History Main / SecretGovernmentWarehouse

* The FEMA facility from VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution qualifies.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. The endgame of the Actually Ed the Undying challenge path have you raiding the Council of Loathing's secret warehouse for the Holy MacGuffin, and finding a bunch of other MacGuffins and {{plot coupon}}s in the process, including [[Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk the Ark of the Covenant]], a [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas platinum casino chip]], and [[Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Marvin Acme's will]].

* Maintaining secret warehouses is pretty much the entire job of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, they have warehouses for storing dangerous items that are usually safe if no one touches them, and they also have prisons for dangerous monsters and humans with powers, altought some of the items that look like inanimate objects are actually sentient and are trying to ''escape''. The warehouses containing the most dangerous items each have [[SelfDestructMechanism a nuclear warhead which is set to go off if too many of them escape at once]]. For some of the items, ''this will only slow them down''. Also, [[NGOSuperpower the Foundation operates outside of any government jurisdiction]], and could probably instantly take over the world if they weren't so very busy constantly trying to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[TheArkOfTheCovenant Ark of the Covenant]]? Two aisles down on the left, right between the Roswell ship and Jimmy Hoffa.-] ]]

* In ''Comicbook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', a secret wing of the British Library acts both as this, and the headquarters of the eponymous League.

* The conclusion of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' is one of the most famous uses of this plot device: the ending of the film is a shot of TheArkOfTheCovenant, in a crate, being filed in a massive warehouse. ''[[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles Filled with identical crates.]]''
** The first part of ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' happens in the same warehouse, where baddies are looking for the titular object. At some point [[ContinuityNod a crate is damaged, showing the Ark in it]].

* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' the Department of Mysteries houses one of these which holds items considered strange and dangerous even to the wizarding world. There were even more such items in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix the book]] but they seemed to have more of an effect on their [[MalevolentArchitecture surroundings]] and [[MobileMaze were]] [[AlienGeometries housed very]] [[{{Bizarrchitecture}} strangely]].

* ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'': The secret stash of out-world artifacts at the Sokovian HYDRA base ''used'' to be this trope, before HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD was exposed in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' and the base, revealed to be operated by HYDRA, cut all ties with the World Security Council.
* ''Auton'', a direct-to-video film from Creator/BBVProductions that's a licensed ''Series/DoctorWho'' spin-off, is set in the Warehouse where left-over bits of alien technology are sent after each alien invasion is foiled by the Doctor and UNIT. A scientist studying the artifacts inadvertantly reactivates a Nestene control pod, inspiring the Nestene Consciousness to have another go at invading Earth.

* Scott Westerfield's book ''Specials'' includes one of these. The two main characters sneak in to steal a specific tool, and end up finding vast shelves of forgotten "Rusty" (present-day) technology and artifacts as well as extremely dangerous weapons of more modern make. The example is both subverted and played straight: the government IS hiding these tools from the general populace, because the cities are all supposed to be at peace and war is unheard of, and subverted because the two main characters are themselves special government agents (and arguably living weapons) that the general populace is unaware of.

