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RAF Menwith Hill. North Yorkshire,England. RAF Menwith Hill is a base belonging to the UK Ministry of Defence,but made available to the US Department of Defense,who are responsible for many elements of its running. As part of America's global defence communications network,Menwith's stated mission is to provide intelligence support for the United States,UK and their allied interests. However,some question the extent of its powers.

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Chapel of the Ark of the Covenant. Northern Ethiopia. While its fate has long been argued over,Ethiopia's authorities say the Ark has resided at Axum for centuries,and now lies in a specially built treasury next to the Church of St Mary of Zion. The treasury is kept under heavy guard and surrounded by fencing,all under the watchful eye of a High Priest who is the only man permitted to enter the chapel.

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Snake Island. Atlantic Ocean,off the coast of Sao Paulo State,Brazil. Lying just off the coast of Brazil,the island of Ilha da Queimada Grande is populated by a unique and highly venomous species of lancehead viper. Perhaps unsurprisingly,this small island has become known as Snake Island – an ophidiophobic's vision of hell,only doughty scientists and crazed adventurers dare set foot on its ground.

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Dulce Base. Rio Arriba County,New Mexico,USA. Few places have captured the imagination of conspiracy theorists more than Dulce Base. A site for which there is little concrete evidence,believers nonetheless place it at the heart of a conspiracy between the powers-that-be and alien life forms intent on carrying out despicable research on human subjects. Whether it exists or not,Dulce Base is an instructive case study of the way conspiracy theories can take hold.

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BIG BORE A US Air Force tunnel-boring machine (or'mole'),capable of drilling a tunnel several metres wide through hard rock,photographed at Little Skull Mountain,Nevada,in 1982. Those who believe that Dulce Base exists suggest that hardware of this kind could have been used in its construction.

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The Tomb of Genghis Khan. Assumed to be in the Khentii Province of eastern Mongolia. Given the name Temujin at birth,Genghis Khan went on to unite disparate nomadic tribes to establish the Mongol Empire,winning himself a reputation as one of history's most feared warriors in the process. In accordance with his wishes,he was buried in the utmost secrecy:the location of his tomb remains one of history's enduring conundrums,despite numerous attempts to find it.

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Genghis Khan died in 1227,aged around 65. The exact cause of his death is disputed,with explanations ranging from a riding accident to illness to sexual misadventure. Regardless,it was his wish to be buried in secret in accordance with tribal custom,his resting place to remain unmarked.

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The Queen's bedroom,Buckingham Palace. London,England. Buckingham Palace is the British Queen's official London residence,and one of the most iconic buildings in the world. Yet despite attracting hordes of tourists,large swathes of the labyrinthine palace remain under the highest security and off-limits to the world at large. Most private of all is the Queen's personal bedroom,once the scene of a notorious break-in.

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Wildenstein Art Collection. Stored around the world. Headquartered in Paris. Said to be the most valuable private art collection in the world. Many art collectors are more than willing to show off their prized pieces,but that is not something that could be said of the Wildenstein family. These French multi-millionaires jealously guard the precise details of a collection that has been built up over more than a century,despite their position as perhaps the most famous family in the art world.

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The Amber Room. Purportedly in an underground cavern on the German-Czech border. Sometimes described as the'eighth wonder of the world',the Amber Room was constructed using 6 tonnes of amber backed with gold leaf. Once given by Prussia to Russia as a symbol of peace,it was stolen from the USSR by Nazi forces during the Second World War. In the chaos that accompanied Germany's defeat in 1945,the location of the room was lost,sparking an enduring quest to recover it.

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Fit for a tsar ... the Winter Palace in St Petersburg became the official residence of Russia's rulers from 1732. The Amber Room's journey from Berlin in 1716 took six arduous weeks,and the panels are believed to have been left unassembled in a palace wing for several years.

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North Sentinel Island. Andaman Islands,Bay of Bengal. North Sentinel Island,which covers only 72 square kilometres,has an indigenous population of somewhere between 50 and 400 Sentinelese,a dark-skinned and short-statured people and one of the last groups on earth to have resisted contact with the modern world. Jealously protective of their isolation,any attempt by outsiders to land on the island is likely to result in a hail of arrows.

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Woomera Prohibited Area. Woomera,Australia. The world's largest land-based weapons testing area. Established in 1947,the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) is most famous as a huge missile testing range,but has enjoyed several different lives,including as a rocket-launch site,a spy hub and a detention centre. Covering an area larger than England,its desert location has helped keep unwanted visitors away from numerous highly classified projects.