100 Places You Will Never Visit (6 page)

The facility is governed by strict protocols concerning health, safety and security. It is surrounded by razor-wire perimeter fencing, and visits from the public are rarely permitted. There is no residential property within 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) of the site, although it is said that any odors dissipate within 15 meters (50 ft). Freeman Ranch was not the original intended site, but a previous location close to San Marcos Municipal Airport was vetoed over concerns that large numbers of vultures might be attracted by the corpses, putting air safety at risk.

Research is carried out on around six corpses at any one time by specially selected academics. Some of the bodies are buried in shallow graves, others left open to the elements, and some are even stored in car boots in a bid to closely replicate genuine homicide scenarios.

If you are so minded, you may make arrangements to donate your body to the center. It is even possible to donate a loved-one’s cadaver if you think it is what they would have wanted.

17 Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility

Johnson Space Center

LOCATION Johnson Space Center, Texas, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Houston, Texas

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: purpose-built labs for the preservation and study of lunar materials.

The Apollo lunar landing missions of 1969–72 brought back invaluable geological samples weighing some 382 kilograms (842 lb). The Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility, covering 1,300 square meters (14,000 sq ft), was constructed in the late 1970s to provide these precious Moon rocks with a permanent, secure and non-contaminating environment, and visitors from outside the scientific community are not welcome.

Around 100 specially screened educators and scientists visit the facility each year to examine samples, which are divided into two kinds: those that have been released to scientists for experimentation and then returned; and “pristine” samples that have not been out of NASA custody since coming to Earth. If visitors are working with pristine samples, they must adhere to the strictest rules. On arrival, they are required to remove any jewelry and change into nylon coveralls (known as “bunny” suits), hats, gloves and multiple pairs of overshoes. They are then given a minute-long air shower to remove any lingering potential contaminants.

Pristine samples are processed in stainless steel cabinets fitted with attached rubber gloves, into which workers insert their hands so that they can manipulate samples without direct contact. Inert nitrogen constantly flows through the airtight cabinets to ensure no build-up of reactive gases that might permeate through the gloves. Any tools that are used undergo a special cleansing regime and are stored in hermetically sealed bags. The only materials permitted to come into contact with pristine samples are stainless steel, aluminum and Teflon. All materials used in the building of the labs themselves were selected to avoid the risk of chemical contamination, and high-tech security systems are in operation at all times.

The Facility’s vault, which contains NASA’s 26,000 pristine samples, has a heavy door fitted with two combination locks. Transfers are made through an airlock, and a further watertight door can be bolted on if there’s a hurricane threat. The vault is elevated above the maximum predicted sea-level rises that might accompany a hurricane. A small but significant proportion of the collection is kept in another secret location, in case disaster ever strikes the Johnson Space Center. Considering these fragments of Moon rocks might help us answer some of the fundamental questions of our Universe, it is easy to see why such measures are in place.

1 OUT OF THIS WORLD The rock samples gathered during the Apollo Lunar missions are kept in Johnson Space Center’s Building 31N, which officially opened for business in 1979. The Facility includes samples gathered from nine separate exploration sites on the Moon.

2 ROCK OF AGES Left: A sample of Moon rock awaiting study in the Lunar Sample Laboratory at JSC. Right: In 1972 Harrison Schmitt became the only geologist to walk on the Moon, when he served aboard the three-man crew of the Apollo 17 mission, the last manned landing on the Moon.

18 Fort Knox Bullion Depository

LOCATION Kentucky, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Louisville, Kentucky

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: the world’s most famous gold bullion depository.

Although it is not even the largest gold bullion depository in the United States—an honor currently held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Kentucky’s Fort Knox is legendary for its extraordinary levels of security. Indeed, during the Second World War the site became home to some of the most valuable treasures and important documents in the world.

A classified facility, the Fort Knox bullion depository was constructed in 1936 for storing US gold reserves. Built by the Treasury Department, it now falls under the jurisdiction of the US Mint. Its first gold deposits arrived here by railroad in January 1937.