* Averted in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' where Lord Vetinari prefers inconvenient things to be lost in a welter of competing Guilds and other agencies, ideally in plain sight where everybody can see them and nobody notices. This is helped by the several-thousand years old history of the city of Ankh-Morpork having accumulated so many potentially significant artefacts that Literature/{{Gormenghast}} would look bare by comparison. This works extremely well until somebody notices, for instance, the [[ChekhovsGun unique-but-impractical projectile weapon]] held as a curiosity in the Assassins' Guild Museum.
* The Folly from the ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' series is, aside from a specialist police facility, the UK's covert repository for books, materials and artifacts pertaining to Newtonian magic or magic-related crimes and disturbances. [[spoiler: The Black Library hidden underneath it is an example ''within'' an example, being a highly-restricted secure vault for captured Nazi BlackMagic lore.]]
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' novel ''Literature/TheRhesusChart'' when Bob Howard visits such a warehouse, but it's used to store mundane (yet still secret) items like government warning posters stockpiled for an invasion by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s from AnotherDimension. [[spoiler:Then it turns out a vampire is using this secret location to hide its activities from both the public and the Laundry.]]
* In ''Literature/TheDivineCities'', the so-called Unmentionable Warehouses contain all the artifacts and miraculous items the Saypuri were able to get their hands on after they conquered the Continent and outlawed any mention of the Divinities or their Miracles. Nobody but the hightest authorities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are even allowed to know of the existence of the warehouses, and even less people are allowed to enter them, meaning the various items have been collecting dust for over seven decades. The warehouse outside of Bulikov masquerades as an unremarkable warehouse between ones that store supplies for the Saypuri military, but becomes vital to the story as Dr. Efrem Pangyui's legal access to it brings the Restorationist's on his case, who want access to its stored Miracles for their own means.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'' is replete with characters and objects with unusual properties and powers that would complicate the fictional setting, or make it too simple for characters to achieve the goals that they quest for, and the Secret Government Warehouse trope is heavily used to explain the absence of the characters and objects, and to make the goals difficult to achieve. The plot device is in fact a central element of the series.
* In the first episode of ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds1988'' a triad of war machines are collected from a Government Warehouse ("Hangar 15") where they had been stored since an invasion in 1953, thus linking the television series to the 1953 film ''Film/{{The War of the Worlds|1953}}''.
* The Sci-Fi Channel series ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'', not to be confused with the TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} sourcebook.
** The Warehouses actually date back thousands of years, usually located in one of the most powerful nations at the time before being moved (partly to protect the Warehouse, partly to enable the collection of artifacts). Warehouse 1 was built by UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat and was his personal collection. After his death, the artifacts were moved to Egypt into the newly-built Warehouse 2, where the Regents (ruling body of the Warehouse) were established. The subsequent Warehouses were located, in order, in the Western Roman Empire, the Hunnic Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Khmer Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, and finally the United States.
** Additionally, the Bronze Sector within the Warehouse stores dangerous people, many of them would-be Hitlers.
** Played with in an episode where the CEO of a large pharmaceutical company found out about the Warehouse and pulled strings with a senator to get access to it. The CEO's NumberTwo betrays him after finding out the truth about the artifacts and, instead, points him towards a tiny room with a few shelves of random junk, grandiously announced as Storage Space 6.
** The cover story that the current Warehouse uses is that it's actually a more prosaic version of the truth; specifically, that it's where the IRS stores old tax forms.

* Likewise, the ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' could be regarded as a SecretGovernmentWarehouse for "people."

* By extension Torchwood One and its hub in the Cardiff Division, as found in ''Series/DoctorWho'' and ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' respectively, functioned similarly, although they did salvage and use the alien tech. [[spoiler: Of course, they've both now been destroyed.]]
* Chillingly used on ''Series/CriminalMinds'', where an episode about a lone anthrax terrorist ends with his pathogen getting locked in a U.S. military vault. Dozens of similar vaults are seen, each presumably housing samples of a different biological weapon that the public doesn't know about.
* In ''Series/{{Lexx}}'', the US government has a secret warehouse where dangerous individuals -- like the child who spotted a UFO with his telescope -- are ''clamped to the middle of a wall several stories high.''
--> '''Child:''' Don't worry. After a few weeks, you get used to it.

* ''[[http://www.warehouse23.com/basement/ Warehouse 23]]'' is a role-playing book based on a warehouse run by Secret Masters. Steve Jackson Games also calls its online store "Warehouse 23".
** ''[[http://www.warehouse23.com/basement/dumpster/dump.html Warehouse 23's Dumpster]]'' is for the stuff too weird even for the SecretGovernmentWarehouse to keep.
* Also from SJG, ''TabletopGame/IlluminatiNewWorldOrder'' features a card which depicts one of these.

* Although not strictly a government warehouse, the [[AdventurerArchaeologist Aegis Kai Doru]] in TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil are described as having dozens or more of these around the world, including, among other things, the still-talking and prophesizing head of John the Baptist.
** Similarly, the Mysterium in TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening maintain several athenea all over the world, which are a version of this combined with MagicalLibrary. They contain all sorts of manner of strange artifacts, with anything ranging from simple magical tools for uncovering more knowledge to [[ArtifactOfDoom objects of tremendous power and hazard]].

* Maintaining secret warehouses is pretty much the entire job of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, they have warehouses for storing dangerous items that are usually safe if no one touches them, and they also have prisons for dangerous monsters and humans with powers, altought some of the items that look like inanimate objects are actually sentient and are trying to ''escape''. The warehouses containing the most dangerous items each have [[SelfDestructMechanism a nuclear warhead which is set to go off if too many of them escape at once]]. For some of the items, ''this will only slow them down''. Also, [[NGOSuperpower the Foundation operates outside of any government jurisdiction]], and could probably instantly take over the world if they weren't so very busy constantly trying to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'' begins in one of these.

