Religion, retail therapy, a meat-free diet—the Internet is full of people trying to shill “cures” for depression with all the grace of a salesman hawking his last bottle of snake oil. Google “ways to be happy” and you’ll find a million lists reassuring you that all it takes to reach nirvana is a cup of green tea and plenty of fish. Aside from the fact that depression is far too complex to be treated with something as dumb as, say, getting a new pet, most of these so-called cures aren’t even cures at all. In fact, there’s a very real chance that they’re making things worse.

10 Having Lots Of Sex

Having a great sex life is supposed to be the high score bonus on the game of life. Not only are you obviously charming, attractive, and witty enough to be bedding a string of supermodels, you’re also having lots of really good sex. So let’s say you looked at the psychological makeup of a modern Casanova, what would you expect to find?

How about a seething mass of anxiety and depression? A recent study surveyed 3,900 college students about their mental well-being as well as their tendency to leap into bed with strangers. They found elevated levels of anxiety, social anxiety, and depression among those who frequently engaged in casual sex.

Before you all write in complaining we’ve ruined yet another pastime for you, we should point out that this is a bit of a “chicken and egg” scenario—the researchers didn’t determine whether sex caused depression or depression triggered a desire to lose yourself in sex. Whichever way around it is, it means there’s a very real possibility that Hugh Hefner is the most miserable man on Earth.

9 Being Filthy Rich

Right after “an incredible sex life,” the second thing most of us would probably wish for if we ever met a genie is to be absolutely, stinking rich. After all, money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure makes misery a lot more comfortable, right?

Sorry, wrong again. We’ve all heard the horror stories about the lottery winners who wound up utterly miserable, but current research suggests even those who start out rich are prone to mental illness. Specifically, children of parents earning over $159,000 a year have been found dangerously prone to anxiety, depression, self-harm, and drug abuse. Only kids from the very poorest families were found to be more at risk than these real-life Richie Rich’s, so what’s going on?

It comes down to the sort of people who are likely to wind up earning over $150,000 a year—highly motivated, ruthlessly driven types with little time for failure in others. In other words, the exact sort of people who are likely to gift to their children a great big bag of neuroses from their first Little League game onward. All this pressure to do well and become a major stockbroker like Daddy manifests itself in a crippling fear of failure.

8 Being Vegetarian

While it may not quite rank up there with winning the lottery or being chased by crowds of screaming groupies, a vegetarian diet is thought of as shorthand for “wholesome and healthy.” By circumnavigating the excess fat and cancer-giving properties of meat, vegetarians seem to be in an ideal position to live long, happy lives making tie-dye shirts and voting Democrat and whatnot—except science suggests otherwise.

A recent German study analyzed the diets and mental health of 4,000 participants using people from all walks of life. The results were surprising, to say the least. Vegetarians were more likely to suffer from anxiety, hypochondria, depression, and even stuff like body dysmorphia than their meat-eating counterparts.

This wasn’t just a mild statistical anomaly, either—the study participants were twice as likely to be mentally ill as the general population, and three times more likely than the study control group. Again, no one’s sure if vegetarianism causes all this misery, or if miserable people are just more likely to ditch the meat, but if you’ve ever needed a scientifically-backed excuse to justify your five-steak-a-day habit, this is it.

7 Not Getting Drunk

Alcohol and depression go together like Glenn Beck and populist extremism. Aside from being a depressant, our favorite liquid drug is also highly addictive, incredibly damaging to the body, and more socially damaging than even crack or heroin. It makes sense to assume, then, that teetotalers will be free from the fog of guilt and misery that binge-drinkers are forced to wade through every Saturday morning. Well, prepare to be shocked.

A Norwegian study recently compared the mental health and drinking habits of an astonishing 38,000 people. Although the research team found that heavy drinking corresponded to high levels of anxiety, the opposite was true of depression. The respondents who exercised rigorous self-control were apparently less happy than those who woke up each morning in a pool of vomit.

The theory goes that those who never drink but live in “drinking cultures” are less likely to forge strong social bonds with people than those who are happy to relax a little with a beer. While we’d never recommend that anyone do a Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, it does seem that total abstinence is a recipe for disaster.

6 Being Religious

We’re used to thinking of religion as a great comfort. After all, when little Timmy’s dog dies, is he gonna feel better hearing that he’s now in doggy heaven, or that he’s a cold and lifeless husk you’ll probably throw out with the trash? For all atheists like to find fault with all aspects of it, surely religion at least has a net effect on happiness.

It’s a nice thought, but that’s sadly all it is. A study published earlier this year followed 8,000 people from different religions, countries, and socioeconomic backgrounds for over six months and charted their vulnerability to depression. It found that the more strongly religious someone was, the more likely they were to experience major depression. At the same time, those whose beliefs changed during the course of the study were also assessed. The ones who dumped their religion to become atheists generally got happier, the ones who dumped their atheism to become religious generally got sadder. On almost every criteria, the devout were shown as being worse off than those who were either secular or “weakly” religious. In short, it seems that any faith claiming to be a path to happiness is unfortunately mistaken.

5 Playing Sports

Exercise is supposed to have a positive effect on the brain, and team sports are surely good for at least making friends and feeling part of a group. So what’s all this nonsense about sport causing depression?

Specifically, researchers looked into the mental health of current and former college athletes and found that those still “in the game” were up to twice as likely to be depressed as those who had graduated. In their hypothesis, the researchers stated that they expected to find former stars—now deprived of their teammates, coaches, and the thrill of the game—struggling with major depression. But their findings suggested the complete opposite.

Like the rich kids one above, it more than likely comes down to the insane pressure college athletes are under. Aside from having to deal with studying, they’ve also got to play their best, not let their team down, and try to reach the very top—all goals that can cause major stress if missed. In spite of what common sense may tell you, sport is no more a guaranteed key to happiness than, say—buying a new pair of Levi’s.

4 Going Shopping

You’ve probably heard of “retail therapy,” the idea that the best way to unwind from a stressful week is to go and splurge your paycheck on a really expensive pair of shoes. It’s a staple of consumerism, the driving force behind stuff like Christmas and 80 percent of all Sex and the City storylines—and according to science, it’s making you totally miserable.

A recent study in the Netherlands followed 2,500 people over six years to gauge their shopping habits and happiness. They found that materialistic people were more likely to be lonely, because shopping creates a “loop of loneliness” that makes them more depressed the more they do it.

The problem comes down to our culture of consumerism. Thanks to decades of advertising, we’re taught to associate certain values with certain products. When we’re unable to afford one of these items or have to spend more than we should to get it, we wind up feeling anxious, isolated from our peers, and miserable. It turns out that retail therapy is less cathartic and more systematically destroying any chance you have at happiness.

3 Listening To Music

It’s not uncommon to hear nostalgic music critics talking about the song or album “that saved their life.” It’s a feeling everyone can understand—that moment when you hear a snatch of song that somehow reminds you that things aren’t quite as crappy as they often seem. Therefore, it can come as a bit of a shock to learn listening to music can apparently make you prone to depression.

In 2011, a University of Pittsburgh study categorized teens by the amount of time they spent listening to music and compared it to their mental well-being. They found that for every increased level of listening, their risk of depression increased by 80 percent. This is almost the exact opposite effect that reading had, with teens becoming 50 percent less likely to be miserable with each level of increased reading time. In fact, music was found to be the pastime most linked with depression, beating out even TV in the sadness stakes.

Why would this be? Are all the teens in Pittsburgh listening to non-stop Radiohead or something? Well, that’s the thing—we don’t know. Perhaps modern music is just too consistently miserable, or perhaps depressed teenagers are simply more likely to try to escape through music. All we can say for sure is that the bouncy guy on the bus with happy hardcore blaring out his earphones is probably more depressed than the girl sat next to him reading the collected works of Franz Kafka.

2 Voting Democrat

According to The New York Times, conservatives are measurably happier than liberals and have been for years. A 2006 Pew study found self-professed conservatives were 68 percent more likely than left-leaning Democrats to say they were “very happy,” with single, childless liberals being the most miserable of all. A similar partisan happiness gap has been consistently reported for decades (LINK 16). In other words, the simple fact that you’d take Ronald Reagan over Bill Clinton means you’re less likely to be depressed.

So what causes all this liberal misery? Well, no one’s really sure. In 2008, Pew suggested it might be because Republicans are more likely to be rich and religious—a statement that flatly contradicts two items in our list so far. Others have claimed conservatives simply have a sunnier outlook, while yet others have noted that liberals are statistically less likely to get married.

However, before you GOP types start celebrating, you should be aware that there’s one type of liberal happier than you are. According to the same studies, people on the extreme left are happier than everyone except the craziest right-wing extremists, meaning that both the Tea Party and Occupy are enjoying life far more most of us in the middle.

1 Being Social On The Internet

Are you the type of person who will finish reading this, scroll down, and leave a comment? We’ve got some bad news—you’re objectively more likely to be lonely and miserable than the guy who just skims and moves on.

A recent study analyzed the Internet usage of a cohort of depressed and non-depressed people and found that unhappy people use the Internet differently from anyone else. Specifically, they were more likely to engage in peer-to-peer usage like sharing photos, music, and opinions through Facebook, chat rooms, and message boards. Healthy people, on the other hand, were less likely to obsessively check their email, spend time on social networks, and sit up late at night reading list-based articles.

This kind of goes against everything we think we know about the Internet. The whole social media interaction thing is supposed to make us less lonely and more connected—hence, everyone seeming to have more Facebook friends than there are people on the planet. However, a huge body of research suggests this view is outdated nonsense. So there you have it: The secret to happiness on the internet is to simply ignore all the angry idiots out there and get on with own thing. Who’d have thought it?

There are countless beautiful destinations to visit around the world. But some places are either too dangerous, too protected, or too mysterious to explore.

Several locations across the globe—from man-made buildings and structures to natural habitats that contain dangerous species, religious mysteries, and secrets—make these areas forbidden to outsiders.

10 The Red Zone
France

Not all scenes in France are made of rolling green hills filled with gorgeous villages. In fact, there is one deserted area that has been forbidden for nearly a century. In a region near Verdun, France, lies a virgin forest known as the Zone Rouge (aka the Red Zone). Nobody lives there, nothing has been built there, and it is actually forbidden to enter.

