June 4, 2021 • 59 mins
From the "Employees Only" doors of local businesses to vast swathes of ocean and secret labs in some of the world's most remote locations, planet Earth is filled with restricted areas. In today's episode, the guys explore the nature of restricted zones -- and the rumors about the Stuff They Don't Want You To Know going on inside.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
all mission controlled decands. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Here's the thing. People define power
in all sorts of ways. For some money is power.
(00:48):
For others influence. Like while we're recording remotely during the pandemic,
you've probably from Noel and Matt and myself heard noise
in the background that we we could not control. I've
got some people building a staircase behind my place right now,
and um, having watched the staircase being built from scratches
(01:09):
fun but it is loud. So if you hear any banging,
everything's okay. Uh. They're just try and build a staircase
and we don't have the power to stop them yet.
I choose to interpret building a staircase as a metaphor
of some kind, like you know, a attaining transcendence. You know,
we're building a staircase to to heaven, like and that
Led Zeppelin song. You know what a staircase is really
(01:30):
providing you guys? Access? Yes, yeah, For many people, power
takes the form of access. There's an excellent Reddit thread
you can read if you're if you're familiar with Reddit,
where someone breaks down the difference in a day to
day life of a billionaire versus a multimillionaire, and after
(01:51):
a certain point it entirely comes down to access. You
can just like if you are, you know, the the
extreme version would be Jeff Bay So this level, and
you want to talk to Bill Gates, you can just
tell someone you want to talk to Bill Gates and
then you'll have Bill on the phone. You're both billionaires.
You have that access. But regardless of how you define power,
(02:12):
society is to a large degree going to be defined
by who has access to what. And it doesn't matter
whether we're talking resources, social contracts, or just where you
can physically go. I was thinking about you know, most
people's I'm I feel like it's safe to assume most
people's first experience with the idea of a restricted area
(02:37):
the one you personally remember on a on a microcosmic level,
is going to be something like this. Do you guys
have a distant memory of childhood? Uh, when you were
maybe in a place of business and you saw a
door that just said private or employees only. That. For me,
(02:59):
it was always at the bookstore or like the the
video store, there was always this one like beaded curtain
in the back that said no one under twenty one allowed?
And I was like, what's behind there? Eventually found out,
you know, but then the Internet came along and it
was rendered kind of irrelevant. But it was definitely a
thing that occurred to my childhood brain. Oh you know what,
(03:20):
my my grandmother, what's weird? Do you say this? And
I never this? Man, I'm having like flashback. My grandmother
had a room in her condo that I was not
allowed to go into had a bird on it, a
blue Beard situation. Is this a true story? Oh? Oh man, Well,
(03:43):
we'll cut the part where you say, are you toying
with our emotions like this? Matt? So it is true, though,
I think for many people listening to the show today,
you have inevitably run into some some barrier, whether social
or physical, something that you could not breach, unless, of course,
you are an immensely powerful person. And you see, as
(04:06):
there are people in the world, It's true, who can
be walking into a business, see a sign that says
employees only, and then just by the business and then say, well, now,
I'm I'm kind of an employee. Let me in. It's
just to open that door. Yeah, but those people are
very rare. Compare it to the rest of the population,
and the idea of exclusion goes much much further than that.
(04:28):
The truth is this, whether you are a president or
a peasant, an upstanding citizen, a hardened criminal, or even
even a billionaire. In some cases, there are multiple places
on this planet that you will, for one reason or another,
simply never be allowed to visit. And should you dare
to break these taboos, there will be consequences up to end,
(04:52):
including in some cases death. That's the subject of our
episode today, the World's Strangest Restricted Areas. Here are the facts.
I could not be snarky in the notes. I love
the title of this. There should be a Dr. Seuss
book named, Oh the Places You Can't Go? I would
buy that. Let's give those high school graduates some like
(05:13):
realistic expectations. Give them both books. And did you just
list out all of the military bases for every country
unless you are a member of that military or some
kind of extreme diplomat extreme diplomacy. Is that like an
X Games type situation? It is? It is. It's the
(05:33):
u N but with arm wrestling, and I think a
little m m A. But here's the thing. Over the centuries,
especially in the recent era, human beings have been banned
from visiting certain regions or sites across the planet. Before
we get into the very weird stuff, and there is
a plethora of very weird stuff, it is important to
(05:54):
note that often the reasons for these bands aren't sinister
or nafari is or conspiratorial. There actually for pretty wholesome reasons. Yeah,
at least according to the official story. Right. So, but
an example is immediately I see this and I think
of sparkling water. It's not Lacroix Cave. It's lesc Cave,
(06:18):
I believe. Yeah, let's go cave that's in France, um
and it has been closed to the general public since
nineteen sixty three. But it's not to hide some kind
of you know, clandestine, super secret military government operation. Instead,
what it's meant to do is protect and preserve cave paintings,
um that are that are found inside of this cave,
(06:39):
which are over seventeen thousand years old. UM. Preserving that
history is probably not too much of a stretch for
most of us to be okay with. I would say, yeah,
unless some of those cave paintings are of you know,
the ancestors that came from Mars a million years ago.
We see they were contacted by the CIA. Okay, in
(07:00):
in paint that's composed of elements that don't exist on
the periodic table or are mystical rooms of some sort,
maybe a different era. But there there are there are
possibilities of of nefarious cover ups here, but I think
for the most part this one seems on the up
and up. Yeah, this, There are many places like this.
You know, there are sites of ancient human habitation or activity,
(07:23):
and knowing what we know about modern humans, allowing tourists
to those sites will inevitably result in their degradation, either
through like looting or someone writing you know, uh, Tommy
t Bone was here some ancient uh some ancient go
back late t epic kind of place, or it will
(07:43):
just be the consequence of completely well intentioned people like
who want to touch stuff and put their uh nasty
human oils and excretions on things. That's why you can't
just rub every painting in the museum. They really tend
to frown upon that. The dose sense is that what
they're called basically like those sensor like museum bouncers. You know,
(08:04):
they have to have a certain gravitas to fill that role,
otherwise you just walk all over them. Right. I love museums.
It's one of the only things I miss from before
the pandemic. Like, and it's always fun when you're in
a museum because some of the most well dressed people
are the volunteers who are there to make sure you're
not just like good having a cinesthesia moment rubbing these paintings.
(08:28):
And I think you can tell I've been kicked out
as the museums, but the metal paints were okay, right right,
you're right, Matt. But it seems like a good job,
doesn't it. You get yeah, I I don't know if
you get paid or if everybody's volunteer, but you go
from four to eight hours or so and you just
(08:49):
hang out with some of the most meaningful art in
the world and just all you gotta do is watch
some people and just check for sketch, check for sketch. Know,
there's a museum. Let's say this, there's a museum like
place that is completely off limits that exists way out
in the middle of nowhere in fall Bard. It's a
(09:11):
museum like place. And only say that because no, it's
actually not museum like. It's really just a storage facility.
That's super cool. Yeah, and it's definitely not public storage.
It's storage for the public of the future, which we
are not. That is why we cannot visit the Doomsday
Vault in small Bard. Uh. You've heard of it before,
(09:34):
especially if you listen to this show. It's the repository
for thousands and thousands of seeds. It's a flora version
of Noah's art essentially, and this is the one that
inspired the uh Nibisco or whatever company to make a
Oreo vault nearby. Yes, that's correct, and uh and hopefully
(09:55):
more people will get on board with this kind of preservation. Uh.
The the idea is solid to say, what if things
get even worse than they are now, What if some
crops or some plants are completely eradicated. This is our
way to bring them back. It's a brilliant idea and
(10:15):
it makes sense that not everybody can visit. It's um,
you're not you're not absolutely banned. There are ways to
get in, but you have to have a compelling reason
and uh you basically you need to have expertise or
be the people who make sure that the storage is working,
(10:37):
that the climate controls are working, or be with the
a P, the Associated Press or something and you're specifically
doing an article on it. Sometimes I've seen they'll let
people in, yeah, press pass documentary or something. But then
there's another another wholesome, somewhat wholesome example would be uh
Seartasy Island, which is also far north. It's in Iceland.
(10:59):
This is interesting. A lot of people forget this Earth
is a living thing, right and it's it's going through
It's David Bowie asked changes all the time, and they
don't always make the news search The island is one
of the newest islands on the planet. People watched this
island just you know happen From nineteen sixty nineteen sixty seven,
(11:22):
a series of volcanic eruptions turned ocean into land and
how cool is that? That means that means that this
place if you don't immediately ruin it with OREO container
rappers from the from the nearby vault, people who show
(11:43):
up to the island just rubbing stuff. That's how I
picture people now after researching this. But but yeah, if
you if you can prevent this new island from being
yeah touched a lot, touched copiously by people, then you
could observe how life begins in a way, how life
is transferred through the air and through the water to
(12:05):
a completely remote place, and then just watch it essentially evolve,
have a micro evolution. I don't know what you would
call it, but but you can look at it almost
like the Galapa Ghost Islands beginning or something. Um, it's
pretty pretty cool. So so yeah, it's it's shut off
from the world so that select few scientists, just like
(12:27):
the vault can go there and you know, perform experiments,
keep keep track of everything that's happening and how things
are changing on the island. Yeah, they want to see,
especially how this is unique because scientists were able to
prevent the public from ever going on to this land.
So they're primarily focusing on watching how life arrives at
(12:50):
this island and how it colonizes this island. And you know,
you make a fantastic point, Matt. If they can keep
this situation going for lown enough, then they may begin
to see different types of speciation that are driven by
the constraints of living on this island. That has you know,
that's a new idea, it really is. And one of
(13:13):
the coolest things just written reading about the island are
the number of birds that end up there, a number
of species of birds that end up there, and like
salamanders and other amphibians and just really interesting. It's so
cool there. Yeah, like life just shows up, man. I know,
(13:33):
it is amazing, considering like the arduous journey they take
this is an island and these these birds. It starts
with like mold and bacteria and fungi, and then all
of a sudden there are plants and they're all these birds.
It's awesome if you're a bird. There are no predators
in this new land for now. Uh. And I'm still
baffled by how how things that are not you know,
(13:55):
see or flight worthy end up there. You know, it's
pretty fascinated. Sounds like I have lovely time on this island.
I think you would hate it co mingling with my
bird brethren, your burden. So so that's that's an example.
Those are. So far we've described three scientific endeavors. But
(14:15):
there's another realm that's a little more pop culture when
it comes to restricted areas, uh, and that is corporate secrecy.
Of course, there are plenty of corporate sites that restrict intrigue.
You might work in a place that has, you know,
a storage unit or a server room or something like
that that you're not allowed to go into because you're
(14:36):
not the I T person. That makes sense totally. Um.
