Forbidden Pacific: The Islands You Really Can’t Visit, Fact-Checked

A dark map has been doing the rounds on X. It shows the West Coast of the United States and, several hundred miles out to sea, a dashed yellow circle with big arrows pointing at it, labeled “MILACT THREE AREA ONE, CARF 10/389.” The caption calls it “the Area 51 of the ocean” and promises the reader that “you’re totally not allowed here,” that “they may even shoot you if you get too close,” and that nuclear submarines and “Russian and Chinese spies” are lurking at the edge. It ends: “All of this is top secret. It’s unfalsifiable.”

The circle is real. Almost everything else in that caption falls apart under a little checking. But the post does raise a good question. Are there places in the Pacific Ocean that ordinary people really are not allowed to go? There are quite a few, and the actual reasons are usually stranger than spies: unexploded bombs, a 160-year-old private purchase, a cleanup of chemical weapons, a single colony of giant stick insects and seabird colonies in the millions.

We checked each place below against government sites, legal texts and recent reporting, and for each one we note why it is off-limits and whether any legal way in exists. Some places that turn up on viral “forbidden” lists turned out to be open with a permit, and a few are not in the Pacific at all. Those are covered at the end.

First, the “Area 51 of the ocean”

The labels on the viral map are the giveaway. “CARF” is the Central Altitude Reservation Function, the FAA office responsible for “coordinating, planning, and approving special user requirements under the Altitude Reservation (ALTRV) concept.” In plain terms, an altitude reservation books a block of sky so that one user, usually the military, can have it to itself for a while. The numbers on the map, such as 10/389, are the kind of serial numbers given to published notices. Flight-tracking hobbyists plot them precisely because they are public.

FAA Order JO 7610.14A divides these reservations into two kinds. A moving ALTRV travels with a flight, such as a formation of tankers crossing the ocean. A stationary ALTRV “encompasses activities within a fixed volume of airspace to be occupied for a specified time period,” and the order notes that stationary ones over oceanic and offshore airspace “may encompass rocket, missile, and state activities.” “MILACT” is shorthand for military activity. The circle on the map is a temporary booking of airspace for a military exercise or test, and air traffic control simply routes other aircraft around it while it is active.

So, claim by claim. It is not top secret: the reservation was published, which is how it ended up on a map. It is not “unfalsifiable”: anyone can look up the notice and see when it starts and stops. It is airspace for a set time, not a permanently sealed patch of sea. We found no evidence that anyone is shot for straying near one; the normal consequence for a pilot is being kept clear by controllers. The claims about surfaced nuclear submarines and Russian and Chinese spies came with no evidence at all, so we have left them out. Military exercises do take place in these blocks, so staying out of an active one is sensible. Calling it a secret base is not accurate.

For places that really are closed, you have to look at islands. Nearly every one falls into one of three groups: military ranges and bases, wildlife refuges too fragile for visitors, and one island that is simply private property.

Niʻihau: the “Forbidden Isle” that is privately owned

Niʻihau, the westernmost of Hawaii’s inhabited islands, is off-limits for the most ordinary of reasons: someone owns it. Elizabeth Sinclair, a Scottish plantation owner, bought it from King Kamehameha V in 1864 for $10,000 in gold, and her descendants, the Robinson family, still own it. Under their rules the island is closed to outsiders except family and relatives, U.S. Navy personnel, government officials and invited guests, which is how it earned the nickname “the Forbidden Isle.”

The people who live there are mostly Native Hawaiians and speak Hawaiian as a first language. The population is tiny and shrinking: 170 in the 2010 census and 84 in 2020. Many residents commute to Kauaʻi for work, school and medical care.

Is there a legal way in? Yes, if you pay. Since 1987 a limited number of supervised tours and hunting safaris have been offered. Niihau Helicopters, the island’s own tour company, sells half-day trips that include a flight over the island and a few hours on a beach. Its website lists the price at $630 per person with a five-person minimum, or $3,150 for a charter. You will not see the village, and you cannot just show up by boat.

Kahoʻolawe: an island still full of ordnance

Seven miles off Maui, Kahoʻolawe was used by the U.S. military as a training ground and bombing range from World War II onward. During the Vietnam War, mock-ups of aircraft, radar sites and missile launchers were placed across the island for pilots to aim at. After decades of protests, the Navy ended live-fire training in 1990, and the island was handed to the state of Hawaii in 1994.