Before World War I, Verdun was mainly farmland. The area quickly changed during the war after millions of rounds of artillery shells were fired. The ground was churned up, the trees were smashed, and the towns were destroyed by explosives. The war ended in 1918 and left the villages a casualty of war.

The French government considered the cost of rehabilitating the land but ultimately decided to relocate the local villagers. All the shells and munitions were left in the area, and it was deemed Zone Rouge.

The 1,190-square-kilometer (460 mi²) area is still strictly prohibited by law from public entry and agricultural use. Authorities are working to clear the land. However, at the current rate, many believe that it could take 300–700 years to complete or it may never be fully cleared.^[1]

9 Fort Knox
Kentucky

One of the best-kept mysteries in the US is located just 48 kilometers (30 mi) southwest of Louisville. The United States Bullion Depository (aka Fort Knox) is stacked with glittering gold bricks . . . we think. Very few people have entered the “gold fortress,” leaving many unanswered questions about the location.

Construction of Fort Knox was completed in 1936, and it sits on a 109,000-acre US Army post. Gold was shipped in at that time by trains manned by machine gunners. Then it was loaded onto army trucks protected by a US Cavalry brigade.^[2]

Just to be clear: Technically, Fort Knox (the US Army post) is adjacent to the US Bullion Depository. But the term “Fort Knox” is often used to refer to the gold vault building.

The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were both stored there for short periods. The US government figures that the United States Bullion Depository holds nearly 4,582 metric tons of gold, which is worth more than $175 billion. The facility has one of the most advanced security systems known. What goes on there is mostly a secret, which is how the phrase “as secure as Fort Knox” originated.

8 North Sentinel Island

As hard as it is to believe, there are still “uncontacted” indigenous groups, which means that they maintain no contact with modern civilization. The Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island are one of those few remaining uncontacted tribes.

In 1991, an outside expedition from India floated coconuts in the water toward the island inhabited by the Sentinelese, who are known to be hostile to foreigners. On two such trips, an Indian team made contact. The Sentinelese wanted the unfamiliar coconuts, but they did not really welcome the outsiders.^[3]

It is estimated that about 80–150 people live on the island, and their language isn’t known to any outsiders. Little is known about the tribe, which keeps them a mystery to many. But we do know that they don’t care much for company.

In 2018, a US missionary attempted to contact the Sentinelese people but was quickly killed by bow and arrow. The group has made it clear for years that they have no interest in making new friends.

In 1896, a convict from the Great Andaman Island Penal Colony escaped on a makeshift raft and eventually washed ashore on North Sentinel Island. His remains were found days later with a cut throat and several arrow wounds. It’s clear that the Sentinelese don’t want any contact, and it’s best to leave it that way.

7 Chapel Of The Ark Of The Covenant
Ethiopia

One of the most sought-after artifacts from the Bible is the Ark of the Covenant. The legendary object was built around 3,000 years ago to house the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. The Ark vanished from history after the Babylonian Empire conquered the Israelites. Nobody really knows if it was destroyed, captured, or hidden.

According to Ethiopian lore, the Ark of the Covenant is located at the St. Mary of Zion Cathedral (aka the Chapel of the Ark) in Aksum. The church only allows one man to see the Ark, and he is a monk who acts as the guardian of the artifact.

Although some reports claim that the Aksum object is only a replica of the Ark, nobody else is even permitted to enter the chapel to study the artifact, making it a forbidden place that you wish you could visit.^[4]

6 Snake Island

Around 150 kilometers (93 mi) south of downtown Sao Paulo is Ilha da Queimada Grande, better known as Snake Island. The island sits about 40 kilometers (25 mi) off the coast of Brazil, and humans are forbidden from entering the island. Snake Island got the name from the various snakes lurking across the island. Researchers believe that there is about one deadly snake for every 0.09 square meter (1 ft²) on the island.

The island is home to the golden lancehead, a unique species of the pit viper, which is known as one of the deadliest serpents in the world. They can grow to be over 0.5 meters (1.5 ft) long, and it is estimated that anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 of these deadly snakes occupy the island.

A lancehead is so venomous that a human would die within an hour of being bitten. These vipers are responsible for more deaths than any other snake in North and South America. It may be best that this island stays off-limits to visitors.^[5]

5 Mirny Diamond Mine

One of the largest man-made excavated holes in the world is found at Mir Mine (aka Mirny Diamond Mine). The enormous pit is located in Eastern Siberia and is the second-largest man-made hole in the world.

The diamond-rich deposit was found in 1955, and it is now more than 520 meters (1,700 ft) deep and more than 1,200 meters (3,900 ft) wide. Joseph Stalin ordered the construction of the mine to satisfy the Soviet Union’s need for diamonds.

During the peak years, the mine produced more than 10 million carats of diamonds annually. Open mining ceased in 2001, but underground mining is continued at the location.

The airspace above the mine is off-limits to helicopters after stories emerged about aircraft being sucked in due to downward air flow. But those claims have never been proved. The town is strictly off-limits to outsiders, though, so don’t expect to get a glimpse of this diamond in the rough.^[6]

4 Tomb Of Qin Shi Huang

Deep in the hills of central China, the country’s first emperor has lain for more than two millennia. The secret tomb of Qin Shi Huang was discovered in 1974 after some farmers stumbled across it while digging wells. They dug out a life-size terra-cotta soldier, but they didn’t realize that it would be just one of thousands of pieces of history at the site.

Archaeologists have excavated the site for nearly four decades and have uncovered about 2,000 clay soldiers. Scientists have not yet touched the central tomb, though, which contains the remains of Qin Shi Huang.

Many believe that the tomb is filled with many other treasures such as precious stones. Chinese authorities are the only ones allowed near the area, and it is up to them to decide if anyone ever gets to enter the mysterious tomb.^[7]

3 Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Halfway between Norway and the North Pole lies the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It is tucked away deep inside a mountain on a remote island in Svalbard. It is the world’s largest seed storage and is home to crates of seeds for safe and secure long-term storage in cold and dry rock vaults. The vault holds tens of thousands of varieties of essential food crops and more than 4,000 plant species.

It is a long-term seed storage facility that was built to withstand the effects of man-made and natural disasters. The purpose of the vault is to store duplicates of seeds from the world’s crop collections. If nuclear war or global warming were to kill crops, nations could request seeds from the vault to restart their agricultural processes.

In 2018, the Norwegian government proposed to allocate 100 million NOK (roughly $12.7 million) to upgrade the seed vault to help safeguard the genetic material it contains.^[8]

2 Bohemian Grove

Each July, a group of very rich and powerful men gather at a 2,700-acre campground in Monte Rio, California, for two weeks to hold private meetings, indulge in alcoholic beverages, and who knows what else. Bohemian Grove is the name of the secret campground that belongs to the gentlemen’s club known as the Bohemian Club.

According to rumors, the only way to join the Bohemian Club is to be invited by members or join a waiting list decades long. There is also a $25,000 initiation fee along with yearly dues.^[9]

There are currently around 2,500 members, with many of them showing up to enjoy their down time at the campground that features 118 camps, a man-made lake, and a towering Owl Shrine. Some of the past and present members of the secretive group include Gerald Ford, Clint Eastwood, Bing Crosby, Merv Griffin, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

1 Surtsey
Iceland

Surtsey is a volcanic island off the southern coast of Iceland. It’s one of the world’s newest islands and was named after the Norse fire god, Surtur. In 1963, it emerged from the Atlantic Ocean after a fiery eruption. Columns of ash were sent into the air almost 9,200 meters (30,000 ft). For nearly four years after the eruption, the volcanic core built up the island with elevations around 152 meters (500 ft).^[10]

The island is now home to a long-term biological research program to study the colonization process of new land by plant and animal life. It was declared a nature reserve in 1965, and in 2008, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. Surtsey is restricted to the public and is still only open to a handful of scientists who study the island.

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In cities the majority of space is off-limits. Parks and streets may account for up to half the total area, but when you factor in the vertical axis—the floors inside buildings (many of them empty)—you get a different picture. And that’s just the space that we know about. Often there’s a lot more underground.

In order of size, here are 10 of the most spectacular subterranean sights you’re forbidden from seeing or, in some cases, even from knowing they exist.

10. Mumbai’s imperial underworld

When an occupying force takes over your country, it tends to cut you out of the loop. Hence, whenever Indian construction workers find structures under cities once controlled by the British, they don’t know what they were built for. The vault beneath Kolkata’s National Library, for instance, might have been anything from a treasury to a torture chamber—or, as it eventually turned out, just part of the building’s foundations. 

Mumbai has a veritable underworld of abandoned imperial structures, from the 13-room bunker under Raj Bhavan (the seat of city government) to the kilometer-long tunnel under the old General Post Office.

Another mystery was unearthed as recently as 2022: a 200-meter tunnel under Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, a building whose foundations were laid by the British governor. Appearing on no maps, it was only discovered in a water leak survey. And it was blocked at one end so it wasn’t clear where it once led. While it’s thought to have been to a neighboring hospital, it remains something of a mystery for now—as does the number of underground structures that remain to be found in Mumbai.

9. LA’s prohibition partyways

While the rest of America endured its first War on Drugs—the doomed-to-fail prohibition of alcohol—the mayor of LA kept the hooch flowing through a network of underground service tunnels. These were also the routes by which the flappers and dapper gents of the city’s roaring party scene got from one bar to the next without hassle. Originally built as service tunnels, and for a subway to ease traffic on the surface, they ran for more than 17 kilometers connecting basements converted to speakeasies.

One such bar was the King Eddy Saloon. Established almost 20 years before Prohibition, it moved underground to survive—transforming its above-ground premises into a piano store. Others include the Edison, in the basement of the city’s first privately owned power plant, and Cole’s, under the Pacific Electric building. Patrons of all these establishments, armed with a password, stumbled around wasted, completely unseen by police and paparazzi.

Despite their historic significance, the passages and basements are now closed to the public and even largely unmapped. Many are flooded and crumbling. Just like in the old days, however, those in the know can find their way in—as evidenced by the tunnels’ graffiti. According to Atlas Obscura, there’s an “easy-to-miss elevator” on Temple Street. And there’s also, apparently, an entrance off the subway from Downtown to Hollywood.