I Actually I happened to for a work related thing
a couple of years ago end up at I think
it was A and W or it was. It was
some like soda company that also makes like you know,
like Gatorade type drinks, and in their corporate offices, which
is in like Dallas, Texas, they had a pretty serious
(14:58):
security protocol just to get into the meeting rooms are
because also back there are the flavor labs where they're
making all this like very like top secret intellectual property,
which at the end of day, that's what these recipes are,
right yep. And that's where that's where it goes. That's
where we arrive at one of the most famous local
examples of corporate restricted areas, which I think is pretty funny.
(15:22):
It's the Coca Cola company's so extra they keep their
top secret recipe in a literal vault. And there's there's
also you know, the longstanding story that there are only
three people who know the full recipe at any given time.
They're not allowed on a plane together. Uh. The vault
is definitely true. Since two thousand eleven, it's been in
(15:43):
the in the Atlanta Museum, the Coca Cola Museum, and
people can visit the museum every day. It's great if
you love propaganda, which I do. And Uh, the thing
is almost no one gets to go inside that vault.
So that's another good reason. You know, like A and W,
they're restricting access to their money maker. That makes sense.
(16:04):
Do you think that the thing that's in the vault
is like a handwritten, like yellowed piece of paper that
was originally written on by Mr Coca Cola himself, whomever
that is. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I was.
I was really hoping that was the case. I am
not one of the people who can get into the vault.
(16:25):
But I do like to imagine it looks. I don't
want it to be just a sheet of paper, so
that's funny. I would like it to be like a
Indiana Jones's Dad's Grail Diary. Yes, but it's all about soda,
and I wanted to be really weird and conspiratorial, like
it's it's based on a grim wis I want to
(16:45):
soda grim Wi. That's what I That's what I want
to be in that vault. So Coke, if you're listening,
so think about all the places in the world where
Coca Cola Classic is actually produced. It's produced in in
in numerous factories, right, yeah, yeah, if you're someone who
(17:06):
works in that factory, at the level of running the factory,
maybe in the money of the factory, you could see
what ingredients are being ordered to produce Coca Cola Classic, Right,
But isn't it like a concentrate that comes, you know,
like the syrup or whatever. They don't I don't know.
(17:26):
I don't know how they work there a big Coca Cola.
But here's the thing with this, this is just a
side note. Uh. In two thousand eleven, it appeared that
the recipe may have been leaked, but not by a
contemporary person, not like by a a factory worker, or
not by you know, a chemist. It was found in
(17:47):
this old leather notebook that belonged to Pemberton's best friend,
another guy chemist living in Atlanta named R. R. Evans,
no relation to Robert. I assume uh. The notebook was
ended down from generations to generations, and it has a
recipe that includes an extract of coca leaves, caffeine, lots
(18:12):
of sugar, lime juice, vanilla, caramel, and then a couple
of other um flavorings that are surprising, but they might
you know, they might vultron up into into soda. Wow,
that's pretty cool. It's weird, but it's no no confirmation
from the idea of no confirmation. That is the secret recipe.
(18:33):
And also there's some marketing in there, clearly because that
recipe has changed over time. Obviously it doesn't have obviously
it doesn't have some of the old ingredients, right. But
but those things that the corporate secrecy is relatively new.
UM the most historically speaking, the oldest UM existing restricted
(18:57):
sites tend to be holy sites, by which we mean
UM only certain groups are allowed in their due to
their perceived religious significance. Yes, And one of these examples
is in Japan. It's called the Grand Shrine, and only
members of the Japanese Royal family are allowed to enter.
(19:18):
It's really interesting that they It goes through cycles of
continual reconstruction at steady increments. It's a really interesting place.
It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, it's the most sacred Shinto shrine
in the country, dates back to the third century. The
legend is that's home to this sacred mirror that was
(19:38):
given to the first timber of Japan by an actual deity,
by the Sun goddess. So it's strange because you can
enter it if you're one of the people rebuilding the shrine,
or if you're a member of the Japanese royal family. So, uh,
start evaluating your marriage prospects, good luck, or get really
(20:01):
really good at carpentry and fluent in Japanese and you
know what, be Japanese. That is your best chance. Yeah,
that's your baseline. But that's you know, that's also a
part of a spiritual value system. So who are you,
as someone outside of that value system to say, you know,
I should be the exception? This is where we run
(20:21):
into probably the most famous example of a restricted area
due to religion, and that is Mecca. Mecca bars entry
to any people who are not of the Muslim faith.
And it's an enormously controversial, sticky situation because there are
some people who, for one reason or another, have taken
that as a challenge, right and said, I am going to,
(20:45):
you know, try to fake convert to Islam, which seems
pretty disrespectful. Uh. Or I am going to you know,
pretend to be someone I am not and get into Mecca,
and then I'm going to take pictures of Mecca and
release these pictures to the wild. That's pretty dangerous to message. Yeah,
(21:07):
it is. I I understand though, the kind of human
nature impulse that maybe the moment you tell somebody they
can't do something, that's the moment they decide they want
to do that thing, when before they may have never
even may have even never crossed their radar. But I
would argue that those people um that are trying to
uh infiltrate the sacred space should probably not do that
(21:29):
and are probably have some issues they need to contend
with otherwise. Now I think I would agree with you guys,
But What if we weren't talking about Mecco. What if
we were talking about the Vatican Archives, because I kind
of want people to get in there and like snoop
around a little bit. No, I'm sorry, don't do that.
We you can, you can. They're just they're reading system
(21:54):
is really weird. We talked about that, right, we did.
I'm not talking about the place where you can go
and read stuff. I mean, like really looking around. You know,
you want a free room. Now, They're not gonna They're
not gonna let you do an open world, sandbox vibe there.
You have to know exactly what you're asking for. You
have to know that it already exists and you kind
(22:14):
of have to know where it is. All you have
to do is become you know, a Vatican banker, uh
and or pope. So you should be good. I mean,
somebody can do it. Just be the pope. Start out
being the pope. So the baseline that is right now, Um,
you have to be a dude. So they're just like
(22:35):
being a member of the royal family in Japan. There
are there are restrictions, and you know, it could be
argued very easily that these sites are practicing discrimination. Right
whether or not you can visit these sites is dependent
upon your social standing or your involvement in a belief system.
But most of the rest of the world seems able
(22:58):
to accept this situation. It's it's an easy thing to accept.
I think for a lot of people, you'd say, why
go out of your way to disrespect someone else's belief
system for no other reason than what you want to
You want to run up and and just like start
touching stuff. Again, I'm keeping this idea. I'm keeping the
idea of tourists just like licking their palms and loving
(23:20):
ancient sculptures. Uh no, man, I just want to find
out what's inside the Vatican archives. Come on, that's all.
That's all. I feel like you're gonna rubbed the books.
Look if I needed to, actually, no, you know I
wouldn't because I'd be in there, you know, sneaky spy style.
(23:42):
I would have gloves on to, you know, protect my identity.
Isn't there a movie with this is the plot? So
many I'm sure there's Like I think there's a whole genre, right,
I would imagine isn't isn't da Vinci code that's the genre?
Uh yeah, Vatican Treasure starring old Nick Cage, Nick Cage.
(24:04):
But that was about stealing the Constitution, right, which is
another thing you probably shouldn't rub. Yeah, yeah, rub a copy.
So also, last note on the Vatican. Man, those books
must smell amazing. You guys like the smell of old books.
I very much do. I'm surprised that doesn't exist as
a car air freshener. Oh wow, that is a fantastic idea.
(24:26):
Cut that part out, Spencer when we were on Harmontown,
got that part out. Stop the podcast. Stop the So yes,
it is true that there are places like that. And
if you whether or not you follow that religion or
(24:47):
you know, insert leaf system here, just as you know,
a matter of respect for your fellow human beings. You
don't have to be a jerk about it. Don't have
to be like, well, I'm not Muslim, but I am
an architect, sure experts, so I should get to go. No, buddy, no,
be cool. There's and there's a similar thing with wildlife protection.
(25:12):
There's this is this is something that has become increasingly
common in the modern era. There are multiple regions of
Earth that are considered legally protected, specifically to give wildlife
refuge from hunters and from the spread of human civilization.
(25:32):
Places like Mari Mona in the Cook Islands. It's one
of the world's largest protected marine areas in terms of
in terms of just area, just the measurements. It's bigger
than Mexico. It's a big deal, and good on the
Cook Islands for doing it. But believe it or not,
even the even the idea of let's let's give animals
(25:54):
a place to live, even that idea can be controversial
because doing so can restrict the activities of businesses things
like commercial fishing, mining, oil drilling, or you know, other
forms of resource extraction. Who are these fish to stand
in the way of progress, some would argue, But again
(26:14):
they're not always big swabs of oceans like with A
lot of them are closer to home. These wildlife protection
sites or these places you can't enter to protect wildlife.
One of them is a place that our crew got
very close to a number of years ago, North Brother Island. Spoiler,
we didn't make it. Yes, not North Sentinel Island, and
(26:38):
not that creepy building in the middle of New York
City in Manhattan. What was that one called. I think
it's called the Oldest House. Oh, that's it. That's what
it is, the oldest house there in Manhattan. Highly recommend
checking it out. Be careful if you do enter, because
it seems to shift a little bit while you're inside
(26:58):
and the whole new windows in, But you'll be fine. Um.
I just gotta find some of those objects that are there.
They don't call him haunted. What do they call him
in there? Objects of power? And I can't remember. You'll
find out. Just go if you can. But no, North
Brother Island is an actual place. It's an actual island.
(27:20):
It's up there right near the Bronx. There's North Brother
Island and South Brother Island and North Brother Island is
a no go, not allowed now. North Brother Island used
to be, once upon a time tremendously important to the
city of New York. It was a former quarantine hospital
for treatable diseases. That's right. And Ben, you you mentioned
(27:44):
off air a little trip that you and I took
along with Matt and Lauren Vogelbaum um where we were
barred from going to check the spot out because of
like a music video shoot of some kind. We were
going to Roosevelt Island to find a very similar abandoned structure,
(28:05):
and we walked a pretty long way to the south
end of the island, only to find that Kanye West
had decided to have an impromptu fashion show there. Oh
that's what it was. So our access was restricted because power.
He's got all that power? How so much power? Um? Oh?
(28:29):
But hey, the this is something you might like. No
on North Brother Island. Do you know what it is
right now? No? It's a bird sanctuary. What is up
with all the secret bird sanctuaries? And well it's a
good official reason, I guess, And look, birds should live.
I get it. I'm not anti bird to that level.
(28:49):
I just don't know that I would want to spend
time on a place where they were just running around
Willie Nelly, because that's what they do. Yeah, and you know,
city birds are like city people. They can be surprisingly
grow sometimes, you know what I mean? Those those are
some tough pigeons and seagulls. They did not come to
play with us. Uh. But yet those wildlife refugees, they're
(29:11):
a huge thing and they're in. This is interesting because
for some of the more conspiratorially minded, some of these
innocuous explanations bird sanctuary, etcetera. Etcetera. Uh, they might be
cover for less wholesome activities, but in general, well we've
just described for examples of good reasons you can't go
(29:31):
to certain places. And in each of the cases named
above you can see video footage of these places. Journalists
have been in, their filmmakers have been into, you know,
the vaults, the caves, the islands, you name it. The
thing is, there are other less wholesome restricted areas, and
probably more than you might imagine. What are we talking about.