The cleanup was never complete. The Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission, which manages the island, says unexploded ordnance hazards remain “throughout the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve, including in cleared areas, uncleared areas, and surrounding waters.” The Reserve covers the island and the ocean within two nautical miles of its shoreline, and unauthorized entry is not allowed. Even boats are restricted. Trolling is allowed only on two scheduled weekends a month in water deeper than 30 fathoms, and anchoring and bottom fishing are banned outright because of the ordnance.

Is there a legal way in? Yes, as a volunteer. The commission says access is “currently limited to volunteering with KIRC in support of cultural and natural resource projects.” Volunteers get themselves to Maui, and the commission provides the trip across. Cultural access is also arranged through the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana, the group whose protests helped end the bombing.

Johnston Atoll: a former weapons dump in the middle of nowhere

About 750 nautical miles southwest of the island of Hawaii, Johnston Atoll has had one of the busiest military histories of any speck of land in the Pacific. It has served as a naval refueling depot, an air base, a nuclear test site, a missile base and a place to store and destroy chemical weapons and Agent Orange. In 1958 and 1962 it was the base for high-altitude nuclear tests, including the 1962 Starfish Prime shot that lit up the sky over Hawaii.

Those activities left contamination behind, and the Air Force completed its cleanup in 2004. Today the atoll is a national wildlife refuge, but it is still under Air Force jurisdiction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is blunt: the refuge “is not open to the public and entry is only allowed through a Special Use Permit when the activity is approved by the U.S. Air Force.”

Is there a legal way in? Only for approved work, such as wildlife management or research. There is no tourist route.

Wake Island: an airfield, not a destination

Wake Island, between Hawaii and Guam, is remembered for the Japanese attack and siege of December 1941. Earlier that year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8682 made its waters a naval defensive sea area that only U.S. government ships and aircraft could enter without permission. Today it is a U.S. Air Force airfield with no permanent residents. About 100 Air Force personnel and contractors live there at any given time.

Access to the atoll is restricted. Visits need prior approval, and aircraft need prior permission to land. Its 9,850-foot runway is also available for military and commercial in-flight emergencies, and about 600 aircraft a year use the airfield, so it is a lifeline in an emergency, but not a place for sightseeing.

Is there a legal way in? Not as a tourist. The people who go are on official business or contractors.

Kwajalein: a missile range you need a sponsor to visit

Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands surrounds one of the largest lagoons in the world. Several of its islands host the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, where the U.S. Army tracks long-range test missiles and the interceptors meant to stop them. The atoll also hosts one of the five ground stations used to control the Global Positioning System.

The Army is direct about visitors. “Kwajalein is a restricted access military installation. It is not open for tourism, and all visitors must be either on official business or sponsored by a current U.S. resident of the island,” says the U.S. Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll public affairs office. Even the roughly 1,000 people who live on Kwajalein Island need the Army’s express permission to be there. Some 13,500 Marshallese live elsewhere on the atoll, most of them on crowded Ebeye Island.

Is there a legal way in? Only as the sponsored guest of a resident or on official business. The rest of the Marshall Islands is open to tourists.

Farallon de Medinilla: a live-fire target island

Farallon de Medinilla is a small, uninhabited island about 45 miles north of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Since October 1971, the U.S. military has used it for bombing practice, after residents near Naftan Rock, off Aguijan near Tinian, asked the military to stop bombing that rock and use Farallon de Medinilla instead. The Navy even arranged shipping containers into large X shapes on the island as targets.

The FAA treats the airspace around it as restricted area R-7201, and in 2017 it added R-7201A, extending the restricted airspace from 3 to 12 nautical miles out. The FAA’s stated purpose is to give the military room for “air-to-ground ordnance delivery, naval gunfire, lasers” and other training.

Is there a legal way in? No. It is a target, and the only people who go ashore are military personnel and the occasional authorized survey team.

San Nicolas Island: the Navy’s California outpost

San Nicolas is the most remote of California’s Channel Islands, 61 miles from the mainland. It is the setting of the true story behind Island of the Blue Dolphins, the “Lone Woman” who lived alone there for 18 years in the 19th century. Today the Navy controls the island and uses it for weapons testing and training.