8. Havana’s secret chambers

In the early 1990s, the Cuban government was reported to have secretly built more than 33 kilometers of tunnels under Havana. These were to serve as bomb shelters amid escalating threats of invasion by the United States.

Known as the Popular Tunnels, they were manually dug by hundreds of laborers and their entrances carefully hidden. But these were just the latest of a long tradition of tunneling under Cuba. All the way back in 1929, the New York Times reported on the discovery of five secret chambers under Havana’s City Hall.

7. Tokyo’s hidden network

From rivers and forgotten canals to the world’s largest sewer system, there’s plenty below Tokyo that we know about. But there may a lot more. When journalist Shun Akiba compared an old map to a new one, he found differences suggesting not only unknown tunnels but an effort to cover them up. Whereas the new map showed subway tunnels crossing in Nagata-cho, for instance, close to the National Diet building (the seat of government), the old map showed them as parallel. Shun also found evidence of an underground complex between the National Diet and the prime minister’s residence. He also remarked on the mysterious tunnels leading off the Ginza Line.

Official enquiries got him nowhere, he said, lips were “zipped tight” despite his respectable professional background as a war correspondent for Asahi TV. From what he’s seen, Shun believes there must be close to 2,000 km of tunnels beneath the city—eight times the stated 250 km. And many of them (the Namboku, Hanzomon, and O-Edo lines, for instance) were built long before their conversion for trains. That the Chiyoda line platform at Kokkai-gijidomae, the National Diet station, is the deepest in Tokyo, suggests it was built as a bomb shelter. Yet old blueprints show another level even deeper. There’s also the mystery of the Yurakucho line, which, with its high ceilings and military facilities on route, is rumored to be a secret road used by the military. Although the network dates back to World War Two and the Cold War era, the continued silence from officials suggests they may still be in use.

6. Washington’s whack-a-mole hidey-holes

The two main parties of the military-industrial regime based out of Washington have plenty in common, but one thing stands out: they’re both afraid of the public. Hence their underground tunnels to get from one building to another—tunnels they’re advised to make use of. Some of these famously served as evacuation routes during the 2021 Capitol siege, but they are in fact used every day just to avoid going outside.

According to The Drive, there’s “a labyrinth of at least 19 underground passages on Capitol Hill”,  not only for people but vehicles as well. The oldest date back to the 1800s, when they were built for water and ventilation, as well as to transport books by electrical conveyor belt between the Capitol and Library of Congress. When the Russell building was finished in the early 1900s, it came complete with a subway car system in a tunnel so fortified that it was, many years later, designated as a fallout shelter. As other buildings followed, the tunnel network grew. And nowadays the Cannon Tunnel, between the Cannon building and the Capitol, is more like an underground town with “a shoe repair store, post office, credit union, and cafeteria.”

Among the most recent major works was a 54,000-square-meter expansion of the Capitol building’s underground complex. This added three underground stories to the existing network with links to nearby offices and a 305-meter tunnel to the northwest, officially built for screening garbage trucks for explosives. That was in the 2000s, amid growing secrecy regarding Washington’s underworld—not to mention the tunnels and bunkers that lie deep under the White House.

5. Moscow’s many secrets

The largest of Europe’s old fortresses, the Kremlin sits atop a labyrinth of secret passageways. There’s the haunted Neglinnaya river tunnel, for example, the Syani stone mines where the city sourced limestone for construction, and, although it’s yet to be found, the library of Ivan the Terrible. Excavations for the latter have all turned up nothing but tunnels: “endless tunnels, buried, stoned in, heading in unknown directions”. While the search was called off, however—in part because of damage to foundations—the library’s still thought to be down there, along with its priceless collection. 

What has been found are the dungeons under two of the Kremlin’s towers, in one of which Ivan the Terrible imprisoned Prince Andrei Khovansky. Those condemned to torture were kept gagged and chained to the wall, allowed to speak only when addressed by their captors. The nearby dungeons of the Cathedral of the Archangel kept prisoners of the church, people who owed it money, on painful posts known as “penitence chairs”. Just next door are the cathedral’s stone treasuries, built to withstand both fires and theft.

Much more recently constructed was the Metro-2, a parallel subway system built, in secret, around the same time as the main one. Intended to evacuate the government, it runs as deep as 250 meters in places. And not much is known about it, either, except that it does exist; Moscow’s first post-Soviet mayor confirmed that in 2006. 

4. New York’s abandoned subways

There are numerous disused rail tunnels under New York City. Track 61 beneath the Waldorf Astoria is among the most storied, having once carried presidents and generals like Roosevelt and MacArthur. In 2003, it was even considered as an escape route for George Bush and his lackeys. It has also hosted a fashion show and an Andy Warhol event. Other subways were constructed for the mail, such as the Farley-Morgan Postal Tunnel under 9th Avenue. Although it’s sealed off now, it was briefly used in 2004 to sneak guests between venues for the Republican National Convention. 

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel under Brooklyn, meanwhile, has been abandoned since 1861—less than 20 years after it was built in 1844. It’s the oldest subway in the world and was only briefly reopened in 1918 to look for Germans.

But there’s a lot more under New York besides subways. One of the most interesting and unique tunnels is the 66-kilometer underground aqueduct between Bryant Park and the Croton River in Westchester. Disused since the 1950s, this “perfectly preserved” tunnel—the 1842 Croton Aqueduct—once carried millions of gallons of water to the city. It was all stored at the Distributing Reservoir in Bryant Park, a vast, 16,000-square-meter structure resembling an ancient Egyptian temple. It was actually thanks to this place, the solution to Manhattan’s disgusting sanitation problems, that the city is still there today.

3. Rome’s ancient quarries

So extensive are the ancient tunnels and quarries under Rome, dating back to the founding of the city, that it’s common for sinkholes to form and for buildings on the surface to collapse. It was only in 2013 that geologists mapped the network, amid an increasing number of such incidents. There were 44 collapses in 2011, followed by 77 in 2012, and 83 by December 2013. Residents have usually patched up the damage themselves using big plastic bags of cement.

The original ancient Roman tunnelers actually tried to guard against this happening (in their own day, at least) by keeping the passageways narrow. This ensured the surface was still largely supported. Over time, however, the exposed rock has weathered. Not only that but later generations have widened the original tunnels and kept building more.

Although they’re not open to the public, they’ve been used by Romans down the ages as catacombs, sewers, and mushroom farms, as well as shelters in the Second World War.

2. London’s tunnels of intrigue

With its dungeons, crypts, and catacombs, 13 underground rivers, and plague pits from the mid-1300s, the history of London lies just below the surface. More recently, however, officials confirmed what urban explorers have known for decades: the existence of a sprawling network of underground tunnels connecting government buildings with secret chambers. According to the Land Registry in 2017, most of them were built by the Post Office, British Telecom, and the Ministry of Defence.

One of the more interesting parts of the network, the Postmaster General’s tunnel, runs from the East End of London to what used to be the War Office at 57 Whitehall (now an overpriced hotel). At various points along the way, elevator shafts connect it to government departments and telephone exchanges. Deep under High Holborn Street, not far from Whitehall, one such exchange was built as a government bomb shelter, complete with a restaurant, games rooms, and two bars (one for tea and one for booze).

The tunnels have, officially, been out of use since the Cold War era, but they were never opened up to the public. While those who’ve managed to sneak down there do say it’s like a time capsule, untouched in decades, they’ve only seen parts. Access to the deeper levels is suspiciously bricked off, the lights are kept on, and trespassers are disproportionately punished.

1. Beijing’s underground city

Built to hold 40% of citizens in the event of a war with Russia, Beijing’s dixia cheng (“underground city”) covers a remarkable 85 square kilometers—all hand-dug by citizens during the Cold War. It’s also known as the “underground Great Wall of China”, for its massive scale. But you’re not allowed to see it. 

The official guided tour takes in only a small, looping, and commercialized fraction of the whole. The rest of the corridors, tunnels and bunkers are said to be inhabited by up to one million homeless—the so-called Rat Tribe (who presumably stand to inherit the Earth). But that sounds too good to be true. While some of dixia cheng has been converted to low-cost, sub-standard apartments, it’s hard to imagine the CCP leaving all of it to poor people and tramps when there are hundreds of more selfish uses. With 90 entrances across the city, for example, its potential for “disappearing” citizens is obvious.

In any case, whatever’s really down there, it was built for long-term habitation, with storage for grain and space for mushroom farming, as well as restaurants, barber shops, a cinema, classrooms and anything else to help persuade citizens that things were still normal.

In cities the majority of space is off-limits. Parks and streets may account for up to half the total area, but when you factor in the vertical axis—the floors inside buildings (many of them empty)—you get a different picture. And that’s just the space that we know about. Often there’s a lot more underground.

In order of size, here are 10 of the most spectacular subterranean sights you’re forbidden from seeing or, in some cases, even from knowing they exist…

10. Mumbai’s imperial underworld

When an occupying force takes over your country, it tends to cut you out of the loop. Hence, whenever Indian construction workers find structures under cities once controlled by the British, they don’t know what they were built for. The vault beneath Kolkata’s National Library, for instance, might have been anything from a treasury to a torture chamber—or, as it eventually turned out, just part of the building’s foundations. 

Mumbai has a veritable underworld of abandoned imperial structures, from the 13-room bunker under Raj Bhavan (the seat of city government) to the kilometer-long tunnel under the old General Post Office.

Another mystery was unearthed as recently as 2022: a 200-meter tunnel under Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, a building whose foundations were laid by the British governor. Appearing on no maps, it was only discovered in a water leak survey. And it was blocked at one end so it wasn’t clear where it once led. While it’s thought to have been to a neighboring hospital, it remains something of a mystery for now—as does the number of underground structures that remain to be found in Mumbai.

9. LA’s prohibition partyways

While the rest of America endured its first War on Drugs—the doomed-to-fail prohibition of alcohol—the mayor of LA kept the hooch flowing through a network of underground service tunnels. These were also the routes by which the flappers and dapper gents of the city’s roaring party scene got from one bar to the next without hassle. Originally built as service tunnels, and for a subway to ease traffic on the surface, they ran for more than 17 kilometers connecting basements converted to speakeasies.