(29:54):
We'll tell you afterword from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy, quick recap. We love this topic. We've we've
talked about this in the past. Places like the former
HARP facilities right where they're experimenting officially experimenting with the
(30:17):
ion A sphere up there in Alaska. That the High
Altitude Oral no Oral Oral Oral Research Facility with a PHU.
It's it's it's Hank Aaron's actual real patio. There were
there were there were a lot of counterfeit patios. Really quickly,
(30:37):
I just noticed something that's never occurred to me before.
HARP is just a RP with an H at the beginning. Okay,
so it's the Holy American Association of Retired Persons. Yes,
there are many directions that this rabbit hole could take us,
but surely it's not a coincidence, or it may be
(30:58):
absolutely totally is I was. I was talking to some
professor a while back who said something that really stuck
with me. And I won't give his name out, but
we're talking about geopolitics and timing of things, domestic events
that occur, and he said, I always start off with
the assumption that coincidence in this sphere does not exist.
(31:21):
And all I ask is that someone proved me wrong.
It was like, and I've built my career on that. Wow, well, hey,
I'll prove myself wrong. You ready, guys, HARP actually stands
for high Frequency Active Auroral Research Program and I knew that,
and I got it wrong, of course. Wow, that is
so incredibly disrespectful to Hank. Aaron's patio is a sports legend.
(31:44):
It is actual, real patio. Yeah, yeah, well we phoned
that one in a little bit. But but you're right. Um.
The thing about that kind of experimental facility is that,
because of due to the nature of its secrecy, people
spread all sorts of rumors about what it's actually doing.
(32:06):
And that also happens with things we've covered in the past,
like closed cities in Russia and Asia and four time
in Tennessee, Um. But then they're also there's also another thing,
an existential crisis that we talked about, like isolated communities
that risk extinction they're exposed to the modern world, like
North Sentinel Island. I think that's one that still captivates
(32:29):
everybody because no one really knows what the population is
up to, you know, or what their day to day
lives or their beliefs are like. But they're not thinking
about us while they are. They're thinking they do not
want us around. Yeah, but I think more so it's like, hey,
(32:50):
here's our life, this is what we're doing. Sure you
guys stay over there. Yeah. Yeah, And they occupy really
interesting space that we'll touch on later in this episode.
The thing is we've done episodes on all those and
of course the d m Z, which we could talk
about all day. Also a bird sanctuary by the way,
NOL but there are yeah sorry man, but that it's
(33:12):
an accidental bird sanctuary just because they're less likely to
hit all the land mines and humans aren't chasing them.
But it's true. Um, but the thing is there are many, many,
many more restricted areas and types of restricted areas, and
then get very strange. You'll often hear that places are
(33:32):
restricted for your safety, like North Brother Island. One of
the reasons people are not allowed to just visit it
willy nilly is that there are concerns that exploring the
structures there would be unsafe, you know, like the floor
might collapse, something might fall on you, or in the
case of Brazil's Illada Granda, you might be bitten by snakes.
(33:55):
As a matter of fact, you are statistically certain to
be bitten by snakes unless you are straight wearing armor
when you go on this tiny island. This is the
stuff of nightmares for a lot of people. You walk
ten ft you are guaranteed to run into anywhere between. Well,
if you just stand then there will be anywhere between
(34:16):
one to five snakes in an immediate ten square foot
area of you know. Yeah, well some people want to
get there that you feel so strongly about this, I
mean they're like super venomous snakes. I think they've got
some of the most venomous snakes in the world on
that island. Golden Lance heads. Yeah, They're will literally disintegrate
(34:41):
human flesh. See, but it's the psychological urge. Met Some
people hear that and they say, well, I want to go.
And they're not even herpetologists, which are scientists that sunny snakes.
They're just people who are like, I can do it. Yeah, well,
you know, I think this is what we need to do. Guys.
We need to have a reverse psychology campaign where it's
(35:03):
a tourism campaign. Come to Snake Island, We dare you,
and then anybody who will do it just weed them out.
Guys called the herd. Sorry, oh man, you truly a
monster map. We got a big herd though. I see
(35:24):
your point. But there are also other sites that restricted,
ostensibly for safety, nuclear disaster sites, military exclusion zones, and
then areas of the world vaguely classified as no go areas. Right.
For example, Fukushima is the site we probably most recently
(35:45):
associated with the nuclear disaster area. Uh and it makes
perfect sense. You know you don't want to go there,
definitely hashtag two ston. Visitors who spend too much time
there can definitely be exposed to damaging amounts of radiation
over time. Some of these sites are reopen to the
public in fact been some of these become nature preserves
as well, if I'm not mistaken. Um. For example, there's
(36:09):
a lot of photos of the Chernobyl site to this day,
and I believe it's a Maybe it's not an official
wildlife reserve, but isn't it a pretty thriving um kind
of rich wildlife rich area has certainly been reclaimed. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, guys, because there's this ongoing debate in
Chernobyl specifically about to what extent flora and fauna were
(36:34):
affected by the contamination. And there are two big reasons
that this happens. First, it gives scientists the ability to
study the long tail effects of contamination on living organisms,
so they can see rates of mutation. As comic book
as it sounds, that really is true. Uh. And then
just to your point, just like the d m Z,
(36:55):
because there are fewer human beings running around, the populations
of large mammals are increasing, so yeah, it naturally becomes
wildlife preserve. Um Like in the case of the DMC.
One of the big rumors legends, the thing that we
all kind of fox molder want to believe is the
(37:17):
idea that there may be large apex predator feelines there
tigers unproven, unproven and probably honestly, they're probably not at
the DMC, just because that area of the world is
so heavily surveiled. But I wanted to be true, I
can imagine tiger bears emerging from Chernobyl. How cool would
(37:40):
that be? Right? All the strength of all the strength
of a bear and the cunning of a tiger. I
don't know. I say that like tigers couldn't also clearly
whip the snot out of nine percent of human beings
one to one unarmed p VP. But but but the
other thing we should say is that you know, like
(38:00):
you said, no, overtime, these sites do become less contaminated. So,
for example, you can visit parts of Fukushima. The Fukushima
Exclusion Zone is not the entirety of Fukushima, and residents
who had to evacuate UH due to the nuclear disaster
UH set many of them have been able to return
to their homes. So the nuclear disaster sites are legit,
(38:25):
and they they do slowly reopen a time. In a
lot of cases, they're not necessarily hiding anything after the
original disaster hits and the inevitable cover up fails, which
they always do. Then the world is aware of these
and experts visit, you know, to measure radiation, to see
(38:46):
the long term effects of contamination on the ecosystem. Why
can't people go there? You know, free world, right. If
I want to go risk contamination to see a tiger bear,
that's my life to live. Big government. But the main
issue really is kind of boring. It's liability. Imagine if
you're Ukraine and you're just allowing anybody to visit Chernobyl
(39:09):
even though it's not safe. Before the radiation has begun
to disappay or diminish, people are going to start coming
to you and saying, hey, I got cancer from hanging
out at Chernobyl and you let me. Oh yeah, you
could totally see something like that happening. That would make sense.
So another entry in this kind of category of of
(39:30):
forbidden places would be military exclusion zones BEN, which you
mentioned a little while ago. Um there this this again
makes sense. There's a lot of dangerous things that civilians
would not want to be exposed to, but also secrets
UM and so there are quite a lot of these
military restricted zones throughout the world. Some are temporary UM
(39:52):
and some are quite disturbingly permanent UM military installations. You've
got to have lots of clearances, you know, the drill.
If you've ever been to a military base, even you
gets like is visiting like a Hollywood movie studio. You
have to check in with the guy at the little
turnstile and you have to be on a list of
some kind. You have to show UM identification and then
(40:12):
be cleared and have like a contact that you're visiting,
and then they'll let you through UM. But you have
to go to the specific place that you're going. It's
not like you can just like roam around free. So
you know, a lot of these facilities have attracted lots
of interest and speculation, like, for example, places like Area
fifty one, which was we know, there was a big
kind of mass visitation a very fifty one recently and
(40:36):
I think ended up being a little more underwhelming than
what the press would have had us believe. Isn't that right?
But yeah, yeah, that's where you saw people doing the
very specific running meme with their arms back the Naruto run.
Yeah then arutto run. Uh. That that became kind of
the a shared online meme slash stunt. I don't know,
(41:01):
I don't remember how many people did actually show up
to Groom Lake or area fifty one on on that
particular day, um, but they were very ill informed in
doing so. The government is legally allowed to murder you.
If you go past the signs, they will give you
a warning, but if you keep going, they can shoot you.
I think there were more, you know, I want to
(41:23):
look at the numbers, but I think there were more
people at the newest Meme gathering, which was the now
infamous Battle of the Josh. Is you guys heard about that.
We talked about that, right, No, No, maybe maybe we didn't,
but we've discussed it, maybe off off Mike, but it
ended up being like a like a pool noodle fight
or something. May use those fun noodles or whatever they're called,
(41:48):
got some guide him Josh. So it's uh, which, thank you,
Matt that that was such a gift that's set up.
So so, yeah, we have to have these collusion zones.
But then there are other places. Everything we mentioned is
is a place that is known, it's on a map somewhere,
it is officially acknowledged and allowed to exist. But there
(42:11):
are other places, quite a few of them, like black sites,
or like research stations in remote parts of the globe.
These can go decades with their existence or purpose never
being officially acknowledged. And the logic here is kind of sound.
It's much harder to find a place if you don't
know where it is, what it's built for, or whether
(42:32):
it really exists. Yeah, government's generally try and keep their
torture dungeons off limits to people or hidden, which is
what we know black sites can be used for. Not
always sure, but the you're right, You're right, they are
black sites or black boxes, you know, in terms of information,
(42:54):
we only learn about what goes on there, what laws
are being broken when it's a little too late to
save the people involved or the victims, you know, who
can be innocent. Right. Then we have this other thing
called no go areas. No go areas are going to
be familiar to everyone in in the audience today because
(43:18):
you've probably lived somewhere where there wasn't like a law
that said thou shalt not, you know, go north of
the Greenwich Avenue and fifty second or whatever. I'm just
making things up. I hope that's not a real neighborhood.
If it is, Sorry, guys, uh you've heard of no
go areas, maybe being described as the bad part of town,
(43:40):
the wrong side of the tracks. A no go areas
often the most general way to describe it is a
place that has restrictions, whether legal or informal, that prevent
outsiders from entering, and or, you know, fears that if
you visit there, you are not welcome, you are putting
(44:02):
your life at risk. And there's a ven diagram here.
