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
