook outfits like the NSA, GCSB, and so on, the RAF personel, various politicians and the like would be allowed there. The Japanese shrine is way more exclusive.
posted by rodgerd at 9:19 PM on January 9, 2010

Number 0: Mars.
posted by ErWenn at 9:23 PM on January 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Do we know where the other fifty Areas are?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:15 AM on January 10, 2010

I was going to say "Diego Garcia", but that's not nearly as cool as "Home again" or "Mars".
posted by sneebler at 6:49 AM on January 10, 2010

Missing from the list: North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean, (part of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, previously) inhabited by an estimated 250 Sentinelese people. Don't even think about visiting. What happens if you try. Impacted by the 2004 Tsunami, see before and after pix here. More info here and here, including video with footage of attempted "first contact" by anthropologists. "Very little is known about the North Sentinelese. No single word of their language has been recorded." One of the last remaining "uncontacted" stone age tribes, they have lived there for an estimated 60,000 years without contact with the outside world and have fought off every attempt to even get close to them. The Indian government has put the place strictly off limits. In 1981 a container ship ran aground off its coast - details here of how the crew was rescued. Final link: article in The American Scholar by Adam Goodheart on North Sentinel and the Sentinelese.
posted by beagle at 8:00 AM on January 10, 2010 [23 favorites]

(beagle, your comment is many times over more interesting than some of the places in the original list (we all saw Area 51 in the X-Files - whatever), and I appreciate your effort in putting together some really interesting links for it as well as a basic overview.)
posted by whatzit at 8:25 AM on January 10, 2010

Seconding that beagle's post is way cooler than anything in the original list by far.
I'd like to say "thank you", as I had no knowledge of the Sentinelese prior to reading those articles and I am completely fascinated and uplifted by the fact that there is at least one indigenous group left that resists contact.
My girlfriend and I frequently discuss the hypothetical scenario of indigenous peoples of the past resisting contact (she is native Hawaiian and my mother's side of the family is Cherokee) and how different our world would be if that had been the case.

Of course if that happened, we never would have met . . .
posted by kaiseki at 12:43 PM on January 10, 2010

What about Heaven?

Because you can all go to Hell… Michigan, just north of Pinkney.
posted by klangklangston at 1:03 PM on January 10, 2010

"What about all of North Korea?"

Nope. I've been to North Korea, in that you can go over to North Korea through a conference room in the DMZ.
posted by klangklangston at 1:05 PM on January 10, 2010

Mullet farming has been popular on Niihau, with ponds and lakes stocked with baby mullet, which reach upwards of nine to ten pounds (4–4.5 kg) apiece before being harvested and sold on the islands of Kauaʻi and Oʻahu.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:10 PM on January 10, 2010

kaiseki: wikipedia says you can visit it in a package tour, that doesn't seem so hard to get in?
posted by jacalata at 1:23 PM on January 10, 2010

Because you can all go to Hell… Michigan

Paradise is also in Michigan.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:14 PM on January 10, 2010

The package tours must be a fairly recent thing. Admittedly I haven't checked on exactly how difficult it is to get to Niihau. It's residents can come and go--and many do--but previously access was restricted to guests of the Robinson family and relatives of those living on the island.
Perhaps it's not as exclusive as I thought. Which would be wonderful news for me, as I've really been wanting to go, mainly to observe the level of appropriate technology imposed on the island by the Robinsons.
posted by kaiseki at 4:16 PM on January 10, 2010

Paradise is also in Michigan.

I coulda sworn it was in Pennsylvania, just past Intercourse, after the road that goes to Blue Ball splits off. (For reals.)
posted by whatzit at 9:08 PM on January 10, 2010

"I coulda sworn it was in Pennsylvania, just past Intercourse, after the road that goes to Blue Ball splits off. (For reals.)"

No, but outside of Novi, exit 69 is Big Beaver Rd.
posted by klangklangston at 7:57 AM on January 11, 2010

No, but outside of Novi, exit 69 is Big Beaver Rd.

At the end of Beaver Road is Big Bone Lick State Park.
posted by jquinby at 8:46 AM on January 11, 2010

I've actually been on a full tour of Mount Weather's facilities, courtesy of contacts in the White House Military Office. It didn't use to be all that hard to pull off. It's a bit harder post 9/11, however.

I've got a standing invite for Club 33 as well, those aren't that hard to arrange.
posted by kaszeta at 9:07 AM on January 11, 2010

Well, then someone in your family at least, is rich and or highly privileged, since membership costs a hefty sum per year. Most of the world's population is neither. I'd love to go to Club 33, but alas, I don't know any rich people who'd make me a reservation.

Well actually no, we don't have a traditional membership ...I don't really recall the whole history of it, but it has something to do with a family member helping to set up the restaurant when it was first established.

But my point was that you do NOT have to be rich and/or highly privileged to go....you just have to know someone who can make a reservation for you.
posted by Squee at 1:33 PM on January 11, 2010

Whoops, posted too soon....

Also meant to say, I realize it's not easy to just find someone to make you a reservation. But I still don't think it should make the "Top 10 List of Places You Can't Go."

I mean, aren't there more places on earth where there's some sort of "No, you can't go at all, it doesn't matter who you know?"
posted by Squee at 1:40 PM on January 11, 2010

If any of you manage to gain entrance to my apartment, I'll give you some candy.
posted by rubah at 10:02 PM on January 11, 2010

So, Squee: I've never been to Disneyland, much less drank there. . . can you hook me up? ^^;
posted by rubah at 10:04 PM on January 11, 2010