One such bar was the King Eddy Saloon. Established almost 20 years before Prohibition, it moved underground to survive—transforming its above-ground premises into a piano store. Others include the Edison, in the basement of the city’s first privately owned power plant, and Cole’s, under the Pacific Electric building. Patrons of all these establishments, armed with a password, stumbled around wasted, completely unseen by police and paparazzi.

Despite their historic significance, the passages and basements are now closed to the public and even largely unmapped. Many are flooded and crumbling. Just like in the old days, however, those in the know can find their way in—as evidenced by the tunnels’ graffiti. According to Atlas Obscura, there’s an “easy-to-miss elevator” on Temple Street. And there’s also, apparently, an entrance off the subway from Downtown to Hollywood.

8. Havana’s secret chambers

In the early 1990s, the Cuban government was reported to have secretly built more than 33 kilometers of tunnels under Havana. These were to serve as bomb shelters amid escalating threats of invasion by the United States.

Known as the Popular Tunnels, they were manually dug by hundreds of laborers and their entrances carefully hidden. But these were just the latest of a long tradition of tunneling under Cuba. All the way back in 1929, the New York Times reported on the discovery of five secret chambers under Havana’s City Hall.

7. Tokyo’s hidden network

From rivers and forgotten canals to the world’s largest sewer system, there’s plenty below Tokyo that we know about. But there may a lot more. When journalist Shun Akiba compared an old map to a new one, he found differences suggesting not only unknown tunnels but an effort to cover them up. Whereas the new map showed subway tunnels crossing in Nagata-cho, for instance, close to the National Diet building (the seat of government), the old map showed them as parallel. Shun also found evidence of an underground complex between the National Diet and the prime minister’s residence. He also remarked on the mysterious tunnels leading off the Ginza Line.

Official enquiries got him nowhere, he said, lips were “zipped tight” despite his respectable professional background as a war correspondent for Asahi TV. From what he’s seen, Shun believes there must be close to 2,000 km of tunnels beneath the city—eight times the stated 250 km. And many of them (the Namboku, Hanzomon, and O-Edo lines, for instance) were built long before their conversion for trains. That the Chiyoda line platform at Kokkai-gijidomae, the National Diet station, is the deepest in Tokyo, suggests it was built as a bomb shelter. Yet old blueprints show another level even deeper. There’s also the mystery of the Yurakucho line, which, with its high ceilings and military facilities on route, is rumored to be a secret road used by the military. Although the network dates back to World War Two and the Cold War era, the continued silence from officials suggests they may still be in use.

6. Washington’s whack-a-mole hidey-holes

The two main parties of the military-industrial regime based out of Washington have plenty in common, but one thing stands out: they’re both afraid of the public. Hence their underground tunnels to get from one building to another—tunnels they’re advised to make use of. Some of these famously served as evacuation routes during the 2021 Capitol siege, but they are in fact used every day just to avoid going outside.

According to The Drive, there’s “a labyrinth of at least 19 underground passages on Capitol Hill”,  not only for people but vehicles as well. The oldest date back to the 1800s, when they were built for water and ventilation, as well as to transport books by electrical conveyor belt between the Capitol and Library of Congress. When the Russell building was finished in the early 1900s, it came complete with a subway car system in a tunnel so fortified that it was, many years later, designated as a fallout shelter. As other buildings followed, the tunnel network grew. And nowadays the Cannon Tunnel, between the Cannon building and the Capitol, is more like an underground town with “a shoe repair store, post office, credit union, and cafeteria.”

Among the most recent major works was a 54,000-square-meter expansion of the Capitol building’s underground complex. This added three underground stories to the existing network with links to nearby offices and a 305-meter tunnel to the northwest, officially built for screening garbage trucks for explosives. That was in the 2000s, amid growing secrecy regarding Washington’s underworld—not to mention the tunnels and bunkers that lie deep under the White House.

5. Moscow’s many secrets

The largest of Europe’s old fortresses, the Kremlin sits atop a labyrinth of secret passageways. There’s the haunted Neglinnaya river tunnel, for example, the Syani stone mines where the city sourced limestone for construction, and, although it’s yet to be found, the library of Ivan the Terrible. Excavations for the latter have all turned up nothing but tunnels: “endless tunnels, buried, stoned in, heading in unknown directions”. While the search was called off, however—in part because of damage to foundations—the library’s still thought to be down there, along with its priceless collection. 

What has been found are the dungeons under two of the Kremlin’s towers, in one of which Ivan the Terrible imprisoned Prince Andrei Khovansky. Those condemned to torture were kept gagged and chained to the wall, allowed to speak only when addressed by their captors. The nearby dungeons of the Cathedral of the Archangel kept prisoners of the church, people who owed it money, on painful posts known as “penitence chairs”. Just next door are the cathedral’s stone treasuries, built to withstand both fires and theft.

Much more recently constructed was the Metro-2, a parallel subway system built, in secret, around the same time as the main one. Intended to evacuate the government, it runs as deep as 250 meters in places. And not much is known about it, either, except that it does exist; Moscow’s first post-Soviet mayor confirmed that in 2006. 

4. New York’s abandoned subways

There are numerous disused rail tunnels under New York City. Track 61 beneath the Waldorf Astoria is among the most storied, having once carried presidents and generals like Roosevelt and MacArthur. In 2003, it was even considered as an escape route for George Bush. It has also hosted a fashion show and an Andy Warhol event. Other subways were constructed for the mail, such as the Farley-Morgan Postal Tunnel under 9th Avenue. Although it’s sealed off now, it was briefly used in 2004 to sneak guests between venues for the Republican National Convention. 

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel under Brooklyn, meanwhile, has been abandoned since 1861—less than 20 years after it was built in 1844. It’s the oldest subway in the world and was only briefly reopened in 1918 to look for Germans.

But there’s a lot more under New York besides subways. One of the most interesting and unique tunnels is the 66-kilometer underground aqueduct between Bryant Park and the Croton River in Westchester. Disused since the 1950s, this “perfectly preserved” tunnel—the 1842 Croton Aqueduct—once carried millions of gallons of water to the city. It was all stored at the Distributing Reservoir in Bryant Park, a vast, 16,000-square-meter structure resembling an ancient Egyptian temple. It was actually thanks to this place, the solution to Manhattan’s disgusting sanitation problems, that the city is still there today.

3. Rome’s ancient quarries

So extensive are the ancient tunnels and quarries under Rome, dating back to the founding of the city, that it’s common for sinkholes to form and for buildings on the surface to collapse. It was only in 2013 that geologists mapped the network, amid an increasing number of such incidents. There were 44 collapses in 2011, followed by 77 in 2012, and 83 by December 2013. Residents have usually patched up the damage themselves using big plastic bags of cement.

The original Ancient Roman tunnelers actually tried to guard against this happening (in their own day, at least) by keeping the passageways narrow. This ensured the surface was still largely supported. Over time, however, the exposed rock has weathered. Not only that but later generations have widened the original tunnels and kept building more.

Although they’re not open to the public, they’ve been used by Romans down the ages as catacombs, sewers, and mushroom farms, as well as shelters in the Second World War.

2. London’s tunnels of intrigue

With its dungeons, crypts, and catacombs, 13 underground rivers, and plague pits from the mid-1300s, the history of London lies just below the surface. More recently, however, officials confirmed what urban explorers have known for decades: the existence of a sprawling network of underground tunnels connecting government buildings with secret chambers. According to the Land Registry in 2017, most of them were built by the Post Office, British Telecom, and the Ministry of Defence.

One of the more interesting parts of the network, the Postmaster General’s tunnel, runs from the East End of London to what used to be the War Office at 57 Whitehall (now an overpriced hotel). At various points along the way, elevator shafts connect it to government departments and telephone exchanges. Deep under High Holborn Street, not far from Whitehall, one such exchange was built as a government bomb shelter, complete with a restaurant, games rooms, and two bars (one for tea and one for booze).

The tunnels have, officially, been out of use since the Cold War era, but they were never opened up to the public. While those who’ve managed to sneak down there do say it’s like a time capsule, untouched in decades, they’ve only seen parts. Access to the deeper levels is suspiciously bricked off, the lights are kept on, and trespassers are disproportionately punished.

1. Beijing’s underground city

Built to hold 40% of citizens in the event of a war with Russia, Beijing’s dixia cheng (“underground city”) covers a remarkable 85 square kilometers—all hand-dug by citizens during the Cold War. It’s also known as the “underground Great Wall of China”, for its massive scale. But you’re not allowed to see it. 

The official guided tour takes in only a small, looping, and commercialized fraction of the whole. The rest of the corridors, tunnels and bunkers are said to be inhabited by up to one million homeless—the so-called Rat Tribe (who presumably stand to inherit the Earth). But that sounds too good to be true. While some of dixia cheng has been converted to low-cost, sub-standard apartments, it’s hard to imagine the CCP leaving all of it to poor people and tramps when there are hundreds of more selfish uses. With 90 entrances across the city, for example, its potential for “disappearing” citizens is obvious.

In any case, whatever’s really down there, it was built for long-term habitation, with storage for grain and space for mushroom farming, as well as restaurants, barber shops, a cinema, classrooms and anything else to help persuade citizens that things were still normal.

Death is like taxes. We hate it. Also, sorry for the reminder, but it’s coming for us all—every living, breathing human on this planet and most other plants and animals. We don’t like to think about the end and keep it in our distant minds, but every so often, we read something about the ultimate end. The last hoorah for our beloved planet Earth. A comet heading coming to crash us to bits, a nuclear fallout that could force us underground for centuries, or a zombie outbreak that will turn us all into mindless biters.

Some people are ready for the end; we call them doomsday preppers. So when the poop hits the fan, they will be the ones we all run to. But the preppers aren’t all isolated, socially awkward people. Some just have the resources to plan that far ahead.

Here are ten insane billionaire doomsday bunkers that we won’t be invited to.

Related: Top 10 Disturbingly Practical Nuclear Weapons

10 The Oppidum

Surrounded by high fortress-like walls and hidden among the lush forests, this 323,000-square-foot (30,000-square-meter) property is where you will be as safe as you could ever be. Deep in the mountains of the rural Czech Republic lies the incredible estate known as The Oppidum.