* Indeed, almost any fairly large institution (ranging from everything from the above-mentioned Smithsonian all the way down to the Baseball Hall of Fame's Museum and then some) will have far more stuff out-of-sight (either being restored, studied or just plain old stored away) than it has on display. The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum alone had such a problem that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_F._Udvar-Hazy_Center they built an Annex Museum]] and so much interesting stuff is still behind closed doors that they are now working to build ''a whole new wing'' onto that Annex which will allow people to ''actually look at the stuff that is being restored''.

* It's notable that "secret" in real life does not necessarily mean "Earth-shattering revelations here". If you dug into the CIA's secret files and warehouses, most things you would see would only really make sense to other people who work in intelligence and not the common man, who would typically scratch his head at some things. For instance you may find a report on the eating habits of a foreign leader - while it isn't a secret that everyone has different eating habits, the reason it's secret is that someone did work to find that info (probably undercover), and it's handy info to have should they ever want/need to covertly ''poison'' said foreign leader (or if they want to decide if it would be safer and cheaper to let said leader gorge himself to death instead).

* The dangers of having enormous amounts of material no one remembers anymore came to the fore as part of a series of security lapses involving the CDC that occurred or came to light in 2014, including a cleanup job that uncovered numerous unsecured samples of deadly pathogens, just sitting on shelves since as long ago as 1946.

* One of the (best) possible endings in ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' has the [[MacGuffin sarcophagus]] being stored in a Secret Camarilla Warehouse, which has the potential of being even worse.

->''"If a radio landed in the hands of UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, do you know what Jefferson would do? He would just lock it up, until he figured out it wasn't going to kill him. That's exactly what we do here. We take the unexplained... and we safely tuck it away."''

* In the first episode of ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds'' a triad of war machines are collected from a Government Warehouse ("Hangar 15") where they had been stored since an invasion in 1953, thus linking the television series to the 1953 film ''Film/{{The War of the Worlds|1953}}''.

* Maintaining secret warehouses is pretty much the entire job of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, only some of the items are sentient and trying to ''escape''. The warehouses containing the most dangerous items each have [[SelfDestructMechanism a nuclear warhead which is set to go off if too many of them escape at once]]. For some of the items, ''this will only slow them down''. Also, [[NGOSuperpower the Foundation operates outside of any government jurisdiction]], and could probably instantly take over the world if they weren't so very busy constantly trying to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* Maintaining secret warehouses is pretty much the entire job of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, only some of the items are sentient and trying to ''escape.'' The warehouses containing the most dangerous items each have [[SelfDestructMechanism a nuclear warhead which is set to go off if too many of them escape at once]]. For some of the items, ''this will only slow them down.'' Also, the Foundation operates outside of any government jurisdiction, and could probably instantly take over the world if they weren't so very busy constantly trying to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* Maintaining secret warehouses is pretty much the entire job of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, only some of the items are sentient and trying to ''escape.'' The warehouses containing the most dangerous items each have [[SelfDestructMechanism a nuclear warhead which is set to go off if too many of them escape at once]]. For some of the items, ''this will only slow them down.'' Also, the Foundation operates outside of any government jurisdiction, and could probably instantly take over the world if they weren't so very busy constantly trying to prevent TheEndOfTheworldAsWeKnowIt.

* In the ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'' films, the BPRD facility holds (among other things) artifacts and books relating to the occult--including Hellboy himself.

* Maintaining secret warehouses is pretty much the entire job of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, only some of the items are sentient and trying to ''escape.'' The warehouses containing the most dangerous items each have [[SelfDestructMechanism a nuclear warhead which is set to go off if too many of them escape at once]]. For some of the items, ''this will only slow them down.''

* [[http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=328028 This thread.]]

* The conclusion of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' is one of the most famous uses of this plot device: the ending of the film is a shot of TheArkOfTheCovenant, in a crate, being filed in a massive warehouse. ''Filled with identical crates''.

* In ''TabletopGame/DeltaGreen'', the ''Green Boxes'' used by Delta Green are this, they can range from self-storage, warehouses, rental lockers to safe houses. Delta Green's rival, Majestic-12, has a lot of those, dedicated to researching Grey technology. They are usually within larger U.S Military, CIA, NSA, NRO and March Industries facilities. One of their facilities is located in Area 51 (Although is not Area 51 itself).

* [[http://www.palinola.com/projects/lab/greenbox// The Green Box Generator]] is based on this concept.

* ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'': The secret stash of out-world artifacts at the Sokovian HYDRA base ''used'' to be this trope, before HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD was exposed in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' and it cut all ties with the World Council.

