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China Building Gigantic Structures In the Desert
vbraga writes "New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes. It's located in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Gansu, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau to the west into the Kumtag Desert. It covers an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide. The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit."
Looks a lot like those fractal-based antennas they put in the back of cell phones, only a lot bigger. Made out of metal too, I assume?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Who would have thought aliens had QR code technology?
Some to do with mountain cuts / water damning?
why the hell was the parent moderated 'Troll'? Seems quite informative and on-topic.
Lonely satellite making copies of Nazca.
Because all of his links go to ads?
And the worms ate into his brain.
Whatever it is it was built with really cheap labor.
I recall people finding all sorts of artifacts on Google Maps when it first came out, such as pieces of tape. Perhaps that explains some of the perfectly geometrical shapes that don't adhere to the terrain?
Well, the third one looks a lot like a city grid. In fact, it looks exactly like the roadmaps in Google Maps of a well-organized downtown, might be some connection there. The "targeting bullseye" might well be just that (calibration for high-altitude photography, seems like the likeliest, especially with the planes in the middle.) The first one is just weird.
Make-work actually seems quite possible for the rest. Certainly wouldn't be a first for China. Anything that keeps their economy expanding they will fund, so it seems far more likely than some sort of super-weapon.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Some folks on hackernews have suggested it could be a massive salt or mineral collection operation. Not sure myself, but here is the comparison shots.
One in Israel
California
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
What would they look like if they weren't designed to be seen from orbit?
I'd like to know what technology they're using to get such fine etchings of the google copyright image in the sand. I'm very impressed.
from the 5th century BC to the 16th century AD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China
it's being built to keep out marauding mongols, duh
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It depends how zoomed in you are.
Similarly odd stuff at the following locations...
4027'24.96"N 9332'42.52"E
4028'37.07"N 9330'45.54"E
4028'45.58"N 9328'39.89"E
4027'25.39"N 9323'35.00"E
South of there, what is this!?!
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458679,93.31314%09&hl=en&ll=40.110179,93.994217&spn=0.037745,0.077162&sll=40.458018,93.392587&sspn=0.0208,0.040426&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=14
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit.
Keep in mind most Google Maps imagery comes from airplanes and not satellites*
*No, I did not RTFA or look at the images yet.
I'm not sure aerial photography is smiled upon over Chinese military test grounds.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
... roller coaster
RGdot.com
Look for a correlation with massive avian die-offs.
And if you see Dominic Monaghan, run.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Don't want to be a number Nazi, but it's more like 1.4 billion...
Lonely satellite making copies of Nazca.
Perhaps it's the worlds largest joke, played on people in year 9,500, after nuclear wars, alien invasions and man rising from ignorance of 1,000 years of dark age. Gotta admit, that's pretty forward thinking.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's perfectly clear that China is trying to attract the UFO's from the Plain of Nazga to their own country landing site. What else could it possibly be?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Worse, his links go to an advertisement based link shortener that won't let you see the content until you sign up. Riiiiight.
Culture is more than commerce
I think it's a stimulus package to keep people employed. Keynesian would argue that if you hire a lot of people to dig a ditch, then fill it, you'll stimulate the economy. Why not build something huge and useless and have another team of people tear it down.
Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified.
These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.
Source: http://berkeley.intel-research.net/arahimi/helmet/
This could be a sign of the Chinese government having a sense of humor. How much money can we get the Americans to waste out of their military budget by investigating weird patterns that we make in the wilderness.
You can bet that if the Pentagon don't know what those patterns are for - they have significant investment spent in watching them.
Money spent watching patterns in the desert is money not spent invested in training sharks with laser beams attached to their heads to attack Chinese naval ships or their space programs, nuclear, economy, etc.
Not to mention it's completely ripped off from a reddit post here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mat1s/there_appears_to_be_a_monumental_militaryscience/
Obfuscation.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/entries/icons/original/000/005/848/ancient-aliens.jpg?1315110108
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
with apologizes to the Dead Milkmen
Google flying over China to get high resolution images? I doubt that very much.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
i like your comment best.
More "QR Codes": 40.458638,93.390827
Bunkers near the wierd lines: 40.46294,93.372341
fake runways/bases: 40.472416,93.5079
Bomb (cluster?) hits on that base: 40.489307,93.500476
Fake houses/city that have been hit; 40.413766,93.583812
Some form of ULF or other low frequency communication array? 40.413766,93.583812
Some odd town: 40.108521,93.993434
Chemical or other plant that is using A LOT of water in the middle of the desert: 40.108521,93.993434
Have gnu, will travel.