It's pretty interesting. Like Sentinel, North Centinel Island is both
legally a protected area and then locally acknowledged as a
definite no go. Everybody living on the islands around North
Centinel Island, they all know, and none of them wants
to visit. They know the score. Uh, you know, decades
(44:26):
centuries before that unfortunate missionary visited on his well intentioned
but ill informed um mission. I was just thinking about
no go zones, and you guys know the I don't
even know what it is. It's not a switching station.
It's a huge train station area in kind of midtown
(44:48):
downtown Atlanta. Right there by is it to cab Avenue,
where it's just tons and tons of railroad tracks stretching
far out. I'm just thinking about how much of a
no go zone that is legally and uh, safety wise. Yeah, well,
you know what's interesting there, Matt, that goes into hot
I still want to do a series called Invisible America
(45:11):
Underground America that goes in there. There is a group
of people, migratory population who uses those trains as their
primary mode of travel, and that they have I've talked
to some of those folks and they have stories about
how to get in and out of those places. Stuff
gets dicey, stuff gets harry. Um. But yeah, there are
(45:35):
no go zones, but I think we can get it.
I cannot officially, we cannot officially on this show say
it's easier to get into those places than you think.
We cannot officially say that, but I'm sure we have.
I would not be surprised if we have some fellow
listeners in the audience who have personal experience with this,
or maybe on some freight as we speak, if that's.
(45:57):
If that's the case, stay safe out there, boats, Uh,
don't let the bulls find you. And so you're right there.
Your city has a bunch of no go areas, your
town has no go areas, and you'll often the thing
is in recent years, you'll you'll hear this phrase used
in a politically charged context. Uh. There were these persistent
(46:19):
rumors and claims that the government of France had at
some point quietly kind of admitted defeat in areas of
some cities, and they had told law enforcement and first responders, hey,
these places are now no go zones. They are for
the Muslim community only, and they function under Sharia law. Luckily,
(46:42):
that turned out to be more fear mongering and alarmism
islamophobia than anything else. But it might surprise for folks
in the audience to learn that these claims have been
made in other countries, including the US. There have been
you know, uh, somewhat hyperbolic pundits going on air and
saying like, well, there's lah lah someonez was taken over.
(47:03):
In pretty much every case that turned out not to
be true. It turned out to be greatly exaggerated, luckily.
But the idea of no go zones defined as a
place where local authorities refused to enter, that is very
much true, and that occurs in places across the world,
from the border like parts of the Kenyan Somalia border
(47:27):
and favelas in Brazil, which are you know, very economically
deprived places where the functioning government is going to be
criminal in nature. But after we've seen this panopoly of
real life restricted places with a lot of truth to them,
we're gonna we've got to pause for word from our
(47:47):
sponsor and go to one last interesting thing, something with
a twist. Stay tuned, and we have returned as promised.
It gets weirder. There are apparently some areas of the
(48:08):
world that are restricted not due to fears of religion,
not due to fears of you know, crime or nuclear contamination,
but instead these areas of the world are restricted due
to super natural concerns. That's right, folks who heard us correctly,
supernatural concerns. Sounds like the opening of a horror story.
(48:29):
But there are actually a few sites that appear to
restrict access due to get this, the presence of ghosts. Yeah. Yeah,
there's this place called Bungar Fort. I think that's how
you would say it. It's in India and you can
go there during regular let's say, business hours, you can
(48:53):
hang around, you can hang out there, but if you
want to go when it's dark, you have to secure
a government permit. And it's basically I don't know, for me,
it's to keep track of who's gonna die tonight. I'm
just joking. That's not what it is. I love it.
I love it. You wave your right to life when
(49:13):
you sign the permit. Uh yeah, maybe the permit it
considers you legally dead. You're allowed to answer well, and
they have something to recover whence once you you know,
become non corporeal on the site. Yeah, it's so interesting
because it is. The way it's phrased is specifically before
dawn or after sundown. And you know, at first blush,
(49:37):
this could be us. This could be a policy of
almost any common public park. Right. A lot of parks
have hours that are delineated, uh, in terms of the clock,
or they just simply say, you know, the park is
closed at sunset. But this place is different. It's pretty old.
It was built in fifteen seventy three. A famine struck
(49:59):
in seven eighty three. It has been uninhabited ever since,
and there are a lot of local legends about the place.
Some nearby villages don't even bother making rooftops. Whoa what, Yeah,
there's this superstition or common belief we should call it
that the moment a rooftop is built on a house
(50:19):
that's too close to the fort, the roof will inexplicably collapse.
And normally this would just be a fun regional tall tale,
right like Mothman or something. But this is ancient. It's
been around for a while and the Government of India
went official with its warning. Really intense. Man. I'll tell
you what. This reminds me of something that some people
(50:42):
know about, but it is very regional. UM. I grew
up in a town called Augusta, Georgia, and um, not
terribly far from there, there's a place called Murphy Village
where a group um of individuals live that are referred
to themselves as Irish travelers. UM. Not exactly sure what
their exact background is, but they live in the compound um,
(51:04):
and they are sort of they do odd jobs. They'll
look like go on the road and you know, do
house painting jobs. And they're sort of a little bit
notorious for being kind of hucksters and trying to put
one over on people. And y'all you see often groups
of them, like at the local mall or like movie theater.
They have a certain look, they dress a certain way.
They have very large hair, very like seems like they're
from the eighties, kind of like stuck in time. Are
(51:27):
unstuck in time rather, but you are not Outsiders are
not permitted in in Murphy Village. Um. I've known some
friends that try to, you know, pop in. Just take
a look at the houses, uh, and they were chased
out very violently, um, with like gun guns and stuff.
But one thing that they do there is they build
houses and they live in trailers behind them for a
(51:50):
year or more, um, and they cover the windows and
tinfoil um. And and it's meant to exercise the evil
spirits of some kind um to keep them from you know,
inhabiting the house. So they build these houses and they
don't live in them for a year. They literally live
in like almost like a camp type situation out back,
and they have all these like special things they do, um,
(52:10):
ritualistic kind of things. And then they move into the
houses after that. This acceptable cleansing period has past interesting
temporarily supernaturally restricted areas well, I mean permanently restricted to us.
But exactly the houses there are are restricted for a
time for anybody to to enter. So you could argue
(52:31):
that what it has in common with Bangar forts is
the idea of architecturally based superstition. Um. But you get
to have a roof. If you get a roof, it
does come with a roof. Um. But what what I
was what I was getting out when I said the
Government of India, when official with these warnings, is that
there are signposts that have explicit instructions and if you
(52:55):
translate from the Hindi, it says the following. Entering the
borders of on Guard before sunrise and after sunset is
strictly prohibited. Legal action will be taken against anyone who
does not follow these instructions. Wait for it, be warned
before you step in the ghost town of India. That's
(53:16):
a little tantalizing for an official government warning. They know
what they're doing with that warning. Now you and me
and everybody else we have to go. Now, well, we
also can consider ourselves warned. They've done their due diligence
so well. Also, we don't none of us speak or
read Hindi, so we can always pull the dumb tourist thing,
(53:38):
which I am sure they love. Oh sorry, officer, I
didn't know. I couldn't do that nice, right, I think
that I think that was always a good observation. But
there's another place. This isn't the only place over in Italy.
Less than half a mile from Venice, there's a island
called the Poviglia Plague Island, and it also has a
(54:02):
sinister spectral reputation. If you are a fan of the
the reality shows that pretend to investigate paranormal activities and ghosts,
you know, the ones that take like a w W
E approach to plunging the depths of the unknown, then
you've probably seen something about this plague island. From seventeen
(54:27):
nine three to eighteen fourteen, it was used as what's
called a lazaretto, which is a plague quarantine station. This
was kind of similar to North Brother Island. But what
they were doing is they were taking people who were
sailing in to Venice, and because of fears of the plague,
they were taking them in and they were holding them
(54:48):
in a way that's similar to uh the mandatory two
week quarantine that was imposed on international travelers during the
heyday of COVID. It's a good i idea, but we
also have to consider the plague is a completely different
infection in comparison to COVID, and that meant that a
(55:09):
lot of people who showed up at this lazaretto were
on their last legs. They were in late stages of
the plague when they set off. Yeah, it's estimated that
a hundred and sixty thousand infected individuals lived out their
final days uh and hours even there. So there's a
lot of rumor that about fifty of the soil there
(55:30):
consists of human remains. Um. This makes me think of
those uh like uh leper colonies a little bit. And
you know, over the years, there have been investigations at
this and other lazaretto's places where quarantine facilities essentially or areas,
and there were discoveries that there were mass graves in
(55:52):
many of these areas, and this one, at least at
the time of this recording we we're talking to you
right now, it is yet to be fully investigated. So
they haven't dug up a ton of the soil and
actually done him a lot of testing there to check
those rumors about human remains or to find graves, mass
(56:12):
graves or any kind of graves. But we did, as
you mentioned, Ben, paranormal shows love it, Um, I don't.
I can't remember if Ghost Adventures has been there, the
one where they're like, hey, ghost, god, ghost, he's trying
a strong arm a ghost. You gotta sweet talk to
those sweet babies. You can't just yell at him. That's
(56:34):
not cool. Hey bro, Hey, come on bro, what I'm
right here, brom here, come at me, goes What was that?
What was that commercial? Yeah? That was this. That was
the sound of your toxic masculinity resonating through the space.
So the the thing is when it's important to here. Uh,
it is considered the quote most haunted site in Italy,
(56:57):
but that that's by the true believers. But when we're
talking about investigations of other Lazarettos, we're talking about scientific investigations.
Archaeologists are are excavating these sites. It's not it's not
like a ghost hunter thing. But you know, if you
are the average tourist, citizen or curious explorer, entering this
(57:21):
island is absolutely forbidden ghosts or no. And here we
draw to a close. This is just scratching the surface.
Fellow conspiracy realists. Each of the genre of classified area
we've explored today could well be the subject of its
own episode in the future. And this brings us to
you what do you think, and what are, in your opinions,
(57:44):
some of the world's most dangerous sites, What are the
most obscure our authorities correct to restrict access to these areas,
and perhaps most importantly, what forbidden sites would you like
to visit? And why? Yeah? But sicularly, if you know
of something local to your area that we didn't mention
(58:04):
in this episode, we would love to hear about it
and in as much detail as possible. That would be fantastic,
my goodness. You can reach us on Twitter and Facebook
where we're Conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show. You
can find us on YouTube also Conspiracy Stuff. And if
you don't like the social media or YouTube, which you
(58:25):
should like YouTube, um, you can always give us a call.
We have a phone number, that's right, It's one s
T D W y t K. Leave a message to
the sound of Ben's sweet, sweet voice, and you've got
three minutes, and after that three minutes you're gonna get
cut off, so do your best to stick to that.
