Sunday, July 14, 2013

9 of the World's Most Ridiculously Secure Safes and Vaults

From Mental Floss:

1. Fort Knox

Plan on breaking into Fort Knox? First, climb the four surrounding fences—two of which are electric—and then sneak past the armed sentinels lining the perimeter. Be sure to avoid the video cameras. Don’t waste time trying to blast through the granite walls—they are four feet thick and held together by 750 tons of reinforcing steel. If you get past the armed guards inside, plus the maze of locked doors, you’ll probably be stopped by the 22-ton vault door. Don’t despair. The vault can be opened, but only if you find all the staff members who know a small slice of the combination (you’ll need all of them, since nobody knows the whole thing.) Once you get inside the vault, you’ll have to break into the smaller vaults tucked inside, then you can start taking the 5000 tons of gold bullion stored in there. And do be careful when you leave: 30,000 soldiers from Fort Knox’s military camp will be anxiously awaiting you outside.

2. Svalbard Global Seed Vault

If Armageddon happens soon, any hope of bringing the world’s crops back is buried 390 feet under a Nordic mountain. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the island of Spitsbergen currently houses over 500,000 of the world’s plant species. The vault is 620 miles south of the North Pole and safeguarded by hundreds of miles of ocean, plus a couple thousand polar bears. It’s so deep, it’s resistant to a nuclear holocaust, not to mention severe earthquakes. It also sits 430 feet above sea level, safe from any possible sea-level rise. The three seed vaults lay behind four heavy steel doors. As long as the keys aren’t hidden under a doormat, our seeds should be safe from Doomsday.

3. Cheyenne Mountain

Cheyenne Mountain redefines the phrase “job security.” Employees work behind two 25-ton doors, which can withstand a 30-megaton blast. To put that into perspective, Fat Man—the bomb dropped on Nagasaki—would have to explode 1429 times to crack the entrance. The offices there are buried 2000 feet into the mountain’s granite, so far that air has to be pumped inside. That air, however, is the cleanest in the world. It is processed by a state-of-the-art system of chemical, biological, and nuclear filters. It’s no wonder why Cheyenne hosted the US Missile Warning Center and NORAD during the Cold War.

4. Iron Mountain

What do the charred remains of Flight 93, the original photo of Einstein sticking out his tongue, and Edison’s patent for the light bulb have in common? They’re all stowed under Iron Mountain. 200 feet below the ground, this retired limestone mine houses 1.7 million square feet worth of vaults. The US government is the biggest tenant, and the identities of 95% of vault owners are confidential. We do know that Warner Brothers, the Smithsonian Institution, and Corbis all have vaults there. Thousands of historic master recordings, photo negatives, and original film reels live here. Iron Mountain is also home to Room 48, a data center backing up some of America’s biggest companies. Two waves of armed guards protect the entrance, and it’s said they inspect guests so thoroughly that even the TSA would be embarrassed....MORE