Maybe they are developing some kind of orbital kinetic bombardment weapon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Thor#Project_Thor
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
There are a couple pics in TFA. It appears that there are various multi-mile area targets. HAARP sized comes to mind. I mean.. if you could get that accurate, you would have the next perfect weapon.
The symmetric circular image looks like an optical illusion. Is China using a device which projects false images into over-passing satellites?
The picture might not reflect reality on the ground. In particular, the image with what appears to be some kind of raster looks like it was taken during some kind of "interference."
I'm more interested in the huge (looking at the scale bar) series of what appear to be dams of water just to the west of the site.
I'm sure somebody's already suggested this somewhere, but didn't spot it in this comment thread - so any discussion regarding the historic imagery available through Google Earth (which shows some development progress of these 'structures'), here's a thread starter :)
I didn't see anything too exciting, though. I do wonder why so many of the buildings (especially to the north, near the 'airstrips' are rather blue).. could be image processing, but.. blue? Odd.
just like the ones for the back of your cell phone only bigger so they can communicate with their soon to be launched space station. Zoom in and you'll see a guy sitting in a bamboo chair with a radio in the upper left corner of the sticker.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
but WTF is this? http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458679,93.31314%09&hl=en&ll=40.474701,93.509531&spn=0.053604,0.132093&sll=40.458018,93.392587&sspn=0.0208,0.040426&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=14
Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
I think Google doesn't fly anywhere, they buy the rights to the aerial images.
Dilbert RSS feed
It's what's left of the US economy.
Posting to undo accidental mod.
... so maybe we're still finding out all that they corrupted. Or maybe this is the Chinese equivalent of crop circles.
(At least one commenter has quoted this thread without proper attribution.)
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=40.4375406&lon=93.5410309&z=12&l=0&m=b/
It says "Test target".
this time with an artistic twist
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This is defense against HAARP earthquake attacks.
There you are, staring at me again.
I'm disappointed.
Obviously it is a test rectenna field used to receive energy from microwaves generated by a new solar-geostationary-satellite (yet to be launched) and then generate electricity
The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit.
Keep in mind most Google Maps imagery comes from airplanes and not satellites*
*No, I did not RTFA or look at the images yet.
I'm not sure aerial photography is smiled upon over Chinese military test grounds.
That is what makes it so much fun.
Because the Chinese cannot be allowed to prevail in the random lines in the desert race. We must immediately invest billions of dollars of stimulus funding to eliminate the random lines in the desert gap.
So we have four images of Weird Stuff. I'm pretty sure I can get at least some information on the nature of two of them, if not the purpose.
First we have the Crazy Wide White Lines. If you look closely you see bits where the brown dirt intrudes on them, but it isn't clear whether the brown has been washed over them or the white has been washed away. However, here: http://tinyurl.com/6udmvce
you clearly see new gullies being formed, and taking the white stuff with it. So the white isn't a solid material; it's some kind of powder or paint, or maybe sand? Probably paint, as it hasn't been blown around by the wind; all the edges are very sharp except where gullies have cut over them. As for purpose, I don't know. Calibrating an orbital imaging system is quite possible; the material looks VERY reflective, which is exactly what you want to test your camera.
Then we have the Weird Grid Pattern, http://tinyurl.com/6s9vh7u . This is easy. Zoom in close. Reeeeal close. Oh look, it's tire tracks. This may be some kind of test for a new vehicle or navigation system, or just a prospecting operation or some other survey.
Then we have the Brown Squares And Blowed Up Trucks, http://tinyurl.com/86tx2e5 . The trucks are pretty obviously blown up, or at least derelict and strewn about. Dunno what the brown squares are, but they're flat on the ground, not raised or recessed; no shadows. And there's this square grid of markers as well, and a white splash mark in the middle. So I have no idea what it IS, but it LOOKS somewhat like an artillery target or something.
Then we have This Thing, http://tinyurl.com/ckxrbvr . And I'll say it, I'm stumped. It looks like three airplanes with Super Stonehenge around it. The airplanes have a wingspan of about 40 feet assuming the scale bar is correct, and each structure is something like 10-25 feet long and only a few wide. There's something like 8 taller towers scattered around the center, near the planes. The planes have long swept-back wings that certainly don't look like modern fighters or high-speed aircraft. A B-52 has a wingspan of 185 feet and an F-16 has a wingspan of 32 feet, so it's something closer to the smaller size scale. They all appear to be the same type of plane. Maybe China has decided to set up their own Burning Man?