If you want to go over and tell us something
additional outside of the story, please do that via email,
(58:48):
where you can reach us at conspiracy at I Heart
radio dot com, m H Stuff they Don't Want You
(59:11):
to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
all mission controlled decands. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Here's the thing. People define power
in all sorts of ways. For some money is power.
(00:48):
For others influence. Like while we're recording remotely during the pandemic,
you've probably from Noel and Matt and myself heard noise
in the background that we we could not control. I've
got some people building a staircase behind my place right now,
and um, having watched the staircase being built from scratches
(01:09):
fun but it is loud. So if you hear any banging,
everything's okay. Uh. They're just try and build a staircase
and we don't have the power to stop them yet.
I choose to interpret building a staircase as a metaphor
of some kind, like you know, a attaining transcendence. You know,
we're building a staircase to to heaven, like and that
Led Zeppelin song. You know what a staircase is really
(01:30):
providing you guys? Access? Yes, yeah, For many people, power
takes the form of access. There's an excellent Reddit thread
you can read if you're if you're familiar with Reddit,
where someone breaks down the difference in a day to
day life of a billionaire versus a multimillionaire, and after
(01:51):
a certain point it entirely comes down to access. You
can just like if you are, you know, the the
extreme version would be Jeff Bay So this level, and
you want to talk to Bill Gates, you can just
tell someone you want to talk to Bill Gates and
then you'll have Bill on the phone. You're both billionaires.
You have that access. But regardless of how you define power,
(02:12):
society is to a large degree going to be defined
by who has access to what. And it doesn't matter
whether we're talking resources, social contracts, or just where you
can physically go. I was thinking about you know, most
people's I'm I feel like it's safe to assume most
people's first experience with the idea of a restricted area
(02:37):
the one you personally remember on a on a microcosmic level,
is going to be something like this. Do you guys
have a distant memory of childhood? Uh, when you were
maybe in a place of business and you saw a
door that just said private or employees only. That. For me,
(02:59):
it was always at the bookstore or like the the
video store, there was always this one like beaded curtain
in the back that said no one under twenty one allowed?
And I was like, what's behind there? Eventually found out,
you know, but then the Internet came along and it
was rendered kind of irrelevant. But it was definitely a
thing that occurred to my childhood brain. Oh you know what,
(03:20):
my my grandmother, what's weird? Do you say this? And
I never this? Man, I'm having like flashback. My grandmother
had a room in her condo that I was not
allowed to go into had a bird on it, a
blue Beard situation. Is this a true story? Oh? Oh man, Well,
(03:43):
we'll cut the part where you say, are you toying
with our emotions like this? Matt? So it is true, though,
I think for many people listening to the show today,
you have inevitably run into some some barrier, whether social
or physical, something that you could not breach, unless, of course,
you are an immensely powerful person. And you see, as
(04:06):
there are people in the world, It's true, who can
be walking into a business, see a sign that says
employees only, and then just by the business and then say, well, now,
I'm I'm kind of an employee. Let me in. It's
just to open that door. Yeah, but those people are
very rare. Compare it to the rest of the population,
and the idea of exclusion goes much much further than that.
(04:28):
The truth is this, whether you are a president or
a peasant, an upstanding citizen, a hardened criminal, or even
even a billionaire. In some cases, there are multiple places
on this planet that you will, for one reason or another,
simply never be allowed to visit. And should you dare
to break these taboos, there will be consequences up to end,
(04:52):
including in some cases death. That's the subject of our
episode today, the World's Strangest Restricted Areas. Here are the facts.
I could not be snarky in the notes. I love
the title of this. There should be a Dr. Seuss
book named, Oh the Places You Can't Go? I would
buy that. Let's give those high school graduates some like
(05:13):
realistic expectations. Give them both books. And did you just
list out all of the military bases for every country
unless you are a member of that military or some
kind of extreme diplomat extreme diplomacy. Is that like an
X Games type situation? It is? It is. It's the
(05:33):
u N but with arm wrestling, and I think a
little m m A. But here's the thing. Over the centuries,
especially in the recent era, human beings have been banned
from visiting certain regions or sites across the planet. Before
we get into the very weird stuff, and there is
a plethora of very weird stuff, it is important to
(05:54):
note that often the reasons for these bands aren't sinister
or nafari is or conspiratorial. There actually for pretty wholesome reasons. Yeah,
at least according to the official story. Right. So, but
an example is immediately I see this and I think
of sparkling water. It's not Lacroix Cave. It's lesc Cave,
(06:18):
I believe. Yeah, let's go cave that's in France, um
and it has been closed to the general public since
nineteen sixty three. But it's not to hide some kind
of you know, clandestine, super secret military government operation. Instead,
what it's meant to do is protect and preserve cave paintings,
um that are that are found inside of this cave,
(06:39):
which are over seventeen thousand years old. UM. Preserving that
history is probably not too much of a stretch for
most of us to be okay with. I would say, yeah,
unless some of those cave paintings are of you know,
the ancestors that came from Mars a million years ago.
We see they were contacted by the CIA. Okay, in
(07:00):
in paint that's composed of elements that don't exist on
the periodic table or are mystical rooms of some sort,
maybe a different era. But there there are there are
possibilities of of nefarious cover ups here, but I think
for the most part this one seems on the up
and up. Yeah, this, There are many places like this.
You know, there are sites of ancient human habitation or activity,
(07:23):
and knowing what we know about modern humans, allowing tourists
to those sites will inevitably result in their degradation, either
through like looting or someone writing you know, uh, Tommy
t Bone was here some ancient uh some ancient go
back late t epic kind of place, or it will
(07:43):
just be the consequence of completely well intentioned people like
who want to touch stuff and put their uh nasty
human oils and excretions on things. That's why you can't
just rub every painting in the museum. They really tend
to frown upon that. The dose sense is that what
they're called basically like those sensor like museum bouncers. You know,
(08:04):
they have to have a certain gravitas to fill that role,
otherwise you just walk all over them. Right. I love museums.
It's one of the only things I miss from before
the pandemic. Like, and it's always fun when you're in
a museum because some of the most well dressed people
are the volunteers who are there to make sure you're
not just like good having a cinesthesia moment rubbing these paintings.
(08:28):
And I think you can tell I've been kicked out
as the museums, but the metal paints were okay, right right,
you're right, Matt. But it seems like a good job,
doesn't it. You get yeah, I I don't know if
you get paid or if everybody's volunteer, but you go
from four to eight hours or so and you just
(08:49):
hang out with some of the most meaningful art in
the world and just all you gotta do is watch
some people and just check for sketch, check for sketch. Know,
there's a museum. Let's say this, there's a museum like
place that is completely off limits that exists way out
in the middle of nowhere in fall Bard. It's a
(09:11):
museum like place. And only say that because no, it's
actually not museum like. It's really just a storage facility.
That's super cool. Yeah, and it's definitely not public storage.
It's storage for the public of the future, which we
are not. That is why we cannot visit the Doomsday
Vault in small Bard. Uh. You've heard of it before,
(09:34):
especially if you listen to this show. It's the repository
for thousands and thousands of seeds. It's a flora version
of Noah's art essentially, and this is the one that
inspired the uh Nibisco or whatever company to make a
Oreo vault nearby. Yes, that's correct, and uh and hopefully
(09:55):
more people will get on board with this kind of preservation. Uh.
The the idea is solid to say, what if things
get even worse than they are now, What if some
crops or some plants are completely eradicated. This is our
way to bring them back. It's a brilliant idea and
(10:15):
it makes sense that not everybody can visit. It's um,
you're not you're not absolutely banned. There are ways to
get in, but you have to have a compelling reason
and uh you basically you need to have expertise or
be the people who make sure that the storage is working,
(10:37):
that the climate controls are working, or be with the
a P, the Associated Press or something and you're specifically
doing an article on it. Sometimes I've seen they'll let
people in, yeah, press pass documentary or something. But then
there's another another wholesome, somewhat wholesome example would be uh
Seartasy Island, which is also far north. It's in Iceland.
(10:59):
This is interesting. A lot of people forget this Earth
is a living thing, right and it's it's going through
It's David Bowie asked changes all the time, and they
don't always make the news search The island is one
of the newest islands on the planet. People watched this
island just you know happen From nineteen sixty nineteen sixty seven,
(11:22):
a series of volcanic eruptions turned ocean into land and
how cool is that? That means that means that this
place if you don't immediately ruin it with OREO container
rappers from the from the nearby vault, people who show
(11:43):
up to the island just rubbing stuff. That's how I
picture people now after researching this. But but yeah, if
you if you can prevent this new island from being
yeah touched a lot, touched copiously by people, then you
could observe how life begins in a way, how life
is transferred through the air and through the water to
(12:05):
a completely remote place, and then just watch it essentially evolve,
have a micro evolution. I don't know what you would
call it, but but you can look at it almost
like the Galapa Ghost Islands beginning or something. Um, it's
pretty pretty cool. So so yeah, it's it's shut off
from the world so that select few scientists, just like
(12:27):
the vault can go there and you know, perform experiments,
keep keep track of everything that's happening and how things
are changing on the island. Yeah, they want to see,
especially how this is unique because scientists were able to
prevent the public from ever going on to this land.
So they're primarily focusing on watching how life arrives at
(12:50):
this island and how it colonizes this island. And you know,
you make a fantastic point, Matt. If they can keep
this situation going for lown enough, then they may begin
to see different types of speciation that are driven by
the constraints of living on this island. That has you know,
that's a new idea, it really is. And one of
(13:13):
the coolest things just written reading about the island are
the number of birds that end up there, a number
of species of birds that end up there, and like
salamanders and other amphibians and just really interesting. It's so
cool there. Yeah, like life just shows up, man. I know,
(13:33):
it is amazing, considering like the arduous journey they take
this is an island and these these birds. It starts
with like mold and bacteria and fungi, and then all
of a sudden there are plants and they're all these birds.
It's awesome if you're a bird. There are no predators
in this new land for now. Uh. And I'm still
baffled by how how things that are not you know,
(13:55):
see or flight worthy end up there. You know, it's
pretty fascinated. Sounds like I have lovely time on this island.
I think you would hate it co mingling with my
bird brethren, your burden. So so that's that's an example.
Those are. So far we've described three scientific endeavors. But
(14:15):
there's another realm that's a little more pop culture when
it comes to restricted areas, uh, and that is corporate secrecy.
Of course, there are plenty of corporate sites that restrict intrigue.
You might work in a place that has, you know,
a storage unit or a server room or something like
that that you're not allowed to go into because you're
(14:36):
not the I T person. That makes sense totally. Um.
I Actually I happened to for a work related thing
a couple of years ago end up at I think
it was A and W or it was. It was
some like soda company that also makes like you know,
like Gatorade type drinks, and in their corporate offices, which
is in like Dallas, Texas, they had a pretty serious
(14:58):
security protocol just to get into the meeting rooms are
because also back there are the flavor labs where they're
making all this like very like top secret intellectual property,
which at the end of day, that's what these recipes are,
right yep. And that's where that's where it goes. That's
where we arrive at one of the most famous local
examples of corporate restricted areas, which I think is pretty funny.