Federal rules for the surrounding waters are clear about the shoreline. Boats must stay at least 300 yards off San Nicolas Island at all times, and nothing in the rules authorizes anyone “to land on San Nicolas Island, except in an emergency.” During closures, vessels cannot enter the restricted zone, which reaches about 3 miles offshore, without permission from the Navy.

Is there a legal way in? Not for the public. Boats can pass offshore when the area is open.

Midway Atoll: closed, even to people who just want to see the albatrosses

Midway is best known for the 1942 battle that turned the Pacific War. It is now part of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, one of the largest protected areas on Earth, where, the monument says, “all activities in the Monument, with limited exceptions, require a permit.”

Midway used to be the one place in the monument tourists could reach. A visitor program ran from 1996 to 2002 and again from 2008, and 332 people made the trip in 2012. It was suspended in 2013 because of budget cuts and never restarted. Today the Fish and Wildlife Service says the refuge and the Battle of Midway National Memorial “are currently closed to public visitation,” and only work that supports the airfield and conservation is allowed.

Is there a legal way in? Not as a visitor right now. Permits go to researchers, staff, contractors and volunteers. The service offers a 360-degree virtual tour.

The Farallon Islands: San Francisco’s off-limits neighbor

You can see the Farallon Islands from San Francisco on a clear day, about 30 miles outside the Golden Gate, and they are technically part of the city. You cannot go there. In the 19th century, egg collectors took seabird eggs by the million for San Francisco markets. The refuge was established in 1909 to protect seabirds and marine mammals, and today the islands hold the largest seabird nesting colony south of Alaska, along with feeding grounds for whales and white sharks.

The Fish and Wildlife Service says simply: “The Refuge is closed to the public due to the sensitivity of wildlife.” The only people living there are researchers from Point Blue Conservation Science and the service, on Southeast Farallon Island.

Is there a legal way in? Not for the public. The only route onto the islands is working there as a researcher or refuge staff member, which the service does advertise from time to time. Everyone else sees them from the mainland on a clear day or from a boat offshore.

The empty refuges of the central Pacific

Scattered across the central Pacific are four more U.S. specks: Howland Island, Baker Island, Jarvis Island and Kingman Reef. Howland is famous as the island Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were trying to reach when they vanished in 1937. All four are national wildlife refuges inside the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, and the Fish and Wildlife Service uses nearly the same sentence for each: it “is not open to the public and entry is only allowed through a Special Use Permit when the activity is deemed appropriate with purposes to the refuge establishment.”

Is there a legal way in? In practice, only as part of an approved research or management trip. Their remoteness keeps most people out as effectively as any rule.

The Snares: no landings, full stop

About 200 kilometers south of New Zealand’s South Island, the Snares Islands, or Tini Heke, are counted among the last pristine areas in New Zealand. They largely escaped the damage that 19th-century sealing and whaling did to other subantarctic islands. North East Island is forested and is one of the world’s great breeding grounds for sooty shearwaters, with up to three million present in the breeding season, along with the Snares penguins found nowhere else.

New Zealand’s Department of Conservation rates the Snares among its “minimum impact islands.” Its information pack for private visitors to the subantarctic islands puts the rule in four words: “No landings are permitted.” Landings are made only by researchers holding special permits.

Is there a legal way in? Expedition cruise ships visit the area, but passengers stay on the water. The department’s guidance says Zodiac cruising offers good views of the penguins.

Ball’s Pyramid: the tallest sea stack, and its stick insects

Rising out of the Tasman Sea about 20 kilometers southeast of Lord Howe Island, Ball’s Pyramid is a 550-meter-plus blade of basalt, the eroded remains of a volcano, and is often described as the tallest volcanic stack in the world. Climbers from the Sydney Rock Climbing Club reached the top in 1965. A different discovery made it famous. The Lord Howe Island stick insect, a large flightless insect, vanished from Lord Howe after rats came ashore from the wrecked SS Makambo in 1918, and it was last seen there in 1920. In 2001 researchers found a tiny population living in a single shrub on the slopes of Ball’s Pyramid.

The rules tightened as the island’s importance became clear. Climbing was banned in 1982, all access was banned in 1986, and the policy was relaxed in 1990 to allow some climbing under strict conditions. The current Lord Howe Island Permanent Park Preserve plan of management states that “recreational rock climbing is prohibited on Balls Pyramid,” and that climbing for research or management requires approval.