Also, oh hey, look at this: http://tinyurl.com/7vdaccb Remind you of anything, albeit older and more beat up? It's just a bit north-east of Super Stonehenge, and if you keep going north-east you find a couple airstrips and mostly-run-down-looking buildings. Interesting, no?
Those look to me like tracks left in the ground by unmanned vehicles. Straight lines, random-ish changes, slighty dusty.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If you look here, right in the middle of all that stuff: 4028'32.25, 9329'9.24 you can see that someone has carefully bombed within the white lines while making sure to avoid the dark. Probably the huger line configurations are the same thing on a much greater scale. Kinda pointless, but if you have the money for crazily big target sites you might as well build them.
Then read his previous posts and he loses all credibility.
Easter eggs
Sig? Heil
And this mess:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=&aq=&sll=37.128297,-116.044807&sspn=0.110312,0.234833&vpsrc=0&ie=UTF8&ll=37.128297,-116.044807&spn=0.110312,0.234833&t=h&z=12
Not hardly.
3000 feet by a mile is smaller than your average airport, much less your average small town.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Anonymous has nothing on the Chinese!
Looking a bit to the southeast of the area of the 'etchings' you can see what seems to be a huge salt deposit. I bet they've uncovered their own Bonnevill Salt Flats type of area. It's pretty obvious that this is an overflow area for a couple of rivers in the area. They used some bulldozers or scrapers to uncover some of it, most likely to aid in assessing the extent of it. You can also see that dirt or sand has blown back over sections of it. The only other explanation is that they've intentionally spread some salt or chalk over these tracks. i do see one area that looks like they 'painted' over the side of a hill.
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
congrats, you just violated the espionage act in every way that bradley manning did. i hope you don't receive life in prison. if they strip you naked in prison, look up this organization in the phonebook: "ACLU".
Its only like Manning if the poster is in the Chinese Army.
I'm most interested in this double curve structure... 40.510163,93.236783 It is associated with a modest solar array. If you follow the roads, there is a very remote structure several miles in a nearby in line straight with, but offset from the concave structure. Antenna?
The last one looks a lot like the 'crazing' pattern on some famous Chinese pottery. It's a motif that shows up on some recent buildings, e.g. UC Berkeley's East Asian Library. So I would guess the Chinese Army/DoD made their pattern like that for pride purposes.
So you won't notice the giant boats they are building near Tibet to save all the rich people from the upcoming apocalypse.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
You're getting close. Hard to say for certain, though, whether they're targets for aerial or orbital sensors. Having worked on similar optical, IR and Radar ISR sensors, these look very familiar to the calibration targets and test ranges we used with those systems. Can't say much more, other than that for scientific sensors used to monitor atmospheric chemistry, we often used very large, flat areas with albedos as white and as spectrally pure as possible... think very large areas of uniform minerals like dry lake beds. On top of those were placed small point targets, and once we even had access to MTF targets built on the ground.
I'm guessing the third one is for radar -- synthetic aperture radar perhaps.
I can see the fnords!
How so? It matches broadly with what I know from publicly available resources.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Lots more good information available via Google Earth than via Google Maps. In particular, check out "historical imagery".
2003: Bare patch of desert
April 14, 2005: Lines are being constructed
May 30, 2005: Construction complete
No change since then, most recent images Nov 2010.
So while TFA says China is "building" these, really they built them 6 years ago. And they can't be "structures" either: there's no way a dozen trucks (see below) can construct 2 square km of anything substantial in two months.
The "under construction" image in April 2005 is most interesting. There's a depot on the west side with a dozen or so trucks, and what looks like a stockpile of messy white powder. If you look at the leading edges of the lines under construction, you can see what looks like dumped piles of white powder, and in some places white stuff has washed into a gully and been carried downstream.
One poster here said that "Those structures occupy some pretty treacherous hilly terrain, yet look perfectly straight from above", so it must be meant to be viewed from orbit. This is not the case: the land is a flat desert plain, with bumps a few meters high, sloping gradually 50 m downhill over 2 km.
My interpretation: bombing target, made of lime or some other white powder, spread over the ground to make complicated road patterns. Designed for practicing aerial bombing or artillery in an urban street map.
Could be an engineering schematic for their new rail system.
I'm going to say...
50% mining/prospecting/exploration. Those grids have very precise sets of four holes, dug in a sequence of six, every other 20 feet. That looks like grid mapping for acoustic imaging. Basically, the device is a giant shotgun that fires a slug of compressed air at the ground, making a boom. The listening equipment then observes the reflections.