Complete with an underground garden with simulated light, a spa, a swimming pool, a cinema, a library, and other leisurely activities, you are sure to have a blast. The living space encompasses a whopping 77,500 square feet (7,200 square meters). Operated by a subterranean control center, the only entrance into the compound is an underground tunnel locked in by a blast door that can be sealed in a matter of minutes. If you want to attempt a break-in, keep in mind they have 24-hour military-style security with big weapons.

Although space in the Oppidum is quite limited, the company also offers state-of-the-art bunkers and structures delivered straight to your door, even if only to keep your nosey neighbors out of your business.^[1]

9 Trident Lakes

If you are hoping to work in a round of golf while the rest of the world goes to hell in a handbasket, then Trident Lakes, your one-stop sports and survivalist center, is your answer.

This resort-style private property developed in Ector, Texas, a short hour’s drive from Dallas, is set to be the prime location for those keen to survive an impending apocalypse without having to worry about losing their handicap. The resort features a hotel, golf course, polo fields, and around 600 slots for condominium-type housing, each with a view of the water.

It doesn’t skimp on the usual requirements, such as underground bunkers, armed security personnel, and a secure wall to keep the unwanted folk out. Also, should you feel the world needs your DNA, there is a DNA vault so that you can safeguard literally everything, down to the very essence of your existence.^[2]

8 Europa One

If you are a billionaire reading this, and you are thinking perhaps Europa One is an option for you, know that, like the rest of us, you are not welcome. You see, Europa One is by invite only, and the invites have gone out already.

Touted as the largest and safest underground survival bunker in the world, Europa One is also considered one of the most opulent. Built in an old Cold War bunker built by the Soviets in Rothenstein, Germany, the shelter is said to be able to withstand nuclear blasts, biological and chemical agents, earthquakes, and even planes falling from the sky.

Individual chambers were up for purchase at a measly $5 million. Once all the units were completed, each owner was able to fit their personal space to the specs they desired.^[3]

7 The Survival Condo

In the middle of Kansas, surrounded by lush green lawns, you might stumble upon a state-of-the-art security bunker, or you might mistake it for a rolling hill with security that would rival the Pentagon.

This unassuming bunker is built in the shell of an old Atlas Missile Silo, which was originally constructed in the 1960s. Able to withstand the launch of a nuclear missile, these silos were built to house the U.S. nuclear arsenal behind 8-ton (7.25-metric-ton) steel doors.

At the top of the bunker, you will find the communal spaces, pet park, arcade, pool, and climbing wall. Next lies the mechanical level, medical and security level, and hydroponics levels, followed by the residential living quarters. At the bottom are a cinema and a bar for the escapists among the residents.^[4]

6 The Underground House

If your vibe is plastic trees, faux rocks, and murals of wild animals and landscapes painted on walls… but underground, then the Underground House is right up your alley.

Built during the original panic, the Cold War, this 15,000-square-foot (1,394-square-meter) home located in Las Vegas, Nevada, comes with adjustable lighting to match the ruined outside world, twinkling stars in the ceiling, a dancefloor (because it’s Vegas, and people even dance alone in their homes), two hot tubs, a sauna, a bar, and even a barbecue. Clearly built by a person who was happy to party the final years of their life away.

This property, which has garnered fame from the likes of Imagine Dragons and Juno Calypso and even featured in a Netflix special, can be yours for a measly $18 million if you act quickly.^[5]

5 Shrublands Road

Located in the idyllic little town of Mistley, Essex, in the UK, Shrublands Road used to be a Cold War nuclear bunker intended to be used as a bomb-proof communications hub should an attack level the sleepy town.

The 10,000-square-foot (929-square-meter) property was built with steel reinforcements ensuring the survival of those inside but has recently undergone a total revamp. The bunker was first used as a museum but was later transformed into three luxury apartments and sold off to the interested public.

The bunkers were expected to reach a very reasonable £1.4million for the poor man’s billionaire, but you would still have to fend for yourself as there are none of the amenities you would expect from a world-class bunker, like a climbing wall and a golf course. However, they have been remodeled into three homes (2 3-bedroom units and 1 4-bedroom unit, with modern kitchen and Italian-marble bathrooms. The units are accessed by a common atrium.^[6]

4 The Safe House

This industrial-style cube, built in Warsaw, Poland, won’t withstand a bomb blast or a nuclear fallout, but it will keep bodies, living or dead, from entering your living room. Labeled by the chief architect Robert Konieczny as the world’s first zombie-proof home, this concrete box stands out as a durable, affordable, green option for the undead that are causing you sleepless nights.

The house features sliding exterior walls, aluminum roll gates, and a drawbridge that leads to the roof terrace above the pool that can retract. Everything, from the walls to the windows, bridge, and fence, can be controlled electronically. It would be a wonderful addition if you also fit it with solar panels.^[7]

3 Dogen City

Still in its concept phase, Dogen City—driven by the firm N-Ark—was born out of a combination of the biblical Noah’s Ark with a sprinkle of billionaire buying power and just a touch of ideological engineering.

Touted to house up to 40,000 people, this construction will basically act as a floating, self-sufficient oasis, safe from the threat of rising sea levels from global warming or zombies that can’t swim. Residents would be able to enjoy jogs along the 2.4-mile outer ring and receive medical care from the underwater medical facility, all the while enjoying the sun and the sea.

N-Ark’s mission is to have Dogen City up and running before 2030, which should give them enough time before the polar caps melt.^[8]

2 Space

The space race is heating up. New players like SpaceX and Blue Origin have entered the fray and are competing for who owns the skies. The billionaires are hedging their survival bets, and it looks even more unattainable than before.

What if Earth is destroyed? That’s alright. Musk has a plan to colonize Mars, and Bezos is hoping to normalize space travel for those with the deepest pockets. In theory, it’s the perfect option. In space, there is no risk of nuclear fallout, no chance of a zombie apocalypse, and not even a hint that North Korea might follow.

Although Elon has been generous in his estimates (giving us normals a chance of joining the ship) and estimating the price of a ticket to Mars at between $100,000 and $500,000, the current rate is somewhat more out of our league at millions or even billions of dollars.^[9]

1 The Aristocrat

If you don’t have access to billions of dollars, there is good news. A company called Rising S Bunkers fashions a whole range of bunkers that can be built and delivered to your location of choice, priced anywhere from $49,000 for a simple survival bunker to almost $ 10 million (installation and delivery not included). This is their flagship Bomb Shelter Complex, known as the Aristocrat.

The Aristocrat features enough beds for 50 people, air filtration systems, workshops, freezers, a gym, saunas, pools, and a bowling alley. There is also a gun range and a motor cave exit so that you can come and go like Batman.

Seeing that this option is suitable for a small community or a very large family, perhaps you can get a few people to chip in and split the cost.^[10]

Fear of spiders is one of the most common fears among humans. Some estimates suggest anywhere between 3% and 15% of the population suffer some form of arachnophobia. Unfortunately for those people there are about 45,000 known species of spider in the world and their density sits at around 570,000 spiders per acre. That would average out to 21 quadrillion spiders in the world. So those 3% to 15% of people have a lot to fear. And that’s just the start of it. 

10. Huntsman Spiders Can Live in Communities 150 Members Strong 

It’s hard to determine precisely what makes one spider more terrifying to someone than another. A few factors are usually at play. Obviously a venomous spider can instill fear as no one wants to get bit by a tarantula or a black widow, even though their bites are probably not as dangerous to a healthy adult who doesn’t have an allergy to them as most people think. But that’s just one aspect.

Two other things can really make a person with a fear of spiders grow anxious and that’s the size of the spider and the number of them. Bigger spiders are, by nature, more frightening to most people, even if they aren’t dangerous. The social huntsman spider is the best example of this.

The social huntsman is one of numerous huntsman species that live in Australia. They’re not the largest, which can sometimes grow to have a leg span of about a foot across, but they do get up to around 6 inches.

What makes the social huntsman worse to many people is the first part of the name – social. They live in colonies that can reach up to 150 members. And they like to live under and behind things – they’ve even been found behind window shutters on houses. One matriarch will rule the roost and the rest will probably be her children, living communally and taking care of each other.

The upside of the social huntsman is that, despite their size and numbers, they tend to be fairly gentle and almost never bite humans. And even if they do, they produce venom that isn’t dangerous and will typically cause no harm to humans.

9. Italian Researchers Made Super Spiders That Produce Silk Stronger Than Kevlar

You’ve probably heard that spider silk is stronger than steel and it’s true. Of course, it’s also proportionate strength so a tiny filament of web is not very strong relative to the damage you could do to it with just a finger. But it can be made even stronger. Much stronger, in fact.

Italian researchers developed a method of improving the strength of spider silk until it was stronger than Kevlar. The method for doing so was surprisingly simple as well. The researchers spritzed the spiders with water that contained carbon nanotubes or graphene flakes. The spiders would ingest the mixture since, to them, it’s just water. Then the resulting webs were tested.

What they found was that the silk, infused with carbon and graphene, measured stronger than any fiber humans had produced to that point. Tougher than Kevlar, tougher than anything. 

Though spider silk is notoriously hard to harvest at any practical scale, the same researchers have also developed ways to artificially make spider silk. Once both methods are combined, a lot of new possibilities will probably unfold. 

8. There’s a Finnish Museum Infested with Chilean Recluse Spiders

One thing people in the Northern hemisphere take some comfort in is that many of the deadliest spiders in the world tend to not live in the same areas they do. Many live in the Southern hemisphere or tropical and desert areas. Not all, of course, but a good number. But that doesn’t mean spiders can’t travel.

Finland is a land where you wouldn’t expect to find deadly tropical spiders but the Finnish Museum of Natural History has been plagued by the extremely dangerous Chilean recluse spider for years. More than 50 years, in fact.

No one is sure exactly when or how the spiders arrived, possibly in some fruit or wood chips that showed up in the ’60s. Getting rid of them has been an uphill battle. The infestation was discovered in 1963. Employees tried to clear them out, but every attempt was met with new spiders taking their place. 

7. Spiders Seem to Have REM Sleep and Are Possibly Dreaming 

Humans need REM sleep to live. That’s when we dream and our brains seem to recharge and refresh, allowing us to continue our day to day lives with focus. We still know very little about how our own brains function so maybe it’s no surprise that we’re equally in the dark about a lot of animal brains. 