Is there a legal way in? Only with a research or management purpose and the approval of the Lord Howe Island Board. Seeing it from a boat is how almost everyone experiences it.

Clipperton: France’s lonely atoll off Mexico

Clipperton is an uninhabited coral atoll about 1,080 kilometers southwest of Mexico, and the only French territory in the North Pacific. Its history is grim. Mexico placed a small garrison on the island in 1905. During the Mexican Revolution, supplies stopped arriving, most of the colonists died, and the lighthouse keeper, Victoriano Álvarez, declared himself king. Eleven survivors were rescued in 1917. In 1931, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, acting as arbitrator, ruled that the atoll was French.

Today, French law requires permission to set foot there. Under Article 13 of the 1955 law on France’s overseas territories, as amended in 2022, anchoring in the atoll’s internal waters, landing, staying or doing any other activity on the island requires authorization from the minister for overseas France, except in emergencies involving human life or the rescue of a ship or aircraft.

Is there a legal way in? Yes, with ministerial authorization. Since World War II the atoll has mostly hosted scientific expeditions and amateur-radio teams, and the French Navy visits periodically.

Henderson Island: a World Heritage island that needs a licence

Henderson Island, part of Britain’s Pitcairn Islands, is a raised coral island that UNESCO lists as one of the few atolls in the world with its ecosystems “practically untouched.” All four of its land birds are found nowhere else, including the flightless Henderson crake. UNESCO names invasive species as the greatest threat. Pacific rats brought by Polynesian settlers centuries ago still prey on native birds, and a large poison-baiting effort in 2011 killed most of them but not all. The population recovered.

That is why the island’s management plan says that “access to Henderson requires a licence issued by the Governor (through the Pitcairn Island Administration office) in consultation with the Island Council.” The plan also notes the practical problem: passing yachts, most of them sailing from Rapa Nui or the Galápagos, tend to reach Henderson before they make contact with Pitcairn, which makes it hard to tell them the rules.

Is there a legal way in? Yes, with a licence. Pitcairn Islanders themselves usually sail there about once a year to harvest miro and tou wood for carving.

Not as forbidden as their reputation

Several islands that often appear on “places you can never go” lists turned out to have a legal way in.

Bikini Atoll. The site of the 1946 Operation Crossroads tests and the 1954 Castle Bravo blast is not closed. Visitors aboard fully self-sufficient vessels can come with prior approval, as long as they pay for a diver and two local council representatives to make sure no one takes artifacts from the sunken fleet. The catch is lingering contamination. The radiation has dropped enough for short visits, but the Bikini islanders still cannot move back.

Palmyra Atoll. This refuge, mostly owned by The Nature Conservancy, has a door marked “boaters.” With prior approval from the Fish and Wildlife Service, private sailboats and motorboats can stay up to seven days, no more than two at a time and six a month, if they show a recent hull inspection and cleaning and a rodent inspection and visit while a refuge manager is on site, which is only about six months a year.

Pitcairn Island. The home of the Bounty mutineers’ descendants, with a population of 35 in 2023, is not off-limits either. It is just very hard to reach. It welcomes visitors, who arrive by supply ship, cruise call or private yacht and must follow its entry rules.

Not even in the Pacific

Two of the most famous “forbidden” islands on viral lists are often dropped into Pacific roundups, but they sit in other oceans. North Sentinel Island, home of the uncontacted Sentinelese and protected by Indian law, is in the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean. Ilha da Queimada Grande, Brazil’s “Snake Island,” lies off São Paulo in the Atlantic. Diego Garcia, the closed U.S.-British military base, and Australia’s Heard Island are both in the Indian Ocean as well. All of them have strict access rules, but none belongs on a list about the Pacific.

What the real list tells us

The viral map promised a secret zone where you might be shot. The real off-limits Pacific is less dramatic and more interesting. It is a private island where Hawaiian is still the everyday language, an island the Navy shelled for half a century, an atoll that once stored chemical weapons, a stack of rock guarding one of the rarest insects on Earth and seabird colonies so large they would be crushed by tourists.

In nearly every case, the reason is written down in a public rule and posted on a government website. The secret version makes a better caption. The real version is the one you can check.

Further reading