20% illegal operations, possibly counterfeit drugs. From the blast marks on some of those sites, I'd say the drugs killed a few important people, so the military was either told, or decided on their own to have some "target practice".
30% artistic expression and/or just messing with people's heads. Sure, it's big? But if you've ever been to Chile, you'll see just how ambitious graffiti artists can be with nothing more than white trash bags and a mountain slope of 25 degrees.
[End Of Line]
Very interesting image, looks like a layout for a lego mindstorms bot. On the other hand ......I moved around a bit to the nearest area of habitation........ Do the Chinese like blue roof tiles?? or are the number of buildings with solar PV panels just staggering ? Try looking up a town like Xian on Google Earth and see if you can decide what the roof material is ....
TTFN
Last time I looked the Enterprise was still the longest carrier and it's a little over 1000 feet long. The longest container ship is about 1500 feet.
Those things that look kind of carrier shaped are several miles long. You could fit several large football stadiums on the deck of carriers as big as those . . whatever they are to the west of the giant cell phone antenna sticker.
If you are preparing something to be to scale, in the correct dimensions, it might be about right, even if a bit large. Look at the ground, it's uneven. This is about pattern recognition, not actual size.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And even then, it does not come close to what manning did.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So we can help a theocratic aristocracy who had serfs until the 1950s, or we can work with a "socialist" nation with a strong capitalist inclination. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
assuming that you are Zjpennington, you should take note of where manning is and where he will be in a couple of years. Over in reddit, you were speaking way too much. Keep in mind that not just American scanning occurs, but so does Chinese. In addition, Chinese spies are all over.
Not on comments they don't, what on earth led you to believe they edit the comments?
If anything, what follows backs him up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's just what they want you to think...
Lines on the map like some of these pictures are very common in outback Australia.
In our case they are survey tracks cut by trucks carrying out oil and mineral surveys.
Perhaps they are practicing image replacement for Google maps images to censor forbidden areas? They can use those markings for calibration.
If it's a fractal antenna then perhaps this allows the antenna to be much shorter than its wavelength and still radiate enough power to do something useful.
So what use would a extremely long wavelength radio transmitter/receiver be used for? Since it's in a military zone I'd guess it's so communicate with their growing fleet of nuclear subs (I don't know if they have ballistic missile subs but even attack subs need command and control). This is because these wavelengths penetrate water (and the amount of data that needs to be sent can be very small like "use attack plan F").
Of course if it was a scientific project I could imagine astronomers would be very interested in being able to look at this previously unexamined part of the spectrum (there was an Arthur C. Clarke story about a gigantic space based observatory that discovered incredibly huge space life forms through their use of this part of the spectrum). Or perhaps ultra-long wavelengths penetrate the ground for geological surveys?
Not to mention it's completely ripped off from a reddit post here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mat1s/there_appears_to_be_a_monumental_militaryscience/
Wait, reddit has text???
Only when the one dude who makes FFFUUUUUUU comics is sleeping.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I bet that's where they're training their Sardaukar! Where else can you do that but in deserts?
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.452107,93.742118&hl=en&ll=40.472808,93.517685&spn=0.105121,0.165997&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.323926,84.990234&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=13
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458679,93.31314%09&hl=en&ll=40.474701,93.509531&spn=0.053604,0.132093&sll=40.458018,93.392587&sspn=0.0208,0.040426&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=14
Except that they have a vested interest in keeping the US solvent...
Check them out on Google Earth. There is more and lots better detail...
It *seems* quite informative and on topic... But someone actually familiar with military hardware would have written SPY-1, not "Spy I". On top of which, the SPY-1 is a radar and only a part of the Aegis system - another mistake someone familiar with the military would not make.
Whoever was posting to reddit (linked elsethread) that this spammer copied from is just as bad. He *sounds* reasonable to the uninformed, but his posts are riddled with subtle errors And not the kind that indicate someone talking about classified stuff hiding his true knowledge. The kind that indicate someone who gets his knowledge of military matters from the Discovery Channel and conspiracy nutter message boards.