--> '''Child:''' Don't worry. After a few weeks you get used to it.
* We see at one at Area51 in ''Series/StargateSG1'''s episode "Point of View". Several rows of shelves piled high with artifacts and technology from offworld, many of which were seen in previous episodes. It looks suspiciously like the show's props department.

* ''[[http://www.warehouse23.com/basement/ Warehouse 23]]'' is a role playing book based on a warehouse run by Secret Masters. Steve Jackson Games also calls its online store "Warehouse 23".

* Although not strictly a government warehouse, the [[AdventurerArchaeologist Aegis Kai Doru]] in TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil are described as having dozens or more of these around the world, including, among other things, the still-talking and prophesising head of John the Baptist.
** Similarily, the Mysterium in TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening maintain several athenea all over the world, which are a version of this combined with MagicalLibrary. They contain all sorts of manner of strange artifacts, with anything ranging from simple magical tools for uncovering more knowledge to [[ArtifactOfDoom objects of tremendous power and hazard]].

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', while everyone knows about the existence of the the Citadel Archives, only those with extremely high levels of clearance are allowed access are permitted to enter the facility, such as Spectres.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. The endgame of the Actually Ed the Undying challenge path has you raiding the Council of Loathing's secret warehouse for the Holy MacGuffin, and finding a bunch of other Macguffins and {{plot coupon}}s in the process, including [[Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk the Ark of the Covenant]], a [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas platinum casino chip]], and [[Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Marvin Acme's will]].

* ''Secret Contents of a Certain Government Warehouse'' was originally created by Stirling Westrup and many Usenet contributors around 1990. It lists a large number of magical, high tech and just plain weird items that are stored in a secret government facility. Almost all of them are based on devices from popular books, TV shows and movies. [[http://www.bahneman.com/liem/x-files/warehouse.html Version 0.1]], [[http://www32.ocn.ne.jp/~warehouse_j/Warehouse.txt Version 0.2]] (updated by Timothy Toner in 1992) and [[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8338216/warehouse.pdf Version 0.3]] (updated by Uncle Bear in 1999).

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' shows one of these in the episodes "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS4E11PetersGotWoods Peter's Got Woods]]", and "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS6E9BackToTheWoods Back To The Woods]]". Both of them end with James Woods being trapped in a crate and placed among many identical ones, a a shout out to the ''Indiana Jones'' example above.

* Indeed, almost any fairly large institution (ranging from everything from the above-mentioned Smithsonian all the way down to the Baseball Hall of Fame's Museum and then some) will have far more stuff out-of-sight (either being restored, studied or just plain old stored away) than it has on display. The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum alone had such a problem that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_F._Udvar-Hazy_Center they built a Annex Museum]] and so much interesting stuff is still behind closed doors that they are now working to build ''a whole new wing'' onto that Annex which will allow people to ''actually look at the stuff that is being restored''.

* Applied to data, this would make the USA's Utah Data Center one of the biggest SecretGovernmentWarehouse out there. It's used to store data that pass through nodes (satellites, etc) compromised by one or more secret intelligence agencies of USA. It's such a massive net that it basically knows everything of you that can be digitally recorded (including your activities in Wiki/ThisVeryWiki). Now you too can be covertly poisoned by secret agents, a honor that used to be restricted for troublesome foreign leaders.

* Applied to data, this would make the USA's Utah Data Center one of the biggest SecretGovernmentWarehouse out there. It's used to store data that pass through nodes (satellites, etc) compromised by one or more secret intelligence agencies of USA. It's such a massive net that it basically knows everything of you that can be digitally recorded (including your activities in ThisVeryWiki). Now you too can be covertly poisoned by secret agents, a honor that used to be restricted for troublesome foreign leaders.

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' had the Paranormal Stuff That Are Of Little Use To Anyone Storage Facility.

* Subverted in Literature/TheLaundrySeries novel ''The Rhesus Chart'' when Bob Howard visits such a warehouse, but it's used to store mundane (yet still secret) items like government warning posters stockpiled for an invasion by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s from AnotherDimension. [[spoiler:Then it turns out a vampire is using this secret location to hide its activities from both the public and the Laundry.]]

!Compare with:

!Contrast with:

* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' the Department of Mysteries houses one of these which holds items considered strange and dangerous even to the wizarding world. There were even more such items in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix the book]] but they seemed to have more of an effect on their [[MalevolentArchitecture surroundings]] and [[MobileMaze were]] [[AlienGeometries housed very]] [[Bizarrchitecture strangely]].