(15:22):
It's the Coca Cola company's so extra they keep their
top secret recipe in a literal vault. And there's there's
also you know, the longstanding story that there are only
three people who know the full recipe at any given time.
They're not allowed on a plane together. Uh. The vault
is definitely true. Since two thousand eleven, it's been in
(15:43):
the in the Atlanta Museum, the Coca Cola Museum, and
people can visit the museum every day. It's great if
you love propaganda, which I do. And Uh, the thing
is almost no one gets to go inside that vault.
So that's another good reason. You know, like A and W,
they're restricting access to their money maker. That makes sense.
(16:04):
Do you think that the thing that's in the vault
is like a handwritten, like yellowed piece of paper that
was originally written on by Mr Coca Cola himself, whomever
that is. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I was.
I was really hoping that was the case. I am
not one of the people who can get into the vault.
(16:25):
But I do like to imagine it looks. I don't
want it to be just a sheet of paper, so
that's funny. I would like it to be like a
Indiana Jones's Dad's Grail Diary. Yes, but it's all about soda,
and I wanted to be really weird and conspiratorial, like
it's it's based on a grim wis I want to
(16:45):
soda grim Wi. That's what I That's what I want
to be in that vault. So Coke, if you're listening,
so think about all the places in the world where
Coca Cola Classic is actually produced. It's produced in in
in numerous factories, right, yeah, yeah, if you're someone who
(17:06):
works in that factory, at the level of running the factory,
maybe in the money of the factory, you could see
what ingredients are being ordered to produce Coca Cola Classic, Right,
But isn't it like a concentrate that comes, you know,
like the syrup or whatever. They don't I don't know.
(17:26):
I don't know how they work there a big Coca Cola.
But here's the thing with this, this is just a
side note. Uh. In two thousand eleven, it appeared that
the recipe may have been leaked, but not by a
contemporary person, not like by a a factory worker, or
not by you know, a chemist. It was found in
(17:47):
this old leather notebook that belonged to Pemberton's best friend,
another guy chemist living in Atlanta named R. R. Evans,
no relation to Robert. I assume uh. The notebook was
ended down from generations to generations, and it has a
recipe that includes an extract of coca leaves, caffeine, lots
(18:12):
of sugar, lime juice, vanilla, caramel, and then a couple
of other um flavorings that are surprising, but they might
you know, they might vultron up into into soda. Wow,
that's pretty cool. It's weird, but it's no no confirmation
from the idea of no confirmation. That is the secret recipe.
(18:33):
And also there's some marketing in there, clearly because that
recipe has changed over time. Obviously it doesn't have obviously
it doesn't have some of the old ingredients, right. But
but those things that the corporate secrecy is relatively new.
UM the most historically speaking, the oldest UM existing restricted
(18:57):
sites tend to be holy sites, by which we mean
UM only certain groups are allowed in their due to
their perceived religious significance. Yes, And one of these examples
is in Japan. It's called the Grand Shrine, and only
members of the Japanese Royal family are allowed to enter.
(19:18):
It's really interesting that they It goes through cycles of
continual reconstruction at steady increments. It's a really interesting place.
It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, it's the most sacred Shinto shrine
in the country, dates back to the third century. The
legend is that's home to this sacred mirror that was
(19:38):
given to the first timber of Japan by an actual deity,
by the Sun goddess. So it's strange because you can
enter it if you're one of the people rebuilding the shrine,
or if you're a member of the Japanese royal family. So, uh,
start evaluating your marriage prospects, good luck, or get really
(20:01):
really good at carpentry and fluent in Japanese and you
know what, be Japanese. That is your best chance. Yeah,
that's your baseline. But that's you know, that's also a
part of a spiritual value system. So who are you,
as someone outside of that value system to say, you know,
I should be the exception? This is where we run
(20:21):
into probably the most famous example of a restricted area
due to religion, and that is Mecca. Mecca bars entry
to any people who are not of the Muslim faith.
And it's an enormously controversial, sticky situation because there are
some people who, for one reason or another, have taken
that as a challenge, right and said, I am going to,
(20:45):
you know, try to fake convert to Islam, which seems
pretty disrespectful. Uh. Or I am going to you know,
pretend to be someone I am not and get into Mecca,
and then I'm going to take pictures of Mecca and
release these pictures to the wild. That's pretty dangerous to message. Yeah,
(21:07):
it is. I I understand though, the kind of human
nature impulse that maybe the moment you tell somebody they
can't do something, that's the moment they decide they want
to do that thing, when before they may have never
even may have even never crossed their radar. But I
would argue that those people um that are trying to
uh infiltrate the sacred space should probably not do that
(21:29):
and are probably have some issues they need to contend
with otherwise. Now I think I would agree with you guys,
But What if we weren't talking about Mecco. What if
we were talking about the Vatican Archives, because I kind
of want people to get in there and like snoop
around a little bit. No, I'm sorry, don't do that.
We you can, you can. They're just they're reading system
(21:54):
is really weird. We talked about that, right, we did.
I'm not talking about the place where you can go
and read stuff. I mean, like really looking around. You know,
you want a free room. Now, They're not gonna They're
not gonna let you do an open world, sandbox vibe there.
You have to know exactly what you're asking for. You
have to know that it already exists and you kind
(22:14):
of have to know where it is. All you have
to do is become you know, a Vatican banker, uh
and or pope. So you should be good. I mean,
somebody can do it. Just be the pope. Start out
being the pope. So the baseline that is right now, Um,
you have to be a dude. So they're just like
(22:35):
being a member of the royal family in Japan. There
are there are restrictions, and you know, it could be
argued very easily that these sites are practicing discrimination. Right
whether or not you can visit these sites is dependent
upon your social standing or your involvement in a belief system.
But most of the rest of the world seems able
(22:58):
to accept this situation. It's it's an easy thing to accept.
I think for a lot of people, you'd say, why
go out of your way to disrespect someone else's belief
system for no other reason than what you want to
You want to run up and and just like start
touching stuff. Again, I'm keeping this idea. I'm keeping the
idea of tourists just like licking their palms and loving
(23:20):
ancient sculptures. Uh no, man, I just want to find
out what's inside the Vatican archives. Come on, that's all.
That's all. I feel like you're gonna rubbed the books.
Look if I needed to, actually, no, you know I
wouldn't because I'd be in there, you know, sneaky spy style.
(23:42):
I would have gloves on to, you know, protect my identity.
Isn't there a movie with this is the plot? So
many I'm sure there's Like I think there's a whole genre, right,
I would imagine isn't isn't da Vinci code that's the genre?
Uh yeah, Vatican Treasure starring old Nick Cage, Nick Cage.
(24:04):
But that was about stealing the Constitution, right, which is
another thing you probably shouldn't rub. Yeah, yeah, rub a copy.
So also, last note on the Vatican. Man, those books
must smell amazing. You guys like the smell of old books.
I very much do. I'm surprised that doesn't exist as
a car air freshener. Oh wow, that is a fantastic idea.
(24:26):
Cut that part out, Spencer when we were on Harmontown,
got that part out. Stop the podcast. Stop the So yes,
it is true that there are places like that. And
if you whether or not you follow that religion or
(24:47):
you know, insert leaf system here, just as you know,
a matter of respect for your fellow human beings. You
don't have to be a jerk about it. Don't have
to be like, well, I'm not Muslim, but I am
an architect, sure experts, so I should get to go. No, buddy, no,
be cool. There's and there's a similar thing with wildlife protection.
(25:12):
There's this is this is something that has become increasingly
common in the modern era. There are multiple regions of
Earth that are considered legally protected, specifically to give wildlife
refuge from hunters and from the spread of human civilization.
(25:32):
Places like Mari Mona in the Cook Islands. It's one
of the world's largest protected marine areas in terms of
in terms of just area, just the measurements. It's bigger
than Mexico. It's a big deal, and good on the
Cook Islands for doing it. But believe it or not,
even the even the idea of let's let's give animals
(25:54):
a place to live, even that idea can be controversial
because doing so can restrict the activities of businesses things
like commercial fishing, mining, oil drilling, or you know, other
forms of resource extraction. Who are these fish to stand
in the way of progress, some would argue, But again
(26:14):
they're not always big swabs of oceans like with A
lot of them are closer to home. These wildlife protection
sites or these places you can't enter to protect wildlife.
One of them is a place that our crew got
very close to a number of years ago, North Brother Island. Spoiler,
we didn't make it. Yes, not North Sentinel Island, and
(26:38):
not that creepy building in the middle of New York
City in Manhattan. What was that one called. I think
it's called the Oldest House. Oh, that's it. That's what
it is, the oldest house there in Manhattan. Highly recommend
checking it out. Be careful if you do enter, because
it seems to shift a little bit while you're inside
(26:58):
and the whole new windows in, But you'll be fine. Um.
I just gotta find some of those objects that are there.
They don't call him haunted. What do they call him
in there? Objects of power? And I can't remember. You'll
find out. Just go if you can. But no, North
Brother Island is an actual place. It's an actual island.
(27:20):
It's up there right near the Bronx. There's North Brother
Island and South Brother Island and North Brother Island is
a no go, not allowed now. North Brother Island used
to be, once upon a time tremendously important to the
city of New York. It was a former quarantine hospital
for treatable diseases. That's right. And Ben, you you mentioned
(27:44):
off air a little trip that you and I took
along with Matt and Lauren Vogelbaum um where we were
barred from going to check the spot out because of
like a music video shoot of some kind. We were
going to Roosevelt Island to find a very similar abandoned structure,
(28:05):
and we walked a pretty long way to the south
end of the island, only to find that Kanye West
had decided to have an impromptu fashion show there. Oh
that's what it was. So our access was restricted because power.
He's got all that power? How so much power? Um? Oh?
(28:29):
But hey, the this is something you might like. No
on North Brother Island. Do you know what it is
right now? No? It's a bird sanctuary. What is up
with all the secret bird sanctuaries? And well it's a
good official reason, I guess, And look, birds should live.
I get it. I'm not anti bird to that level.
(28:49):
I just don't know that I would want to spend
time on a place where they were just running around
Willie Nelly, because that's what they do. Yeah, and you know,
city birds are like city people. They can be surprisingly
grow sometimes, you know what I mean? Those those are
some tough pigeons and seagulls. They did not come to
play with us. Uh. But yet those wildlife refugees, they're
(29:11):
a huge thing and they're in. This is interesting because
for some of the more conspiratorially minded, some of these
innocuous explanations bird sanctuary, etcetera. Etcetera. Uh, they might be
cover for less wholesome activities, but in general, well we've
just described for examples of good reasons you can't go
(29:31):
to certain places. And in each of the cases named
above you can see video footage of these places. Journalists
have been in, their filmmakers have been into, you know,
the vaults, the caves, the islands, you name it. The
thing is, there are other less wholesome restricted areas, and
probably more than you might imagine. What are we talking about.