If you look at 4439'17.17" N 9334'24.30" E in Google Earth, at the historical image from 6/16/2009, you can see the things in action! Hard to tell whether they're autonomous, but they do seem to be laying down a grid of square tracks, with each square's side lengths almost exactly equal to 200 m. On the same date, at 4446'55.21" N 9333'57.41" E you can see work vehicles on the tracks running NE-SW. In contrast to the NW-SE tracks, these seem to be composed of something actually laid on the ground. This stuff looks like it actually could be metallic, judging from the many evident specular reflections off the material. Here we see the same 200x200 m squares, though the NW-SE lines composing this grid are themselves composed of repeated, faint groups of 24 dots arranged in 4x6 grids. In this picture, the stuff actually looks a lot like aluminum foil. Also, the thing is pointed right at the Mongolian border, which is about 7 miles away at closest approach. Maybe the NE-SW grid was a dry run for laying the NW-SE grid?
It looks like it's exactly 1km East-West and 2km North-South. It's pretty big. The strips are 20m wide, that's about 5.5 highway lanes. I doubt it's metal, looks like paint, but who knows? There are plenty of tire tracks too, around as well as on the strips. It can't be too important if they're driving on it.
In this image,
40.458638,93.390827
the crazy squiggly lines to to somewhat superimpose the same natural lines underneath.
And if you zoom in on that terrain, it is fucking crazy looking. Looks like a scene from an Aliens movie.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
What i would do.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
If you rotate the screen 90 degrees and squint your eyes, you will see that it spells: Cthulhu Fhtagn
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Right. On the other hand,Chinese company selling such images to Google surely has to get government approval first. In fact, even Chinese company getting permission to fly over military sites can be unlikely. So I'm surprised that we can see this at all.
This is a device designed to censor the internet through the minds of the webadmins who watched the satphotos.
The Chinese Government noticed the Great Firewall of China wasn't working. They saw the potential of virals and made a mind control image, big enough to be seen on Google Maps. They predicted the image would go viral and thus many bored webadmins would see it. At a time when enough webadmins have seen it the great leaders will send a signal through our TV's (wich they have hacked). From that moment on all the webadmins will start deleting all content containing keyphrases like "Free Tibet" and "Great Firewall of China". Thus all content against the Great Republic of China will be removed.
Al hail Hu Jintao!
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
What does the article mean by the term perfectly executed? From looking at the picture, I can't even see what might have inspired such a comment. It sound like one of those "facts" thrown into make UFO/alien stories sound more credible. "But these were perfectly executed!"
Where else should they build their giant structures? Private backyards?
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Hello,
I'm sure this will never be seen due to me being AC, but I've taken a look at a few of the target sites. I'll break them down with the coordinate groups helpfully provided above. tl;dr: The only ones that actually confuse me are the 'QR Codes', but I will still posit that they are pseudo-random 'road and runway' test targets designed to evaluate munition effectiveness in a given radius.
40.413766,93.583812
Bombing range for something that requires electro-optical (EO) or IR signature, or for testing something like submunition effectiveness on a given area with multiple types of targets. Presence of derelict vehicles, etc, as well as regularly spaced crush disk or pressure sensors (the small domey nubs dotted in a grid) seem to indicate this. The concrete pads could either be a testing pattern to be entered into a EO/IR sensor, or a simple visual aid for bombardiers. Think of how a tomahawk compares a downward image of its target to its onboard sensor to determine its presence over the target area. So either the boxes serve to show how effective a munition is on vehicles AND concrete, or it's a target signature of some sort.
40.472416,93.5079
As the other poster stated, runway and airfield test mockup. Bear in mind when looking at these images that most of them are going to be false-color, that is to say that the signatures are not always how they appear first-hand. The runway probably isn't made of tinfoil and those buildings are not coated in prussian blue, it's just how the sensor and coloring system depict the objects. he also correctly identified the runway-denial submunition impacts at the mock parking apron at the end of the runway.
40.108521,93.993434
Looks like a small farming village. Pretty consistent with plantings (they deploy grids of little tents over their rows of crops at times of the year) and normal farming life.
The QR codes are tough to say. There's a number of applications for unique and conspicuous patterns that are visible from air/space...
-Airborne sensor calibration (aircraft)
-Cruise missile guidance testing and development
-Bomb EO and IR sensor development and testing
-Space-based sensor geo-rectification (ie, I know to look here every day to verify my camera systems' look angle, elevation, etc) This is supported by their apparent accuracy relative to the sky rather than the earth.
The other things in TFA are also pretty consistent with bomb targets, especially the radial targets with varying sized panels. Typically these panels are arranged at varying vertical heights at varying distances from the center to analyze the blast fragmentation effects.
Theres spooky applications for the QR codes only if you look too far into them. I doubt they're any sort of antenna grid just because an antenna that large would require much more infrastructure around to power it, etc.