Research in 2022 has indicated that spiders, or at least jumping spiders, enter into what appears to be a very similar state to REM sleep. That means it’s very possible that these little arachnids are also able to dream. 

These particular spiders, one of the few that many humans consider cute because of their tiny size and fuzzy appearance, have demonstrated complex eyesight and a degree of hunting intelligence as well. In fact, they can tailor hunting styles to the prey they’re after. 

Long assumed to simply be a human ability, science had demonstrated REM and potential dreaming in multiple species ranging from octopus to lizards to many other mammals and birds as well. These spiders would be the first of their kind to demonstrate the behavior.

6. Some Spiders Don’t Make Sticky Webs But Webs That Snare Prey

In classic horror movie imagery, a person walks into a dark room and a sticky spider web wraps around their face. They panic and spend time trying to peel it off. In real life this may have happened to you as well because webs do tend to be remarkably sticky. If it’s the right kind.

Some spider species, like the black house spider, don’t produce sticky webbing at all. Instead, they rely on silk that is more like loose strands of wool. The cribellate or wooly silk is like a snare that tangles around the legs of its prey while ecribellate or sticky silk has a fluid that glues prey in place. 

5. Some Spiders Can Trap Air Bubbles and Survive Under Water

There’s a good chance that, if you’re not a fan of spiders and you’ve caught on in the kitchen or bathroom, you tried to wash it down a sink to get rid of it. While that’s potentially a good way to eliminate it, there’s no guarantee. Especially since many spiders, even the most dangerous, can actually survive for hours in water by creating air pockets.

One species, not known to ever submerge in water, was observed to survive for a half hour thanks to air trapped in a pocket around its hairs. Australian funnel web spiders, swept up in flood waters, have landed in people’s backyard pools and survived in much the same way. Unlike the other spiders, these ones have lasted up to 24 hours. Combined with the fact they’re deadly, and Australian pools aren’t looking so relaxing.

4. Toyota Had to Recall Hundreds of Thousands of Cars Over Concerns of Spiders Leading to Accidents

If spiders caused you enough fear and anxiety, you could always pack up and drive off to somewhere else. Unless maybe you drive a Toyota. The company had to recall 800,000 cars once back in 2013 because there was a risk of the airbags deploying for seemingly no reason. There was a reason, of course. The reason was spiders. 

The recall affected numerous models including the best-selling Camry and others like the Avalon. The problem was the air conditioning in the car was at risk of leaking internally. If it leaked, it could damage sensors which interfered with how the airbags operate, essentially shorting them out and causing them to go off at any time with no warning.

So, if we backtrack to the air conditioning, Toyota explained how the leaks could potentially start. Spiders like to build their webs in any place that seems like prime real estate. If a spider built a web in the AC condenser, that webbing would clog the system. The condensation could build, overflow, and short circuit sensors leading to an accident. At the time of the recall Toyota said only two people had been injured that they knew of. But that was still two people whose cars had been compromised by spiders.

3. The Fastest Spider Bite in the World was Measured at 1/10 of a Second

We mentioned earlier some of the features that can make a spider terrifying. The potential danger from venom, the size, the number. Another one is speed. Tarantulas are scary because they’re big and they can bite, but at least they move relatively slowly. But the ones that run, and run fast, can set a person screaming in no time.

When it comes to speed, the legs are one thing, but the bite is another altogether. You may have never heard of Mecysmaucheniidae spiders. but they’re worth knowing about. They have the fastest recorded bite speed of any spider. 

Also called trap jaw spiders, they keep their mouths open all the time waiting for something to get close enough. High speed cameras have measured the fastest bite at just 1/10 of a second.

Even more impressive is the power behind the jaws. When measured, the power of the bite actually exceeds the spider’s muscle power. So the jaw must have some mechanism that is not yet understood that allows for stored potential energy, likened to the spring on a mousetrap, to be used. On a proportional scale, the jaws close with 200 times more power than what a human leg muscle could produce when jumping.

The silver lining on this cloud is that these spiders are not very large and some are smaller than a grain of rice. So while the bite speed is remarkable, it’s not much of a threat to humans.

2. Some Spiders Create the Biological Equivalent of Transition Lenses

The eyes of various animals can definitely shame those of a human. The humble mantis shrimp has eyes that are so complex and can see 12 to 16 visual pigments compared to a human’s three that it’s like comparing an abacus to a computer. An eagle may have 20/5 vision compared to a human’s 20/20 meaning they can see as much as 5 times further than we can. And some spiders have proven to have remarkable eyes as well.

The Rufous net-casting spider is able to, every day, produce a photoreceptor membrane over its eyes. The night vision of the spider is thus greater than even owls and cats, allowing the spider to draw in even the faintest light with far greater efficiency than nearly any other animal. The structure that allows this to happen is then destroyed as the sun rises so its eyes can adapt to normal light conditions and then produced again as the day ends and light disappears. 

1. Spiders Could Theoretically Eat The Entire Human Race

If nothing else sets off your arachnophobia then consider the appetite of spiders. Not a single spider eating a fly in its web, but all spiders in all places. Researchers have estimated that, globally, spiders are able to consume 400 million to 800 million tons of prey every year. That’s a huge range but we’re dealing with a lot of uncertainties so maybe that’s okay. Also, in context here, it won’t even matter.

Building off of that information, you can conclude something arguably, and obviously just theoretically, far more significant. Humans represent 287 million tons of biomass. If through some miraculous means all of a spider’s natural food sources vanished, the world’s spider population would theoretically have the ability to devour all of mankind in well under a year.

“Do you have any idea what’s IN that?”

Most of us have been subject to a condescending lecture on the excesses of the food industrial complex. And most of the time our internal monologue tells our obnoxious comrade to choke on his kale and quinoa salad.

But sometimes they have a point. Last week we tackled animal-related atrocities in a variety of sectors, including clothing (fur farms), fragrances (beaver castor sac harvesting) and houseware (bone china). This list deals more closely, though not exclusively, with food and drink. Spoiler alert: you’re eating bugs, bones and hair.

Top 10 Reasons To Reject Vegetarianism

10 Jell-O

It’s sweet! It’s jiggly! It’s semi-translucent! People have been consuming some form of what has become the world’s most popular pre-made dessert since the mid-17th Century. In fact, traces of gelatin found in a pharaoh’s grave suggest it likely was concocted and consumed in ancient Egypt.

Jell-O is a broadly genericized brand name – it is to gelatin what Kleenex is to tissues. The word “gelatin” comes from the Latin “gelatus,” which means “frozen jelly.” Far from the easy diner-esque dessert it is today, gelatin was once considered a sign of wealth. This is because, before the advent of prepared gelatin, only members of the elite classes could afford the kitchen help needed to render, clarify, and prepare it as part of ornate salads and sweets.

But while gelatin was once fancy, it was never vegetarian-friendly. The first reference to it in Western civilization dates to 1682. Documenting a demonstration of the first pressure cooker, Englishman John Evelyn described the creation of a “jellye made of bones of beef.” Yum!

Centuries later, Jell-O is still derived from animal bones and skin. Specifically, it’s made from decaying animal hides, boiled crushed bones, and the connective tissues of cattle and pigs. However, vegetarian gelatin desserts made from plant-based gums or seaweeds like agar or carrageenan are widely available.

9 Capsules

Have a headache? If you’re vegetarian or vegan, choose your remedy wisely. The same animal skin, bone, and tissue-derived main ingredient as Jell-O – gelatin – is also widely used to create capsules for both over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceuticals.

The main reason is gelatin’s structural versatility and natural compatibility; in layman’s terms, gelatin-based capsules are easily sculpted, compatible (meaning no adverse reactions) with a wide array of pharma product ingredients, and durable enough to prevent moisture incursions during the product’s stated shelf life. So basically, gelatin capsules can withstand the myriad stressors demanded of an oral dosage delivery system.

Notably, gelatin capsules create a cultural conflict for groups who steer clear of ingesting animal products. For example, some religions prominent in India require vegetarianism, leading to long-running pharmacological debate in the country’s prolific pharma production industry. This issue was a key factor in the development of starch-based vegan-friendly alternatives called HPMC capsules, which perform similarly to their gelatin-based counterparts throughout the rigors of initial formulation, product filling and differing supply chain environments.

Animal parts can frequently be found in other pharmaceuticals products as well, typically as inactive (meaning non-curative) ingredients like binders, fillers and colorants. Animal-derived ingredients may also be used to stabilize vaccine formulations, a fact not missed by vaccination pro-choicers.

8 Sugar

Got a sweet tooth? Then you might be eating… well, teeth, among other bones.

Bone char is a porous, black, granular material produced by (duh) charring animal bones, typically cattle. It consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate and carbon, and is primarily used for filtrating and decolorizing a variety of sugars.

The bones are sold to traders who then sell them to the U.S. sugar industry. Bone char is used in many types of sugar including brown sugar and confectioner’s sugar, and is openly used by prominent US manufacturers and suppliers – including the country’s highest profile brand, Domino’s (no relation to the pizza chain).

Like white sugar? Then more bone char for you! As efficient as it can be in filtering out certain impurities, bone char is an inefficient discolorant, so the whiter the sugar, the likelier high volumes of bone char were employed.

Not in the US? Then unfortunately you’re probably missing out on the wholesome, all-natural bone charry goodness. The UK, EU, Australia and other developed countries have largely phased out bone char in sugar production, proving once again what a truly exceptional nation America is.

Anyway, how bonecharry do you take your coffee? One lump or two?

7 Cigarettes

Wanna smoke some beaver taint? All the cool kids are doing it. A wide variety of pre-rolled cigarettes contain castoreum, harvested from the territory-marking castor sacs of beavers. To procure this product, beavers are euthanized, and their paste-filled castor sacs smoked or sun-dried until they resemble dried figs.

Why add something from a beaver’s ass to a cigarette, you ask? Why, for the taste! Castoreum – which is also used in fragrances to evoke leathery notes – provides a sweetness or a seemingly redundant “enhanced smokiness” to cancer sticks.