Each gold bar in the Fort Knox vaults measures 17.8 by 9.2 by 4.5 centimeters (7 by 3.6 by 1.8 in), and weighs in at 12.5 kilograms (27.5 lb). Today, gold holdings total about 3.9 million kilograms (150 million troy ounces), down from a peak in the Second World War of more than four times that amount. The Fort has also variously housed such important items as the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, along with the Hungarian crown jewels, a Magna Carta and a Gutenberg Bible. The Constitution and Declaration, moved for safekeeping in the early 1940s, were secured within a purpose-built bronze chest that weighed some 68 kilograms (150 lb) and made its journey under the watchful eyes of secret service agents and armed troops.

The depository is built over two stories, with a footprint of roughly 32 x 37 meters (105 x 121 ft). The original construction of the building required 750 tons of reinforced steel, 670 tons of structural steel, 1,500 cubic meters (16,000 cu ft) of granite and 10,500 cubic meters (113,000 cu ft) of concrete. Entry into the vault is via blast-proof doors 53 centimeters (21 in) thick and weighing over 20 tons. The vault is subdivided into numerous compartments sealed with tape and wax that reveal tampering if they are broken.

The building is, as one might expect, all but impenetrable to the uninvited. As well as state-of-the-art security systems (the finer details of which are tightly guarded), two sentry posts guard the gateway to the building, which is set into a steel fence. There are further guard boxes at each corner of the building. The guards, who are all members of the United States Mint Police (founded in 1792), are highly trained and not especially keen on calm dialogue with would-be intruders. In the basement of the building a firing range offers the guards a chance for a little extra target practice during their lunch hour. What is more, the Fort Knox military base just up the road is ready to offer extra muscle should it be required.

Admission to the vaults requires a combination code that is not known to any one individual, so several members of staff must be present to dial the correct code. The vault has a 104-hour time lock, and there is an escape tunnel for anyone unlucky enough to find themselves trapped inside once the lock has been set. Employees are legally bound not to disclose any details of the security mechanisms in operation and visits from the public are prohibited, without exception.

HARD KNOX The Bullion Depository’s sophisticated defense systems include guard towers, security cameras and perimeter fencing. There is believed to be an escape tunnel, should anyone be accidentally locked inside the vaults, but access only goes one way.

Operating at such a high level of security, it is perhaps inevitable that Fort Knox has aroused the interest of conspiracy theorists. Indeed, their suspicions have been intensified by the complete absence of large-scale movements of gold in or out of the facility for many years. The only gold that has been transferred has been in small samples to satisfy auditing protocols and purity control. So theories abound, ranging from claims that there is no gold left at Fort Knox because it was all moved to London, to suggestions that Fort Knox now stores objects belonging to little green men from outer space.

The idea that there may no longer be gold inside those granite and steel walls has particularly haunted the American psyche over the years. With the world then in financial meltdown, the idea that the vault was empty took hold in 1974 after the suggestion was made in a book attacking the broader financial system. Eventually a reluctant Treasury permitted a visit by selected members of the press to view the holdings and assuage the doubters. Needless to say, they were able to report that there was gold and plenty of it. It was the first time any member of the public had been allowed into Fort Knox’s vaults since 1943—and that member of the public had been the then-President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1 GARRISON TOWN The bullion depository lies on the edge of the Fort Knox Army Post, a 44,000-hectare (109,000-acre) military base with a population of more than 12,000 soldiers and other staff ready to defend the nation’s gold reserves at a moment’s notice.

2 HEAVY DUTY Construction of the Fort Knox Army Post began in earnest in 1918. This permanent camp was named after Henry Knox, a Bostonian officer in the Continental Army during the American War of Independence who became the new nation’s first Secretary of War.

3 GOLDEN VISION The Depository at Fort Knox is estimated to store something approaching 2.5 percent of all the gold ever refined, although its holdings lag some way behind the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which houses more than 4 percent of the historical total.