I looked at the photos, including the 1/500th Indian border map (not 1/20th) all are perfectly clear to me, the large blue facility is a mining operation, channels run to the mountains where the mining occurs, 2 of the sites are weapons testing sites (you can see the blast craters) the USA has the same stuff in the desert, the scaled down Indian border map is a for military planning purposes, an Indian newspaper contacted the Chinese and they told them what it is.
The patterned white lines aren't metal IMO *maybe* mylar or they appear to be moved earth or a chalk like substance and these photos are the only ones without a clear explanation, although if I had to guess I would say it's a test area for reflective temperature reduction as China has severe desertification issues, for a real world example Google "9/11 no fly temperature increase".
Keep in mind China knows we can see these things and they aren't hiding it from us, only from their own people if even that.
I'm sure this information has been posted ad naseum, it just cracks me up the assclowns at jizmodo make it into some X-files episode.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And the answer is supposed to be "42".
Owl tried to think of something wise to say, but couldn't.
Here in Utah, where the government seems to own most of the state, we have our own share of odd structures. Like these on the Dugway Proving Grounds:
http://g.co/maps/9uz4u
http://g.co/maps/yyyfk
http://g.co/maps/zs7c3
http://g.co/maps/vh7mf
http://g.co/maps/q2zg5
There are a gazillion odd things on the landscape of Earth. It seems most of them are either built by scientists, the military, or both.
My personal guess for the China structures is that it is something really boring. Like a geological study using satellites. Some of the structures do seem to be military/bombing related. However, I have to wonder if the squiggly line structures are related to a satellite based geological study. If you look close, it rather seems like some of the lines have been "moved" or are folded on itself by some natural process. Doesn't that seem like a lot of disruption in the soil for being less than a decade old? If I were a geologist, that might be just the kind of area I might want to research. Doubly so if I was trying to protect the many important archaeological artifacts found in that area of China. I might even try some anti-erosion studies, etc. Even more meaningful would be understanding how important those archaeological sites are to the economy. If they wash away, will tourists still pay to see a small mound of dirt?
Yeah, I know it isn't as exciting as space aliens... which I would much prefer to be true. ;-)
It's a bombing range for the Chinese military and it's been around for several years. The white lines are painted on the desert floor, and if you look slightly to the west, there are several other structures and designs, including two that look like the outlines of aircraft carrier decks or runways. Historical imagery shows several structures without craters or holes and more recent imagery shows the same structures bombed out (40.490942, 93.510788). Also, there is a bomb blast radius test site that has a few MiGs parked in it at (40.458554, 93.313121).
it's the latest installation by Ai Weiwei.
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
I would much rather train Fremen in the desert.
How did they build that green arrow so it always looks the same no matter how far you zoom in? It looks like it's ~25 feet tall when you zoom all the way in, and ~800 miles when zoomed all the way out.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Is this an antenna farm, or an array of mirrors?
These looks like a bunch of buildings that have been bombed.
Anyone recognize the street layout in the original picture? DC? London?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Those "aircraft carriers" look like landing strips. The brown one looks in ill repair, and the blue one has stuff around it and appears to be in good repair. Most likely they are landing strips for experimental aircraft, or even just for military training aircraft. Maybe this is just China's equivalent to Groom Lake.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Note to self: When you get Mod Points, double-check all links before you use them.
If you look to the west of the area in the article, you will see heaps of similar structures. In addition you'll also see what appear to be simulated airfields, town centres are other artifacts. All "painted" or somehow marked out on the ground. Some are faded, some white and others some irridescent blue. Check out the following coords.... ( 4028'40.59"N, 9328'47.41"E), ( 4029'25.92"N, 9328'9.02"E) and you'll see what I mean.
That would be Groom Lake bombing area, it is used for testing bombs (obvious?) and for training bombardiers.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
> Considering that he is basically a mass murderer...
Please cite specific examples where his actions have caused deaths. "Potential deaths" and "threats" do not count.
Also, please cease conflating treason with mass murder. Otherwise, you excuse any conceivable oppression under a fancy version of "think of the children".
> I am opposed to the death penalty except for treason.
Which is another way of saying that you are not opposed to the death penalty, particularly in light of your previous argument implying that mass murderers should ALSO get the death penalty.
Its the giant ships in prepration for 2012. Million$$ per head to get in!
