Google Earth Uncovers Secret UK Nuke Base

thefickler writes "Gone are the days when governments could easily hide top secret bases. These days it's a weekend pastime to see who can find top secret facilities using Google Earth. Now it's the UK government's turn to be outraged after a secret facility was revealed by a British tabloid. The facility is said to be located in Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland. This nuclear base was previously blurred out by the request of the British Government. However, with the latest update provided via Google Earth, many of the blurred out locations were accidentally revealed." Update: 3/08 at 14:24 by SS: Multiple readers have pointed out that the issue here is not the location of the base — it's simply that details of buildings and objects within the base (such as the location of a pair of nuclear submarines) are accidentally visible after the UK government specifically requested they be blurred out.

Comments

"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[EWAdams]

Oooh... like that huge bottle-green and cream building with all the satellite dishes on top was invisible to the tens of thousands of commuters who pass by it on the railroad every day.

Everybody knows where these things are anyway. The newspapers are just having a slow day, so let's take another whack at technology/Google/the Internet.

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[legirons]

Back when that building was used in the Bond film, HIGNFY reported: "MI6 were concerned the film might reveal the location of... one of London's most distinctive landmarks"

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[Stuart Gibson]

Sorry, but the UK has never been that big on keeping their secret nuclear bunkers very secret: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimram/122464288/

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[tverbeek]

And according to the Sun, Google Earth "even reveals the longitude and latitude of ... Faslane, Scotland"! Without Google's help, terrorists would have needed access to an Ordnance Survey map of Argyll and pocket calculators to ascertain this esoteric information!

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[Z00L00K]

And who in their right mind thinks that a foreign nation doesn't already know the existence, location and layout of various bases around the world?

Some bribes or joint ventures later and information exceeding the information available at Google Earth is widespread.

Blurring a satellite or air photo today is just a giveaway since two different distributions never have the same blurring and that tells others that this is a site of interest.

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[tomhudson]

What the gov't is pissed off about is that you can see 2 nuclear subs docked ... scroll up to the top of the bay, zoom in.

Sure, foreign governments probably already have assets on the ground keeping watch of the ebb and flow of traffic, but it's nice to have visible confirmation (you can confirm the date of the pictures by using shadows - every day, the shadows will be slightly different as the sun appears to trace a slightly different arc in the sky).

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[1u3hr]

Sure, foreign governments probably already have assets on the ground keeping watch of the ebb and flow of traffic

Any foreign government with an interest in this information HAS IT'S OWN SURVEILLANCE SATELLITES. They are not going to use Google, which can be months out of date, when they can get real time images. Even Iran has the capacity to launch these now. And anyone else can just pay a small fee to one of several commercial satellite surveillance services, not all of which are beholden to the UK government.

Of course, TFA talks about "terrorists" targeting the subs with rockets. Right. Could terrorists get that kind of weapon into the UK and close to a nuclear weapons installation? I find it hard to believe. But there is an infinite number of soft targets they could hit with greater hope of doing damage and less risk.

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[pbhj]

Of course, TFA talks about "terrorists" targeting the subs with rockets. Right. Could terrorists get that kind of weapon into the UK and close to a nuclear weapons installation?

They've got the weapons, they don't need to get them into the UK, there's a sea route past Arran, looks like there's a torpedoe net around the subs but I'm sure a shoulder mounted SAM would do enough damage to put them out of action for a while.

I think I'd have asked that the subs be duplicated a few hundred times around the coast line instead. Now that's a deterrent!

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[jc42]

And who in their right mind thinks that a foreign nation doesn't already know the existence, location and layout of various bases around the world?

It reminds me of the story (reported in various tech journals but not so much in the MSM) back in the 1970s about the US DoD funding a study by some university people of what could be learned about US military sites and activity from public sources like newspapers, libraries, etc. The story was that a couple of profs (i.e., their grad students) spent a year perusing such public information sources, wrote up their report, sent it in - and with a few days, it was classified Top Secret.

When I read that, I did wonder how many offers of employment the profs (and their grad students) got from various foreign governments. It seemed to me that it could become a viable career path for a small number of people. But I never read any followups.

Now I wonder how much you could learn by just googling for the information. And if you sent your summary report to the DoD, how quickly would it get classified?

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[tomhudson]

Afghanistan is currently in no danger of a strategic nuclear attack, which is obviously the main reason countries which have them go to some lengths to make sure their nuclear sub fleet is concealed

Wrong. The day you have to actually launch a strategic nuclear attack is the day that your nuclear submarine fleets' actual purpose - which is to be enough of a threat to retaliate in the event of such an attack (see Mutually Assured Destruction) - is over. The submarine fleet will have failed in its' primary goal, which is to be a credible enough threat to PREVENT a nuclear attack.

The nuclear submarine fleet's second purpose is to protect the rest of the naval fleet, allies, and shipping, both by being the "joker in the hole" against other forces, and against other subs.

The third purpose is, as I've mentioned elsewhere, to do stand-off attacks via cruise missiles, which they (UK submarines) HAVE launched against targets in Afghanistan.

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[Brianech]

Thats just a cover, keep scrolling up and you'll notice a whole field of crop circles!!!! Thats what was really supposed to be blurred out. If you think about it, a nuclear submarine dock is the perfect cover for an alien landing zone... Im getting images of the Men in Black all over again.

I used google search

[celardore]

I came up with a secret nuclear bunker, too. link

Blurred out by request

[Baron_Yam]

Doesn't that just mean that a whole chain of people at Google now know the location is sensitive and could turn around and pass on that information?

If they ask to have it Photoshopped into non-existence then you know you've got really hot property!

What about the enemies?

[GreatBunzinni]

Do the enemy nations also blur their secret bases at the request of the british government?

