00:01The country's authorities are hiding something from you.
00:04They don't want ordinary people to ever find out the truth.
00:08You can see a lot of fake photos and false locations on the internet,
00:12but almost none of them are true.
00:14So what secret are they keeping?
00:16You definitely don't expect to hear this.
00:19They're hiding a tree.
00:22But it's not just a tree.
00:24Money grows on its branches.
00:26Can you believe it?
00:27Of course not, it's a joke.
00:29But the truth is, America does protect the oldest tree in the world,
00:33and its name is Methuselah.
00:36You can Google it, and you will find a lot of fake pictures and some old gnarled aspens.
00:42Real photos of Methuselah are quite rare,
00:45and its location remains a mystery to this day.
00:48It's known to grow somewhere along the Methuselah Trail in the Inyo National Forest in California.
00:53It's a bristlecone pine tree,
00:55and its age is more than 4,600 years.
01:00Imagine how cool it would be to touch the trunk of that tree
01:02and feel all those thousands of years of history.
01:06Only, it's not cool.
01:08This is the reason why the country is hiding its location.
01:11If thousands of tourists touched the tree and picked up small pieces of its branches,
01:16it wouldn't last even a month.
01:19Many trees in this area are pretty weak right now and suffering from drought and all kinds of bad insects.
01:25So Methuselah is also in danger.
01:27Don't touch or approach it, even if you find out the location.
01:31The tree was discovered by dendrochronologist Edmund Shulman.
01:36A dendrochronologist is a scientist who studies the rings of ancient trees.
01:41But more on that later.
01:43So Shulman discovered the tree in the middle of the previous century,
01:46and over the past 50 years, it has become shrouded in rumors and legends.
01:50But how did Shulman know it was the oldest?
01:54In 1957, he took a core sample and studied the tree's annual rings.
01:59You see, every year, a layer forms inside a tree, resembling a ring.
02:04But scientists don't cut the trunk, don't worry.
02:07They extract a piece as thick as a pencil, and that's enough.
02:11The more layers, the older the tree is.
02:13So, Shulman counted Methuselah's rings and found out that it's been growing for more than 4,600 years.
02:21This means it's even older than ancient giant redwoods, which were considered the oldest trees on the planet.
02:28In 1958, Shulman told the story about the existence of Methuselah and posted its photo in National Geographic.
02:36From that moment on, the tree became popular.
02:38Many people wanted to pluck a cone or twig from it, so the authorities forbade publishing information about the location of the tree.
02:47Later, other scientists examined Methuselah's rings and suggested it could be younger,
02:52though some rings were too faint or damaged to count.
02:56In any case, it remains the most ancient tree on Earth, officially confirmed, that is.
03:00But it wasn't always like this.
03:02Back in 1964, a geographer Donald R. Curry stumbled upon a tree called Prometheus, which was about 5,000 years old.
03:12And you know what he did?
03:13He just cut it down.
03:15There are many theories about why he did it.
03:18The tool for getting core samples was broken, or this guy didn't know how to use it, but the result was sad.
03:25The tree didn't survive.
03:27Hopefully, nothing like this will happen to Methuselah, and it will live a long life.
03:31But why are scientists so worried about it?
03:34Yeah, it can tell a lot about the history of our planet.
03:38But is there another reason?
03:40There's a theory that this tree could live forever if no one cut it down, and droughts or parasites didn't destroy it.
03:47So basically, Methuselah's like nature's fountain of youth.
03:51Imagine if we could use that trick on people.
03:55Okay, now we know what the US hides.
03:57But do you know what Australia keeps secret?
04:01Not just a tree, but an island.
04:05Even if you were allowed to visit the island, it wouldn't be easy for you to get there.
04:10The island is located between Australia and Antarctica, somewhere in the middle of the ocean.
04:15But it's unlikely that you would get such permission.
04:18The fact is that Herd Island is completely untouched by humans, and Australia wants to keep it that way.
04:25You'll find little reliable information about this island on the internet.
04:29All we know is that the island has two active volcanoes, Australia's tallest mountain, and several glaciers.
04:37But you know what the coolest thing is?
04:40It's home to animals you won't find anywhere else.
04:43The island's closed ecosystem preserves creatures that might have never seen people.
04:48The next island is quite famous and is located in Brazil.
04:54The authorities don't keep it a secret, but they protect it from tourists.
04:59Even if you had permission to visit this place, you probably wouldn't want to.
05:04This is Snake Island, and its name speaks for itself.
05:09This piece of land contains the largest concentration of venomous snakes in the world.
05:13Those are golden lance-head pit vipers.
05:17One bite of this snake is critically dangerous for a person.
05:20The snakes are all over the place there and have almost no competition from other animals.
05:26Only specialists capable of handling these reptiles can visit the island.
05:31Lots of secret places stay off-limits because humans can mess them up without meaning to.
05:36It's not that we're bad.
05:37It's just that even being there can change tiny, invisible parts of nature.
05:42And here's a great example of the kind of destruction we can trigger.
05:48You've all seen photos of ancient cave paintings with horses and bulls.
05:53One of the most famous of such caves is the Lascaux Cave, which is located in France.
05:59On the walls inside the cave, people found more than 600 drawings and about 1,500 engravings.
06:06The 20,000-year-old drawings depicted different animals.
06:10Scientists opened the cave to the public.
06:12And this led to a disaster.
06:14Too many people came to see the cave, and it messed up the cave's ecosystem.
06:19Then a fungus showed up and started spreading over the walls, ruining the old drawings.
06:25It was a tragedy for the scientific world.
06:27The cave was quickly closed to visitors.
06:30Now only a small group of archaeologists can enter it.
06:33No one knows when or if the cave will open again.
06:37Those glimpses of human history from the first European settlements might be lost to the public forever.
06:43Our next secret location is in Svalbard, Norwegian Archipelago.
06:49This is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a massive storage vault that can keep 4.5 million seeds of different types.
06:58The authorities say that the seeds are stored there to preserve the population in case of a local disaster.
07:03But a lot of people think they're tucked away for the apocalypse, ready to help us replant Earth if everything goes wrong.
07:11But why, of all countries, did people decide to store seeds here?
07:16Because of Svalbard's cold, dry climate, the weather conditions here are ideal for seed preservation.
07:24The vault is well-guarded, it's classified, and no one can get inside except for authorized persons.
07:31All our secret places are connected with nature.
07:35An island, a forest, a cave.
07:38But how about finishing the video in the city?
07:41It's in plain sight, but it hides a secret room that is impossible to enter.
07:47In Atlanta, Georgia, inside a museum with top-notch security,
07:51the secret Coca-Cola recipe sits locked away in a massive safe.
07:56What?
07:57Yes, this is probably one of the most guarded secrets in the world.
08:01Money, diamonds, ancient artifacts.
08:04None of them get the kind of protection a single sheet of paper with the Coke recipe does.
08:09This secret has been kept there for more than 125 years.
08:14The unique storage design and security system make burglary almost impossible.
08:20You can visit a specialized museum and see the door to the vault, but nothing else.
08:25Sure, it sounds a little crazy to guard a single piece of paper.
08:29But then again, this drink has made the company billions.
08:32Coca-Cola has been one of the world's favorite drinks for over a century,
08:37and it's still raking in massive profits.
08:40So it's not surprising that its recipe is kept so secret.
08:44That's it for today.
08:46So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
08:49then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
08:51Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
08:55OK.
08:56OK.
09:00The key part of the green side.
09:00See youPlzega.
09:10.
09:13.
09:18.
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