The crazy boxes of lines look like they could be mock ups for streets in a city. It would be interesting if they corresponded with an actual street layout somewhere in the world. Probably used for training armored vehicles. I did notice that what is at 40.457985,93.369799 looks a lot like a scale model of a region. A lot of militarys have used scaled regional models to train tank commanders. The massive grid-lines look like Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, where the US tested chemical weapon dispersion, the same could be true for the lonely island of foliage and the reservoir. The antenna structure looks a lot more like an electrical substation without any equipment installed. I have one that looks like this near my house. It was built with the expectation that there was going to be a huge growth in the area, then the housing market crashed and, well... Others are obviously targets for training pilots or artillery. There are also several mock runways in the area that have craters in them also. The circular target looks like it is to test the dispersion of some kind of cluster munition. Well, that is all for my armchair intelligence observations.
Go to Wikileaks and look it up, I don't want to be doing searches that will end up with stories of child rape while at work. Its a well known American PMC that was and is offering children as bribes to get contracts and that same American PMC is hired by the US gov for contracts. Our response was NOT to sever all ties, NOT to have them arrested but instead to cover it up! So when you are not at work look up "Afghanistan child sex slave" and I'm sure the story will be on the first page.
I'm sorry but that is the actions of a sick and corrupted regime with no moral authority left and YOU sir are sick and corrupted if you support them. if it weren't for Manning we would have never known that 10 year old boys are being bought and sold with American tax dollars and those SAME people were doing the exact same shit in kosovo during the action in the late 90s and again the USA did NOTHING but help them cover up the scandals. totally fucking sick and frankly i don't give a shit WHY Manning chose to blow the lid off the cabal that is our relationship with PMCs I'm damned glad he did it!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
then you would understand what im talking about.
awesome
It's the mercury nuclear test site. Those craters are (mostly) not the result of bombs being dropped on the ground, but rather nuclear bombs being set off thousands of feet underground and usually the ground collapses some time after the bomb has gone off.
... Brown Squares And Blowed Up Trucks, http://tinyurl.com/86tx2e5 ... a white splash mark in the middle ...
The white splash mark looks like a dispersal pattern originating from the center point, as would be caused by wind or blast from the other side. In keeping with the artillery target theory, it could be some kind of marker to measure the force or blast characteristics of an explosion.
IANAPIA (I Am Not A Photo Intelligence Analyst), so don't take this as proof of anything.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Baidu is looking for new talent. "All your Googles PhDs are belong to us." As far as I can tell it has something to do with some sales person meandering around trying to find some sort of preferred path. Perhaps the shortest? Can't be sure... Oh, and they're getting a sense of humor too.
I bet that's where they're training their Sardaukar! Where else can you do that but in deserts?
Think of what the military did to surface vessels during WW II.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
'Interesting' stuff. More like sad and horrible stuff. It really shows how badly we have decayed. According to wiki, this was being investigated PRIOR to wikileak. Of course, that begs the question, what public knowledge did for punishment? Would this have been swept under the table without public knowledge?
HOWEVER, that changes nothing. What you are saying is in spite of Manning's attempt to hurt America, he is a hero because we found out about this. That is not the case. What Manning did was NOT out of a sense of responsibility, or an attempt to right a wrong. He did it to PUNISH America. My understanding was that even he did not know what he was releasing. He was just grabbing what he could. That makes him a traitor. Nothing more. And he is a really bad one at that. He was caught. Manning will either swing or be shot. And he deserves it. He has put America at risk. Worst of all, He has put our troops at risk.
Compare Manning to Daniel Ellsberg and Russo. Ellsberg/Russo released what they did due to their disgust with what they knew and what they knew to be wrong. It was an attempt to correct a wrong.
Can you tell me that Manning was releasing this information to try and correct the wrongs in those items? Can you tell me that all that was released to Wikileaks was about the wrongs done by USA? If not, then what it says, is that Manning was simply our to hurt America.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No I think evil can come from good and good can come from evil. I mean the founding fathers were slave holders that didn't think any that didn't own land should vote, didn't make any of the feats they accomplished any less great did it? Manning may have had selfish reasons but what he did accomplished good as it got many to wake up and see what was happening to this country.
When you have acts like the above condoned by the government, when you have that video of the pilots laughing and joking as they blow the family away, that was a BIG slap in the face for those "the government wouldn't lie" types.
I have to wonder if movements like OWS and the masses no longer believing in their congressmen (more than 68% last poll I saw) can't be traced right back to Wikileaks first opening their eyes to the blatant lies. there have been pieces on frontline, worldwide media reports, most of the USA got a nice taste of the dirty dealing we have been doing in these foreign lands and I think one day Manning will get credit for that.