Count the cowboyest of cowboys – the Marlboro Man – in on smoking beaver sac paste: prominent cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro brands, is known to have flavored some 400 billion smokes with castoreum in one year alone.

Cigarettes: first they kill beavers, then they kill you.

Bonus: Another specialty product that uses castoreum – and openly, rather than clandestinely calling it a “natural flavor” – is a Swedish drink called bäversnaps. That’s right, it’s beaver musk-flavored schnapps. To produce it, castoreum is soaked in high-proof alcohol, which takes on the flavor over time.

6 Beer and Wine

Have a drinking problem? Well, you might after reading this.

Isinglass is a gelatin-like substance collected from the dried bladders of freshwater fish, such as sturgeon. A type of collagen, it is frequently used in the fining or clarification of various beers and wines. For a better idea of the type of substance we’re dealing with here, the same gunk also can be cooked into a paste for gluing applications.

Finings are substances added to beer, wines or certain non-alcoholic juice beverages, at or near the completion of the brewing process. Isinglass is especially valuable for producing cask-conditioned beers, meaning its use is particularly prolific in the UK.

Meanwhile, clarification is a term more narrowly associated with winemaking. It refers to the process of removing insoluble items – including dead yeast cells, bacteria, tartrates, proteins, tannins, and pieces of grape skin, pulp or stems – prior to bottling.

In both cases, isinglass accelerates the settling process, meaning it shortens the time in which unwanted insolubles can be removed. It basically makes the production process go faster in an environment where time is often money.

For those who don’t wish to literally drink fish while drinking like a fish, guides listing vegan beers and wines are readily available.

5 Red Candy, Gum, Jams, Syrups…

… and pretty much anything you eat that is unnaturally tinted pink or red. What animal product are you consuming when enjoying a cherry Italian ice, strawberry hard candy or cinnamon-flavored gum? Relax, it’s just… bugs.

Specifically, such consumables contain red cochineal beetles – which, when dried and crushed, produce a powder called carmine. In food applications, carmine is widely known as a highly effective colorant. Cherry-flavored syrups, raspberry jams, and any number of red-tinted beverages all frequently use carmine, as do a wide range of dairy products.

For years, carmine brought an added benefit to food manufacturers: since it’s basically pulverized insect, it can legitimately be called “all natural.” All ingredient ambiguities aside, many regulatory bodies, including the US Food & Drug Administration, now mandate carmine be explicitly listed on labels.

However, if you think you can avoid ingesting insects simply by steering clear of reddish foods, think again. If you’ve had any sort of hard or shiny candy, you’ve likely had a hearty helping of a bug excretion called shellac. A resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of southern Asia, the gunk is gathered, processed and sold as dry flakes, then dissolved in alcohol to make confectioner’s glaze. Most hard or shiny candies are coated with the stuff, with a notable exception being M&Ms.

4 Worcestershire Sauce

Wait… something’s fishy here.

A versatile marinade or condiment for everything from steaks to shellfish to shepherd’s pie, Worcestershire sauce has been complementing meals for nearly two centuries. More complicated than most of its culinary counterparts, it was invented in the 1830s by two chemists in (you guessed it) Worcester, England. In fact, perhaps the most prominent brand – Lea & Perrins, named for its inventors – is still manufactured there today.

To produce its unique flavor profile – which combines tangy, savory, sweet and salty – a heck of a lot goes into making Worcestershire sauce. The fermented concoction comprises a vinegar base flavored with a combination of sweeteners and seasonings, which may include molasses or sugar, tamarind, onion, garlic, chili pepper extract, soy, salt, cloves, lemon essence, pickle juice, and…

… anchovies?

That’s right: The same ingredient most of us refuse to eat on pizza is what gives Worcestershire sauce its “umami,” which officially joined salty, sweet, bitter and sour as the “fifth taste” in 1990.

Umami loosely means “essence of deliciousness” in Japanese, and its taste is often described as the meaty, savory helper that deepens supplementary flavors. For Worcestershire sauce, anchovies are fermented in vinegar for about 18 months.

3 Condoms

Add “but baby, I’m vegan” to the lengthy list of lines designed to convince a sex partner to forgo contraception. While the primary ingredient in most condoms is latex, which is plant-based, most cock socks also contain casein and glycerin.

For most, the lesser of the two offenders is casein. Derived from a milk protein, casein is used to help make rubber condoms smooth and thin. It’s typically added while the latex is still in liquid form, so the solid materials become both sleeker and more flexible. Casein also gives most latex love gloves their trademark sour odor. Hot!

But while casein is animal-derived, glycerin often is animal, period. Used in a wide variety of products, glycerin can also be derived from vegetable oils, but in most pecker protectors the animal version is utilized to provide abundant lubrication. Fortunately for vegan vaginas, semen shields that are 100% certified animal product-free are available.

Other common, albeit less sexy, products that contain glycerin include toothpastes, moisturizers, shampoos & conditioners, detergents, shaving creams and a variety of cosmetics. More often than not, whether the glycerin is animal or plant-based is not divulged.

2 Crayons

Recently my preschool-age son drew his daddy a picture of the whole family on a beach. It had a Lemon Yellow sun, Burnt Orange sand, a Carpenter Pink dada and, of course, a Sky Blue sky and Sea Green ocean. You might recognize these as popular colors of…

… waxy beef fat sticks?

You guessed it: crayons contain animal products. In fact, the nostalgic scent strongly associated with the freewheeling fun of coloring is actually the stench of stearic acid – processed beef fat. Stearic acid is used as a coagulation chemical, which means it helps crayons solidify properly and remain consistent throughout their paper-peeling lifespan.

Stearic acid also is commonly used in another waxy household staple: candles. And while stearic acid also can be derived from certain plant-based items, including coconuts, that process is more labor intensive and therefore less cost-effective. For that reason, animal rights organizations recommend consumers assume the stearic acid in their candles is animal-derived unless expressly indicated otherwise. On the bright side, candles are about the only way many of us actually do anything that burns fat.

1 Bagels

This is the world we live in: a prominent restaurant chain called Panera Bread Company, which has more than 2,000 locations in the US and Canada, proudly proclaims on its website that its bagels aren’t made with bird feathers and HUMAN HAIR.

Many processed bagels and bread products contain an enzyme called L. Cysteine, a “dough conditioner” derived from all-natural, all-disgusting sources: poultry feathers and both hog and human hair. While it’s possible to make synthetic L. Cysteine, it’s an expensive process. So rather than making fake hair and imitation feather (or sticking to flour, water, salt and yeast like reasonable people), the cost-effective choice involves us eating hair. Take a bow, capitalism!

Several major US-based chains, including Dunkin’ Donuts and Einstein Bros., have confirmed using L. Cysteine in all of their bagels. Hair and feathers also make an appearance in the garlic bread at Pizza Hut and in McDonald’s honey wheat rolls, cinnamon rolls, and apple pies (warm hair—yum!).

Fortunately for food shoppers, the most prominent grocery store bagel brand, Lenders, is free of L. Cysteine. However, the same cannot be said about many large-scale bread brands, so the best bet for avoiding the hair and feather treatment is patronizing a local baker.

It would be remiss of us to leave this list without a little animal/vegetable humour: How can you tell if someone’s a vegan? Answer: They’ll tell you!

Top 10 Things Cancel Culture Has (surprisingly) Not Canceled Yet

We all know that society is full of double standards. There are many reasons people get preferential treatment or just get away with basically anything because of what they have, how they appear, or their status. Let’s dive into ten things that are classy if you’re rich but trashy if you’re poor.

Of course, these are just stereotypes that you may have heard throughout the years; by no means are these things facts. So with a bit of a tongue-in-cheek attitude, let’s get to it…

Related: 10 Obscene And Ridiculous Things The Rich Do With Their Money

10 Choosing When to Work

This is the dream, right? Most of us work hard to afford the luxuries of relaxing and choosing how to spend our time on evenings and weekends. I’m sure many of us would love to be able to choose when we worked and be able to go lunching on a Wednesday or play golf on a Monday morning. That feeling of freedom is something we could all get used to.

However, it’s not something we can all get away with under society’s watchful eye. The wealthy can spend as much time as they please relaxing or on vacation, and people aspire to it. If you’re a little tighter on cash, society is quick to call those that don’t work (or those that don’t work full time) lazy and that they must be living off of others or off the system.

We are quick to judge those who are not working, even though we don’t have any context or know the circumstances.

9 Retaining a Lawyer

This is a great one because I’m sure it’s something so many of us think about without even realizing it.

So, I bet we would all assume that a wealthy person would have a personal lawyer—because they need one, right? We imagine glamorous high-rise offices and huge hourly billing, and it all seems very corporate and rich (let me know if anyone else is picturing Suits).

But when you aren’t as financially well-off and mention that you have a lawyer, the same thoughts don’t come to mind. It’s automatically “I wonder what they’ve done?” or “How much trouble have they got themselves into?” The blame is turned straight on the individual because, I mean, surely they can’t afford the luxury of a lawyer unless they need one to help them out of a hole? This is funny because if Suits has taught us anything, the wealthy can get up to the most questionable things out of all of us, and yet we rarely—if ever—assume it’s their fault.

8 Not Cleaning Your Own House

Now this one is so true. No matter what house you live in, the size of your family, or what job you have, cleaning an entire house is a lot of work, and sometimes you just don’t feel like doing it.

Society is quick to brand those who don’t have much money as lazy, or their house is dirty if they don’t clean it themselves. For the rich, if they don’t clean their own house, it’s because they must pay someone to do it, which isn’t only perfectly respectable but also looked up to.

In society’s eyes, the poor are the cleaners and the maids and should keep their houses clean and tidy, and the rich are the homeowners that shouldn’t lift a finger. Talk about double standards.

7 Minimalism

We probably all imagine minimalism as beautiful; white houses with carefully curated decor and open space. In reality, minimalism is just being conscious about your purchases and not owning unnecessary belongings. People who struggle with money have been doing it forever. The poor are more money-conscious, and so, of course, they spend their money cautiously and choose things they need (for the most part). They also tend to be extremely resourceful in making things last.

Yet minimalism has become a trend for the rich. It has become popular for people with lots of money or high-profile people to have minimalistic homes and styles, and so all of a sudden, it’s all the rage.