(29:54):
We'll tell you afterword from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy, quick recap. We love this topic. We've we've
talked about this in the past. Places like the former
HARP facilities right where they're experimenting officially experimenting with the
(30:17):
ion A sphere up there in Alaska. That the High
Altitude Oral no Oral Oral Oral Research Facility with a PHU.
It's it's it's Hank Aaron's actual real patio. There were
there were there were a lot of counterfeit patios. Really quickly,
(30:37):
I just noticed something that's never occurred to me before.
HARP is just a RP with an H at the beginning. Okay,
so it's the Holy American Association of Retired Persons. Yes,
there are many directions that this rabbit hole could take us,
but surely it's not a coincidence, or it may be
(30:58):
absolutely totally is I was. I was talking to some
professor a while back who said something that really stuck
with me. And I won't give his name out, but
we're talking about geopolitics and timing of things, domestic events
that occur, and he said, I always start off with
the assumption that coincidence in this sphere does not exist.
(31:21):
And all I ask is that someone proved me wrong.
It was like, and I've built my career on that. Wow, well, hey,
I'll prove myself wrong. You ready, guys, HARP actually stands
for high Frequency Active Auroral Research Program and I knew that,
and I got it wrong, of course. Wow, that is
so incredibly disrespectful to Hank. Aaron's patio is a sports legend.
(31:44):
It is actual, real patio. Yeah, yeah, well we phoned
that one in a little bit. But but you're right. Um.
The thing about that kind of experimental facility is that,
because of due to the nature of its secrecy, people
spread all sorts of rumors about what it's actually doing.
(32:06):
And that also happens with things we've covered in the past,
like closed cities in Russia and Asia and four time
in Tennessee, Um. But then they're also there's also another thing,
an existential crisis that we talked about, like isolated communities
that risk extinction they're exposed to the modern world, like
North Sentinel Island. I think that's one that still captivates
(32:29):
everybody because no one really knows what the population is
up to, you know, or what their day to day
lives or their beliefs are like. But they're not thinking
about us while they are. They're thinking they do not
want us around. Yeah, but I think more so it's like, hey,
(32:50):
here's our life, this is what we're doing. Sure you
guys stay over there. Yeah. Yeah, And they occupy really
interesting space that we'll touch on later in this episode.
The thing is we've done episodes on all those and
of course the d m Z, which we could talk
about all day. Also a bird sanctuary by the way,
NOL but there are yeah sorry man, but that it's
(33:12):
an accidental bird sanctuary just because they're less likely to
hit all the land mines and humans aren't chasing them.
But it's true. Um, but the thing is there are many, many,
many more restricted areas and types of restricted areas, and
then get very strange. You'll often hear that places are
(33:32):
restricted for your safety, like North Brother Island. One of
the reasons people are not allowed to just visit it
willy nilly is that there are concerns that exploring the
structures there would be unsafe, you know, like the floor
might collapse, something might fall on you, or in the
case of Brazil's Illada Granda, you might be bitten by snakes.
(33:55):
As a matter of fact, you are statistically certain to
be bitten by snakes unless you are straight wearing armor
when you go on this tiny island. This is the
stuff of nightmares for a lot of people. You walk
ten ft you are guaranteed to run into anywhere between. Well,
if you just stand then there will be anywhere between
(34:16):
one to five snakes in an immediate ten square foot
area of you know. Yeah, well some people want to
get there that you feel so strongly about this, I
mean they're like super venomous snakes. I think they've got
some of the most venomous snakes in the world on
that island. Golden Lance heads. Yeah, They're will literally disintegrate
(34:41):
human flesh. See, but it's the psychological urge. Met Some
people hear that and they say, well, I want to go.
And they're not even herpetologists, which are scientists that sunny snakes.
They're just people who are like, I can do it. Yeah, well,
you know, I think this is what we need to do. Guys.
We need to have a reverse psychology campaign where it's
(35:03):
a tourism campaign. Come to Snake Island, We dare you,
and then anybody who will do it just weed them out.
Guys called the herd. Sorry, oh man, you truly a
monster map. We got a big herd though. I see
(35:24):
your point. But there are also other sites that restricted,
ostensibly for safety, nuclear disaster sites, military exclusion zones, and
then areas of the world vaguely classified as no go areas. Right.
For example, Fukushima is the site we probably most recently
(35:45):
associated with the nuclear disaster area. Uh and it makes
perfect sense. You know you don't want to go there,
definitely hashtag two ston. Visitors who spend too much time
there can definitely be exposed to damaging amounts of radiation
over time. Some of these sites are reopen to the
public in fact been some of these become nature preserves
as well, if I'm not mistaken. Um. For example, there's
(36:09):
a lot of photos of the Chernobyl site to this day,
and I believe it's a Maybe it's not an official
wildlife reserve, but isn't it a pretty thriving um kind
of rich wildlife rich area has certainly been reclaimed. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, guys, because there's this ongoing debate in
Chernobyl specifically about to what extent flora and fauna were
(36:34):
affected by the contamination. And there are two big reasons
that this happens. First, it gives scientists the ability to
study the long tail effects of contamination on living organisms,
so they can see rates of mutation. As comic book
as it sounds, that really is true. Uh. And then
just to your point, just like the d m Z,
(36:55):
because there are fewer human beings running around, the populations
of large mammals are increasing, so yeah, it naturally becomes
wildlife preserve. Um Like in the case of the DMC.
One of the big rumors legends, the thing that we
all kind of fox molder want to believe is the
(37:17):
idea that there may be large apex predator feelines there
tigers unproven, unproven and probably honestly, they're probably not at
the DMC, just because that area of the world is
so heavily surveiled. But I wanted to be true, I
can imagine tiger bears emerging from Chernobyl. How cool would
(37:40):
that be? Right? All the strength of all the strength
of a bear and the cunning of a tiger. I
don't know. I say that like tigers couldn't also clearly
whip the snot out of nine percent of human beings
one to one unarmed p VP. But but but the
other thing we should say is that you know, like
(38:00):
you said, no, overtime, these sites do become less contaminated. So,
for example, you can visit parts of Fukushima. The Fukushima
Exclusion Zone is not the entirety of Fukushima, and residents
who had to evacuate UH due to the nuclear disaster
UH set many of them have been able to return
to their homes. So the nuclear disaster sites are legit,
(38:25):
and they they do slowly reopen a time. In a
lot of cases, they're not necessarily hiding anything after the
original disaster hits and the inevitable cover up fails, which
they always do. Then the world is aware of these
and experts visit, you know, to measure radiation, to see
(38:46):
the long term effects of contamination on the ecosystem. Why
can't people go there? You know, free world, right. If
I want to go risk contamination to see a tiger bear,
that's my life to live. Big government. But the main
issue really is kind of boring. It's liability. Imagine if
you're Ukraine and you're just allowing anybody to visit Chernobyl
(39:09):
even though it's not safe. Before the radiation has begun
to disappay or diminish, people are going to start coming
to you and saying, hey, I got cancer from hanging
out at Chernobyl and you let me. Oh yeah, you
could totally see something like that happening. That would make sense.
So another entry in this kind of category of of
(39:30):
forbidden places would be military exclusion zones BEN, which you
mentioned a little while ago. Um there this this again
makes sense. There's a lot of dangerous things that civilians
would not want to be exposed to, but also secrets
UM and so there are quite a lot of these
military restricted zones throughout the world. Some are temporary UM
(39:52):
and some are quite disturbingly permanent UM military installations. You've
got to have lots of clearances, you know, the drill.
If you've ever been to a military base, even you
gets like is visiting like a Hollywood movie studio. You
have to check in with the guy at the little
turnstile and you have to be on a list of
some kind. You have to show UM identification and then
(40:12):
be cleared and have like a contact that you're visiting,
and then they'll let you through UM. But you have
to go to the specific place that you're going. It's
not like you can just like roam around free. So
you know, a lot of these facilities have attracted lots
of interest and speculation, like, for example, places like Area
fifty one, which was we know, there was a big
kind of mass visitation a very fifty one recently and
(40:36):
I think ended up being a little more underwhelming than
what the press would have had us believe. Isn't that right?
But yeah, yeah, that's where you saw people doing the
very specific running meme with their arms back the Naruto run.
Yeah then arutto run. Uh. That that became kind of
the a shared online meme slash stunt. I don't know,
(41:01):
I don't remember how many people did actually show up
to Groom Lake or area fifty one on on that
particular day, um, but they were very ill informed in
doing so. The government is legally allowed to murder you.
If you go past the signs, they will give you
a warning, but if you keep going, they can shoot you.
I think there were more, you know, I want to
(41:23):
look at the numbers, but I think there were more
people at the newest Meme gathering, which was the now
infamous Battle of the Josh. Is you guys heard about that.
We talked about that, right, No, No, maybe maybe we didn't,
but we've discussed it, maybe off off Mike, but it
ended up being like a like a pool noodle fight
or something. May use those fun noodles or whatever they're called,
(41:48):
got some guide him Josh. So it's uh, which, thank you,
Matt that that was such a gift that's set up.
So so, yeah, we have to have these collusion zones.
But then there are other places. Everything we mentioned is
is a place that is known, it's on a map somewhere,
it is officially acknowledged and allowed to exist. But there
(42:11):
are other places, quite a few of them, like black sites,
or like research stations in remote parts of the globe.
These can go decades with their existence or purpose never
being officially acknowledged. And the logic here is kind of sound.
It's much harder to find a place if you don't
know where it is, what it's built for, or whether
(42:32):
it really exists. Yeah, government's generally try and keep their
torture dungeons off limits to people or hidden, which is
what we know black sites can be used for. Not
always sure, but the you're right, You're right, they are
black sites or black boxes, you know, in terms of information,
(42:54):
we only learn about what goes on there, what laws
are being broken when it's a little too late to
save the people involved or the victims, you know, who
can be innocent. Right. Then we have this other thing
called no go areas. No go areas are going to
be familiar to everyone in in the audience today because
(43:18):
you've probably lived somewhere where there wasn't like a law
that said thou shalt not, you know, go north of
the Greenwich Avenue and fifty second or whatever. I'm just
making things up. I hope that's not a real neighborhood.
If it is, Sorry, guys, uh you've heard of no
go areas, maybe being described as the bad part of town,
(43:40):
the wrong side of the tracks. A no go areas
often the most general way to describe it is a
place that has restrictions, whether legal or informal, that prevent
outsiders from entering, and or, you know, fears that if
you visit there, you are not welcome, you are putting
(44:02):
your life at risk. And there's a ven diagram here.