Finally follow the money trail, notice that while they say "this was being investigated" that the PMC involved is STILL getting big fat government contracts and that this first came to light when they pulled the same stunt with little girls in Kosovo. what was that? 96? Their "investigations" appear to be "Would you try to keep it on the down low? Thanks, oh and here's a check". it just goes to show what the OWS people have finally figured out, if you have money or position you can get away with ANYTHING.
Oh one final piece to turn your stomach, look up " child porn pentagon" to see what happens when they tried to follow the money trail of a major CP supplier, guess where many of their customers were surfing their filth? You guessed it, you know they fear nothing when they are surfing CP on government property, oh and they didn't get arrested so i guess their lack of fear was justified. i'm just glad my family that fought in WWII aren't here to see the scum that have taken over, truly sick and evil.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Believing that good can come from evil is different than saying that an evil person is a hero and should not be prosecuted. And yes, Manning was evil in that his intentions was not to right a wrong, but in working to destroy America. Well, he severely hurt America. However, as to good that may come from his evil, there is a lot. For starters, I am quite sure that the software security was jumped way up. We in the USA do not take our national security serious anymore (DHS is a joke). That has changed somewhat.
As tot he rest, I will say that we were not angels in WWII (or any war). I have talked to a few troops that saw our side commit atrocities. One dad of an ex-gf told me somethings that I will not repeat here. However, he was changed from it and for what I heard of it, I would be too. And I am not just talking about the killing which the man saw and did a lot of.
As to the laughing and all that, keep in mind, that we are asking these men and women to do a HORRIFIC thing: To go out and kill an enemy who is also a human. As such, we train them to NOT see ppl on the other side of the gun. If we do not do this, then we will lose many many troops. Keep in mind that the other side does this. AQ and Taliban teach their troops that unless you belong to them that you can be killed like a pig. Just look at the torture that AQ was all too happy to video and display. And that was minor compared to what AQ did to those that they captured (it does not get much press, but AQ is very vicious).
Finally, add to that the fact that we do not train our troops to OCCUPY, which is what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem with both of those situations, is that W/cheney/rumsfeld made so many errors in their greed of trying to get to Iraq. No, the laughter and all that is normal. Would these ppl be doing this before their training? Nope. Our troops are trained to try and discern the difference between enemy and friendly. The problem becomes when you occupy, the famlies turn into enemies. I mean if somebody was occupying America, I would expect that my wife and I would do the same (not with our kids, but our selves). We have lost a number of troops because AQ/taliban has used these children as weapons. Pretty sick, I would say. However, from their POV, it is easy enough to breed more. And yes, AQ has LITTLE issues with using women and children for their jobs. I have heard that several of the children that blew up might have been OBL's children. So, when you see the videos of our troops with maniacal laughter about killing what is seen as being the enemy, do not be in a hurry to blame them for that. That is a normal response to a horrific situation. If it bothers you, that is understandable. It should. BUT, these men/women are being asked to do a horrible thing, so it must be allowed.
OTH, the one that you SHOULD be upset about are the troop that was found guilty of take war prizes, or rape, or taking ppl out to be beaten and killed, all without orders. NONE OF THAT is in the training. In fact, it goes against ALL OF THE TRAINING that our troops are given. Those kinds of ppl typically have real issues that would have been manifested in a different way back here. BTW, in my mind, Manning fits these later ppl. He was not out to STOP something in the same way that Elsberg was. He was out to inflict as much pain on others.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You may find this interesting. War really is hell. Ppl think that the winners were good throughout, but that is rarely the case. That is why we work hard to train our troops and what to expect. I doubt that we have changed the laughter, etc. though. That is a normal reaction.
HOWEVER, after a decade of horror and with what W/Cheney/Rumsfeld having the DOD make our troops sign up over and over, I am not surprised by some of our troops reactions. To be honest, some of this, makes a case for bringing back the draft. When I was in my 20s and we allowed women to go to war, I figured that it would be difficult for us to go to war anymore. Yet, reagan and W have started war after war after war. America has NEVER had so many wars. It shows that we are way too powerful and have not had inflicted the massive losses on our side necessary to stop bad poticians from going to war. At this time, I prefer to vote for ppl that have been to war. And I mean, have really seen it. That is why I liked ppl like Poppa Bush, JFK and Eisenhower. These men actually watched many ppl die. OTH, ppl like reagan and W were simply chicken hawks that think that might makes right.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.