If you can’t afford to buy lots of things, it’s looked down on, but it becomes a trend if you purposefully choose not to buy lots of things.

6 Living in a Hotel

Living in a hotel sounds super glamorous, doesn’t it? Well, regarding societal views, it depends on which hotel you’re living in.

If you live in a five-star luxury hotel, then you’re living the dream and have the best life ever, right? But if you’re living in a motel, then you’re looked down on, and it’s considered trashy. If you think about it, both are the same situations, just at different price points, so it’s funny that people’s perceptions vary so much.

If you think about it, living in a hotel does make sense. You get housekeeping, cable, internet, sometimes luxuries like a pool. It can be at an affordable price if you choose the right place. You also don’t need documentation like proof of employment or good credit history, so it makes sense why it’s an option for people of all incomes.

5 Debt

The majority of people have some form of debt, whether that be school fees, a mortgage on a house, or a loan for a car. Whatever the reason for the debt, most of us have it.

When you’re poor, the idea is to be debt-free, and the money you owe feels like such a burden, and people look down on you for owing the money. But when you’re rich, you can borrow left, right, and center, and no one seems to bat an eye. If anything, you’re being strategic and clever with your money, and wealthy people want to have debt.

If you have debt and are poor—even a small amount—that’s your problem. If you’re rich and have huge amounts of debt, that’s the bank’s problem.

4 Having Other People Raise Your Kids

Having other people raise your kids when you’re poor is considered trashy, and people look down on it. They assume that you can’t take care of your children or don’t want to. Regardless of your career or choice to hire help.

It’s socially acceptable when wealthy people have other people raise their children, whether sending them off to school or having a live-in nanny look after them. Of course, the rich would need help raising their children; they have such busy and important lives that they couldn’t possibly have the time to raise the children as well. Doesn’t every parent have a busy and important life outside of the family!

3 Having a Wedding at Your House

Having a wedding at your house is smart, isn’t it? You don’t have to pay exorbitant prices for a venue, and you don’t need to travel early in the morning or book somewhere the night before.

It turns out it’s only smart and a beautiful idea if you’re rich. You have to be rich to have a nice enough home where it’s socially acceptable and large enough for a wedding. It becomes a lovely idea and a meaningful wedding spent somewhere that you love.

If you’re poor and choose to have your wedding at home, many consider it trashy because your house isn’t massive with perfect grounds that it sits on. Planning something budget-friendly is always looked down on when you do it because you have to and not just because you want to.

2 Tax Evasion

We aren’t condoning anyone doing illegal things no matter how much money they have. However, as we mentioned earlier, the rich often get away with creeping just over the line when it comes to the law.

We know the wealthy like to avoid taxes. It’s probably because they owe massive amounts of it, and we just assume they want to keep their wads of cash in their own pockets. Now, when a poor person wants to avoid paying taxes, that’s tacky and low-rent. If you think about it, it makes more sense for a poor person to want to keep the little money they have in their pockets. And we are not even going to talk about taxes regarding large/rich companies compared to small/poor companies.

1 Addiction

Listen, I don’t think anyone is condoning or advising addiction to anyone, no matter their status. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the rich and powerful can be more upfront about these things, and people often turn a blind eye. People generally expect the wealthy to drink, do drugs, gamble at high-end casinos—especially if there is a bit of fame attached to the person. It’s all just part of living the high life. If you’re poor and do these things, people make you feel like you need to get your life together.

I don’t think any kind of addiction is classy, no matter what your status, but unfortunately, the wealthy do have a habit of glamorizing taking part in these things. And when the rich become clean, they have been deemed a saint. And when they relapse, it is of no fault of their own. Yet, the poor are often blamed and shamed for relapsing or even having an addiction in the first place.

We like to believe we live in an idealized version of democracy with a government that values our privacy. Well, I think it’s pretty clear by now that that’s not the case. The United States government actually runs the biggest data collection program on planet Earth, and you can bet your bippy that you’re an indexed individual. 

Some of this indexing isn’t that insidious, more like business as usual. The federal government has over 24 agencies such as the IRS, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Social Security Administration, etc., that keep records on U.S. citizens. 

But for more clandestine endeavors, our government engages in advanced spying techniques and surveillance to keep tabs on us. This means they keep lists upon lists of notable individuals. And any one of us can land on these lists for a myriad of reasons. Of course, the U.S. government must abide by the law regarding collecting information, meaning, in many cases, they have to get a court order.

But there’s a convenient workaround.

If the government hires private contractors and doesn’t use government employees to gather information, they don’t need court orders. Pretty creative. So you might as well just accept you are on any number of government lists, some that you’re aware of and maybe a few you’re not.

Related: 10 Things You Won’t Believe Can Spy On You (But Do)

10 Terrorist Watch List

If you type certain terms into Google, you may end up on our government’s watch list. For instance, if you type in “how to make a bomb,” the possibility exists that you might be placed on a domestic terrorist watch list. Don’t be surprised. It’s Google. You kind of painted the target on your butt for that one. 

If you are known or suspected of being a terrorist, it’s probably a certainty that you have been placed on the Consolidated Terrorist Watch List of the United States government. Again, don’t be surprised (dummy).

9 Sex Offenders Registry

I’m prefacing this section by saying that if you’re caught peeing or doing the nasty in public, you’re, technically, by law, a sex offender. So you could end up on this list for hilarious reasons. Mostly, though, people are rapists, pedophiles, and sexual assaulters. 

That said, if the courts have legally found you to be a sex offender, your name will be listed on the National Sex Offender Registry in coordination with the Department of Justice. This registry lists every person designated as a sex offender in all fifty states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and also Native American tribal lands. This information is public, and anyone can search the database.

8 The IRS

Have you ever filed a tax return? If yes, then you are listed in the IRS database.

Any law enforcement agency that conducts an investigation must ask the IRS for information on your tax returns. To receive this information, they must first get a court order. However, the IRS itself uses surveillance techniques if you’ve been deemed worthy of an investigation for some reason. They even use what are called Stingrays, which can simulate or impersonate cell phone towers. When someone uses a stingray, it can grab information from any cell phone within its range, such as text messages, data downloads, and calls.

In addition, the IRS can expand on its data about you by contacting your state’s department of revenue and asking them to share their information about your income tax forms and history. For example, suppose your state has fined you at some point for not reporting your income accurately, supplying false information, or not paying your taxes. In that case, the IRS can use that information to build a profile and case against you for their own internal investigation. 

Filing online with the IRS is convenient once you have set up an online account with them. But to do this, the IRS uses the opportunity to gather more information about you for their list. When you set up an online account with them, the IRS requires that you submit the account number of your home mortgage company. Using this, they can confirm your identity and request and acquire more financial information about you regarding your payment history and other details.

However, to access your mortgage information, the IRS must use one of the major credit reporting agencies. If your mortgage company isn’t affiliated with the reporting agency the IRS uses, the IRS will ask you for your credit card number. The card number permits them to study your payment history and your purchases there instead.

Sneaky and convoluted.

7 National Gun Background Check System

Even though we don’t have a national gun registry, I find it very hard to believe that when someone has a background check done on them to purchase a gun, the buyer’s data isn’t stored somewhere. It’s a known fact the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) does keep some databases related to guns. Some of the data include the owner’s name and address on sales reports with specific types of firearms, especially guns the ATF suspects of having been used in a crime (or any gun reported to the ATF as being stolen).

6 Regional Passport Office (RPO)

If you’ve ever applied for a passport, especially if you’ve traveled internationally, you are listed in the database. You see it all the time in suspense-action movies. A traveler gets off a plane and must clear customs. The agent at the window looks at the picture in the passport and then studies the traveler’s face. The agent types into his computer and sees the traveler’s passport has been flagged. In other words, his name is on a list for whatever reason. Next, the poor guy is being led into an interrogation room.

Let’s be honest. We all get a little nervous when it’s our turn to get our passports stamped.

5 Military

The NPRC (National Military Personal Records Center) is located in St. Louis, Missouri, and holds all service records starting with World War I to the present. The National Archives (called the archives for a reason) in Washington D.C. holds all service records from the Revolutionary War to 1912. The military is meticulous about its record-keeping.

And let’s not forget our local draft boards. Even though we have an all-volunteer military, teenage boys still have to register for the draft with their local draft board when they turn 18.

4 Department of Transportation (DOT)

If you have a driver’s license, you are listed in a database. If you’ve had driver’s infractions, in other words, you’ve been pulled over and ticketed. There’s a record of it in the police department database. 

You can not escape it. Unless you “disappear” from the system. Then all they have is your last known whereabouts and car make and model. Heck, unless you do anything that requires a credit card, hooking up to city utilities, or registering your identity through the DMV, you could be living in a cabin in the woods as a survivalist for all we know.

Those databases (well, any database!) can be searched using keywords. If the police are looking for a crime suspect and have a description of the car, they can search their databases for that car’s make and/or model.

3 Social Security Administration

There’s a song by Jefferson Airplane called “A Child is Coming.” In it, our singer expresses his concern over Uncle Sam coming around asking for the kid’s name and assigning him numbers. It’s the original off-the-grid campaign—except in a super hippie way. Anyway, those numbers refer to the child’s social security number.

If you have a social security number, you are in the system, and there’s really nothing legal you can do about it. There’s a reason kids are encouraged to get a social security card. For a teenager, it’s a sort of right of passage. For the government, it’s a way to keep track of every one of us. That number we are so innocently assigned will be with us throughout our lives. It is a way for the government to monitor us when they deem there’s a logical reason to do so.

2 Credit Reporting Agencies

These agencies may not be government agencies, but they are overseen by the government’s FTC (Federal Trade Commission). This is the same commission that administers the Telemarketing Sales Rule, Identity Theft Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If you have a credit card, if you’ve applied for credit, taken out a student loan or a car loan, or purchased a home, you are in the system, and the government can access your records for whatever reason.

1 Banking

If you have a checking or savings account, once again, you are in a database that lists your personal information. The government, with a court order, can access bank accounts to survey your financial activity. Quite often, however, it’s not the banks we have to blame for people accessing these databases. Security breaches can result in leaked lists on the Deep Web. These secondary lists mean people can attempt to infiltrate your accounts, hack into your social media, and attempt identity theft.