It's pretty interesting. Like Sentinel, North Centinel Island is both
legally a protected area and then locally acknowledged as a
definite no go. Everybody living on the islands around North
Centinel Island, they all know, and none of them wants
to visit. They know the score. Uh, you know, decades
(44:26):
centuries before that unfortunate missionary visited on his well intentioned
but ill informed um mission. I was just thinking about
no go zones, and you guys know the I don't
even know what it is. It's not a switching station.
It's a huge train station area in kind of midtown
(44:48):
downtown Atlanta. Right there by is it to cab Avenue,
where it's just tons and tons of railroad tracks stretching
far out. I'm just thinking about how much of a
no go zone that is legally and uh, safety wise. Yeah, well,
you know what's interesting there, Matt, that goes into hot
I still want to do a series called Invisible America
(45:11):
Underground America that goes in there. There is a group
of people, migratory population who uses those trains as their
primary mode of travel, and that they have I've talked
to some of those folks and they have stories about
how to get in and out of those places. Stuff
gets dicey, stuff gets harry. Um. But yeah, there are
(45:35):
no go zones, but I think we can get it.
I cannot officially, we cannot officially on this show say
it's easier to get into those places than you think.
We cannot officially say that, but I'm sure we have.
I would not be surprised if we have some fellow
listeners in the audience who have personal experience with this,
or maybe on some freight as we speak, if that's.
(45:57):
If that's the case, stay safe out there, boats, Uh,
don't let the bulls find you. And so you're right there.
Your city has a bunch of no go areas, your
town has no go areas, and you'll often the thing
is in recent years, you'll you'll hear this phrase used
in a politically charged context. Uh. There were these persistent
(46:19):
rumors and claims that the government of France had at
some point quietly kind of admitted defeat in areas of
some cities, and they had told law enforcement and first responders, hey,
these places are now no go zones. They are for
the Muslim community only, and they function under Sharia law. Luckily,
(46:42):
that turned out to be more fear mongering and alarmism
islamophobia than anything else. But it might surprise for folks
in the audience to learn that these claims have been
made in other countries, including the US. There have been
you know, uh, somewhat hyperbolic pundits going on air and
saying like, well, there's lah lah someonez was taken over.
(47:03):
In pretty much every case that turned out not to
be true. It turned out to be greatly exaggerated, luckily.
But the idea of no go zones defined as a
place where local authorities refused to enter, that is very
much true, and that occurs in places across the world,
from the border like parts of the Kenyan Somalia border
(47:27):
and favelas in Brazil, which are you know, very economically
deprived places where the functioning government is going to be
criminal in nature. But after we've seen this panopoly of
real life restricted places with a lot of truth to them,
we're gonna we've got to pause for word from our
(47:47):
sponsor and go to one last interesting thing, something with
a twist. Stay tuned, and we have returned as promised.
It gets weirder. There are apparently some areas of the
(48:08):
world that are restricted not due to fears of religion,
not due to fears of you know, crime or nuclear contamination,
but instead these areas of the world are restricted due
to super natural concerns. That's right, folks who heard us correctly,
supernatural concerns. Sounds like the opening of a horror story.
(48:29):
But there are actually a few sites that appear to
restrict access due to get this, the presence of ghosts. Yeah. Yeah,
there's this place called Bungar Fort. I think that's how
you would say it. It's in India and you can
go there during regular let's say, business hours, you can
(48:53):
hang around, you can hang out there, but if you
want to go when it's dark, you have to secure
a government permit. And it's basically I don't know, for me,
it's to keep track of who's gonna die tonight. I'm
just joking. That's not what it is. I love it.
I love it. You wave your right to life when
(49:13):
you sign the permit. Uh yeah, maybe the permit it
considers you legally dead. You're allowed to answer well, and
they have something to recover whence once you you know,
become non corporeal on the site. Yeah, it's so interesting
because it is. The way it's phrased is specifically before
dawn or after sundown. And you know, at first blush,
(49:37):
this could be us. This could be a policy of
almost any common public park. Right. A lot of parks
have hours that are delineated, uh, in terms of the clock,
or they just simply say, you know, the park is
closed at sunset. But this place is different. It's pretty old.
It was built in fifteen seventy three. A famine struck
(49:59):
in seven eighty three. It has been uninhabited ever since,
and there are a lot of local legends about the place.
Some nearby villages don't even bother making rooftops. Whoa what, Yeah,
there's this superstition or common belief we should call it
that the moment a rooftop is built on a house
(50:19):
that's too close to the fort, the roof will inexplicably collapse.
And normally this would just be a fun regional tall tale,
right like Mothman or something. But this is ancient. It's
been around for a while and the Government of India
went official with its warning. Really intense. Man. I'll tell
you what. This reminds me of something that some people
(50:42):
know about, but it is very regional. UM. I grew
up in a town called Augusta, Georgia, and um, not
terribly far from there, there's a place called Murphy Village
where a group um of individuals live that are referred
to themselves as Irish travelers. UM. Not exactly sure what
their exact background is, but they live in the compound um,
(51:04):
and they are sort of they do odd jobs. They'll
look like go on the road and you know, do
house painting jobs. And they're sort of a little bit
notorious for being kind of hucksters and trying to put
one over on people. And y'all you see often groups
of them, like at the local mall or like movie theater.
They have a certain look, they dress a certain way.
They have very large hair, very like seems like they're
from the eighties, kind of like stuck in time. Are
(51:27):
unstuck in time rather, but you are not Outsiders are
not permitted in in Murphy Village. Um. I've known some
friends that try to, you know, pop in. Just take
a look at the houses, uh, and they were chased
out very violently, um, with like gun guns and stuff.
But one thing that they do there is they build
houses and they live in trailers behind them for a
(51:50):
year or more, um, and they cover the windows and
tinfoil um. And and it's meant to exercise the evil
spirits of some kind um to keep them from you know,
inhabiting the house. So they build these houses and they
don't live in them for a year. They literally live
in like almost like a camp type situation out back,
and they have all these like special things they do, um,
(52:10):
ritualistic kind of things. And then they move into the
houses after that. This acceptable cleansing period has past interesting
temporarily supernaturally restricted areas well, I mean permanently restricted to us.
But exactly the houses there are are restricted for a
time for anybody to to enter. So you could argue
(52:31):
that what it has in common with Bangar forts is
the idea of architecturally based superstition. Um. But you get
to have a roof. If you get a roof, it
does come with a roof. Um. But what what I
was what I was getting out when I said the
Government of India, when official with these warnings, is that
there are signposts that have explicit instructions and if you
(52:55):
translate from the Hindi, it says the following. Entering the
borders of on Guard before sunrise and after sunset is
strictly prohibited. Legal action will be taken against anyone who
does not follow these instructions. Wait for it, be warned
before you step in the ghost town of India. That's
(53:16):
a little tantalizing for an official government warning. They know
what they're doing with that warning. Now you and me
and everybody else we have to go. Now, well, we
also can consider ourselves warned. They've done their due diligence
so well. Also, we don't none of us speak or
read Hindi, so we can always pull the dumb tourist thing,
(53:38):
which I am sure they love. Oh sorry, officer, I
didn't know. I couldn't do that nice, right, I think
that I think that was always a good observation. But
there's another place. This isn't the only place over in Italy.
Less than half a mile from Venice, there's a island
called the Poviglia Plague Island, and it also has a
(54:02):
sinister spectral reputation. If you are a fan of the
the reality shows that pretend to investigate paranormal activities and ghosts,
you know, the ones that take like a w W
E approach to plunging the depths of the unknown, then
you've probably seen something about this plague island. From seventeen
(54:27):
nine three to eighteen fourteen, it was used as what's
called a lazaretto, which is a plague quarantine station. This
was kind of similar to North Brother Island. But what
they were doing is they were taking people who were
sailing in to Venice, and because of fears of the plague,
they were taking them in and they were holding them
(54:48):
in a way that's similar to uh the mandatory two
week quarantine that was imposed on international travelers during the
heyday of COVID. It's a good i idea, but we
also have to consider the plague is a completely different
infection in comparison to COVID, and that meant that a
(55:09):
lot of people who showed up at this lazaretto were
on their last legs. They were in late stages of
the plague when they set off. Yeah, it's estimated that
a hundred and sixty thousand infected individuals lived out their
final days uh and hours even there. So there's a
lot of rumor that about fifty of the soil there
(55:30):
consists of human remains. Um. This makes me think of
those uh like uh leper colonies a little bit. And
you know, over the years, there have been investigations at
this and other lazaretto's places where quarantine facilities essentially or areas,
and there were discoveries that there were mass graves in
(55:52):
many of these areas, and this one, at least at
the time of this recording we we're talking to you
right now, it is yet to be fully investigated. So
they haven't dug up a ton of the soil and
actually done him a lot of testing there to check
those rumors about human remains or to find graves, mass
(56:12):
graves or any kind of graves. But we did, as
you mentioned, Ben, paranormal shows love it, Um, I don't.
I can't remember if Ghost Adventures has been there, the
one where they're like, hey, ghost, god, ghost, he's trying
a strong arm a ghost. You gotta sweet talk to
those sweet babies. You can't just yell at him. That's
(56:34):
not cool. Hey bro, Hey, come on bro, what I'm
right here, brom here, come at me, goes What was that?
What was that commercial? Yeah? That was this. That was
the sound of your toxic masculinity resonating through the space.
So the the thing is when it's important to here. Uh,
it is considered the quote most haunted site in Italy,
(56:57):
but that that's by the true believers. But when we're
talking about investigations of other Lazarettos, we're talking about scientific investigations.
Archaeologists are are excavating these sites. It's not it's not
like a ghost hunter thing. But you know, if you
are the average tourist, citizen or curious explorer, entering this
(57:21):
island is absolutely forbidden ghosts or no. And here we
draw to a close. This is just scratching the surface.
Fellow conspiracy realists. Each of the genre of classified area
we've explored today could well be the subject of its
own episode in the future. And this brings us to
you what do you think, and what are, in your opinions,
(57:44):
some of the world's most dangerous sites, What are the
most obscure our authorities correct to restrict access to these areas,
and perhaps most importantly, what forbidden sites would you like
to visit? And why? Yeah? But sicularly, if you know
of something local to your area that we didn't mention
(58:04):
in this episode, we would love to hear about it
and in as much detail as possible. That would be fantastic,
my goodness. You can reach us on Twitter and Facebook
where we're Conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show. You
can find us on YouTube also Conspiracy Stuff. And if
you don't like the social media or YouTube, which you
(58:25):
should like YouTube, um, you can always give us a call.
We have a phone number, that's right, It's one s
T D W y t K. Leave a message to
the sound of Ben's sweet, sweet voice, and you've got
three minutes, and after that three minutes you're gonna get
cut off, so do your best to stick to that.
If you want to go over and tell us something
additional outside of the story, please do that via email,
(58:48):
where you can reach us at conspiracy at I Heart
radio dot com, m H Stuff they Don't Want You
(59:11):
to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com