What do the Vatican Apostolic Archive, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and Ilha da Queimada Grande have in common? They're both places you almost certainly can't experience for yourself. The Vatican Apostolic Archive is where popes' personal documents are stored. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds 1.3 million seed samples "to secure the foundation of our future food supply." Ilha da Queimada Grande (aka "Snake Island"), off the coast of Brazil, is populated with venomous golden lancehead pit vipers, perhaps as many as one per square meter. Those three spots are featured on IFLScience's list of "Five Forbidden Places You Are Not Allowed To Visit," along with:
North Sentinel Island
The Sentinelese are one of the world's last "uncontacted" Indigenous peoples, a hunter-gatherer tribe who live on the remote North Sentinel Island in India's Andaman Islands chain. You may recall that in 2019, a missionary named John Allen Chau, 26, obsessed with trying to convert the tribe to Christianity, paid local fishermen to help him get near the island. As soon as he illegally landed his canoe on the shore and started preaching, the Sentinelese fired arrows. He escaped with injuries but returned twice later and was eventually killed. Just don't even try.
The Church of St. Mary of Zion
The Ark of the Covenant may not be hidden in Tanis, Egypt as Indian Jones led us to believe but rather the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Aksum Ethiopia, according to a centuries-old rumor. "In reality, the revered object found within the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion is likely to be a replica of the Ark, which may or may not actually exist," IFL Science reports. "However, as no one currently alive has been granted permission to enter the church, it's difficult to know for certain exactly what it contains." Perhaps better to not ask for permission but rather forgiveness later.
Previously:
• Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia?
• Remote 'uncontacted' island tribe killed an interloping missionary with arrows