19 Coca-Cola’s Recipe Vault

LOCATION Coca-Cola World, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Atlanta, Georgia

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: repository of the secret recipe for the iconic beverage.

Coca-Cola might well be the world’s favorite drink, with a reported 1.7 billion servings sold every day. Such is the mythology that has grown up around the Coca-Cola brand that its recipe is perhaps the most famous trade secret in history. Jealously guarded since first being committed to paper in the early part of the 20th century, it now resides in an extraordinary vault that doubles as a tourist attraction.

The Coca-Cola story begins in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886 with a chemist called John Pemberton, creator of delights such as French Wine Coca (a heady mix of wine and cocaine) and Pemberton’s Indian Queen Magic Hair Dye. Facing the specter of prohibition, he set upon devising a non-alcoholic version of his Wine Coca. The result was a brownish syrup that he intended to market as a sort of “cure-all.” Quite serendipitously, however, a batch of this syrup was mixed with carbonated water, creating the drink that is known and loved today.

But for all his talents as a potion-maker, Pemberton was deeply flawed as a businessman. In 1891, he sold his business to Asa Griggs Candler for what turned out to be a regrettably low $2,300. Candler was quick to realize that the value of his purchase lay in Coca-Cola’s distinctive taste, and he forbade its recipe to be written down lest anyone copy it. In 1919, Ernest Woodruff led a team of investors who bought the company from the Candler clan. The purchase required a loan, which Woodruff secured by offering the Coca-Cola formula as collateral. After finally persuading Candler to write it down for him, Woodruff deposited the recipe in the vault of the Guaranty Bank of New York. It remained there until 1925, when the loan was paid off, and was then moved to the Trust Company Bank in Atlanta Georgia, where it stayed until 2011 (by which time the bank had evolved into the SunTrust Bank).

Despite countless imitators on the market, Coca-Cola has made a policy of rarely filing trademark lawsuits against them, since doing so might force them to reveal the formula in court. That said, the basic recipe is believed to include a mixture of caffeine, caramel, coca, citric acid, lime juice, sugar, water and vanilla.

The part of the recipe that remains elusive is “Merchandise 7X,” the ingredient responsible for the drink’s unique special flavor despite accounting for just 1 percent of its volume. Over the years, many have claimed to have uncovered the secret.

For instance, in 2011, US radio show This American Life announced the rediscovery of a story published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution in 1979. Alongside the article was a photo of a recipe from an old notebook that, it was claimed, belonged to a friend of John Pemberton. Nonetheless, Coca-Cola remains adamant that no one has yet come up with the correct formula.

NOT-SO-SECRET LOCATION Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent (right) invites Georgia governor Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed to inspect the custom-built vault for the secret formula, during the opening ceremony at the World of Coca-Cola exhibit, Atlanta, in December 2011.

Company legend has it that only a tiny band of people know the recipe, and they are not allowed to travel together for fear of an accident in which the formula might be lost forever. In December 2011, the recipe was retrieved from its vault at SunTrust Bank and, under high security, was transferred a few minutes down the road to a new purpose-built vault at the company’s World of Coca-Cola exhibition. The decision to move the formula was apparently unrelated to SunTrust’s decision to sell off its Coca-Cola stock holdings in 2007.

In front of the watching media, a metal box believed to contain the recipe was placed into a newly constructed 2-meter (6.6-ft) high steel vault. This vault is never opened, and is protected by a barrier that keeps the viewing public several meters away. The area is kept under surveillance, with guards on hand to deal with any troublemakers. By the door stands a keypad and a hand-imprint scanner, although officials have refused to confirm if these are simply for show.

20 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

LOCATION Druid Hills, DeKalb County, Georgia, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Atlanta, Georgia

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: one of only two places in the world known to store the smallpox virus.

With a goal of improving public health and carrying out research into disease prevention, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of only two facilities approved to hold samples of the smallpox virus, now fortunately extinct in the wider world. Debate rages as to whether it is time to destroy the virus for good, or to retain small stocks for research purposes.