Re:What about the enemies?

[poena.dare]

Most nations can't afford the 18,558,720 pixel wide brush required.

I NEVER KNEW IT WAS THERE!

[ed]

Now all the mystery of the road signs, American Service personnel, people mentioning it in the media and the submarines sailing up and down the Clyde is solved.

WHO KNEW!!!!!

Re:I NEVER KNEW IT WAS THERE!

[couchslug]

"the submarines sailing up and down the Clyde"

That certainly shoots down the "very large manatees" cover story.

Bad summary

[Anonymous Coward]

SPOILER ALERT: Faslane is not a "secret" facility. It's the level and quality of imagery that's the problem. Good old /. editing at its finest, I had to actually check for a second that it wasn't actually another kdawson...in any case this "news" is at least a week old.

The actual article in The Sun

[while(true)]

The actual article: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2284752.ece

Re:The actual article in The Sun

[tverbeek]

And in a related news article, The Sun reports that Google Earth's new ocean-floor imagery reveals the location of the lost city of Atlantis on the ocean floor west of the Canary Islands. A photo of Patrick Duffy is used as an illustration, and a reaction commentary by none other than Plato accompanies the story. You can't make shit like this up... because The Sun does it for you.

Public secrets

[onion2k]

The places the government publicise that they want to keep secret aren't actually secret at all. They're a façade. Then there's the somewhat secret stuff that the government denies exists. The real secret stuff is the stuff the government never mentions.

Never heard the government mention their lunar base with telescopes that can see through the roofs of buildings and spy on you on the toilet? That's pretty much proof they've got one, but it's a secret!

so secret they have their own public website!

[julian67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faslane "Her Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde is one of three UK operating bases for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Devonport and HMNB Portsmouth). It is the service's headquarters in Scotland and is best known as the home of the United Kingdom's Trident-armed nuclear submarine force." This place has been notorious/famous for decades. Whoever wrote this "news" story is a fucking idiot and recycling on /. is fucking dumb too. Some of the other "top secret" places featured in the story feature regularly in documentaries, fiction, news reports and so on. Some of them are so secret that they have their own public website complete with pictures and a contact us button :-) http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html Well done Timothy, well up to your usual standard (rubbish).

Re:so secret they have their own public website!

[gEvil (beta)]

Two words: kdawson

I'm not sure which one makes you look like more of an idiot--the fact that "kdawson" isn't two words, or the fact that the story was posted by timothy.

Re:so secret they have their own public website!

[Ihmhi]

Maybe he meant two syllables?

OK, where to begin.

[Samschnooks]

Some of the other locations revealed are MI6â(TM)s London offices, Britainâ(TM)s nuclear crisis HQ and the SAS training facility. Apparently the UK Government is worried that terrorists could potentially launch missile attacks to those target areas with the exact coordinates readily available on the Internet.

So, the UK Government is actually saying, "Oops! You got us! That's exactly what they are! As matter of act, those buildings are exactly what you think they are and then some! What what! Cheers!"

Could these buildings be not very important and the UK gov is making them seem more important to distract everyone from the real targets? I don't see anything that makes that facility ultra secure like you'd expect for someplace that is that sensitive. Look how close it is to the highway (A814)? Here in the States, there'd be a HUGE driveway or access road so that someone couldn't just park at the side and lob a mortar shell over or what have you.

A tabloid said this? A PRINTED tabloid that will do anything to increase circulation; especially in this economy?!?

I could go on but I'm sick of typing.

Re:OK, where to begin.

[u38cg]

No, Faslane really is a nuclear base. You can tell because you get the Nth degree when you visit, unlike any other UK base where a plausible excuse and some form of ID gets you in. But don't ask about the one over the hill, which *also* stores nukes and you hear very little about ;)

WTF? Hidden?

[Lars T.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNB_Clyde Everybody already knew where the base is, there are public roads surrounding it, the Wikipedia article even as an aerial photo of it. So unless they are worried that terrorists start using GPS guided "smart" weaponry (but of course conventionally armed, because for nuclear they knew enough already) instead of just flying a plane packed with explosives into it, why the hell are they outraged exactly?

Re:Under cover.

[denzacar]

Anyone know what the circular mounds are to the north of the base?

I could probably tell you that those are the Top Secret military pancake storage facilities, but then you would have to be blurred out on google maps too.

Well since big brother can be watching us...

[3seas]

.....so can us little brothers be watching big brother... No double standards here.

Of the 6 plus billion people on this planet, it is some fraction of 1% that messes things up for the rest of us.
Its about time we start watching them..

Also from US military

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better pictures courtesy of the US military
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/~cannon/medports/Faslane/HMNB_picture.html

Re:Missile guidances systems like clear pictures

[OldCrasher]

The only people left that haven't a clue about what goes on in dockyards at Faslane are the British Taxpayers. Everyone else has spies there and photographs the place as needed.

They should slap a Coke logo over it...

[ebydav]

and at least make some ad revenue.

Nothing special

[UnknowingFool]

During most of the cold war, you would think that the superpowers would be cognizant of satellite spying. These days, there's ever more satellites out there so governments should take necessary safeguards. There were stories about how the Soviet missile sites were easily detectable on by satellite photos.

First of all, a nuclear missile is expensive. You probably want high security around it. According to Soviet protocols, three layers of fencing are standard. Also to get the missile to the site, it has to be a delicate operation. You can't haul them over rocky and uneven terrain. Unlike the West, the Soviets didn't build roads to everywhere, only where they were necessary. Also the missile launchers were loaded onto trucks that required a wide turning radius.

So American intelligence found 1) a paved road to the middle to nowhere, 2) wide turning radii in the road, and 3) three layers of fencing at the endpoint of the road, they found a missile site.