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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?
Lonely satellite making copies of Nazca.
Because all of his links go to ads?
And the worms ate into his brain.
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
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)
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
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
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
Looks agricultural. Maybe they're growing tea or some other crop. Probably have a good set of wells nearby or an aquaduct.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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/
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/
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
Not that! See the green arrow! http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458679,93.31314%09&hl=en&ll=40.460662,93.359842&spn=0.053615,0.132093&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.
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.
The more I looked at it the more I figured it to be a mock-up of some roads. Someone pointed out a few of the outlines to the west look like aircraft cariers. I suspect if you can find where in the world these lines fit roads (my guess is in the vicinity of some nation's capitol city) you'll have an answer - target practice.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=40.4375406&lon=93.5410309&z=12&l=0&m=b/
It says "Test target".
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?
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.
Some of the features are overlaid by terrain. They're real. A friend sent me another link that included these and several more. Sorry, I don't have it to share.
One of the features on the other link was an airport. The runway and taxiway were bordered by the same white lines. They also had another airport right beside (but aligned differently) was newer. There were no actual paved runways, just the white lines representing where it should be.
The lines would be easily put down by a spray truck.
If you zoom in with Google Maps on the first image, you can see where dirt has washed across the lines to some degree in places. You'll also see the paint washed away from the lines.
There are plenty of vehicle tracks around the lines.
All in all, it looks like some economical setups for military exercises. It's a lot cheaper to set up a tent city with painted lines representing roads and runways, than to build a a practice city.
Some of the buildings look like they were blown up. Air strikes, or done by ground troops, who knows. Either one is a possibility.
For the most part, they look like they haven't been used in a while. And singe Google Maps images are delayed by years, we're looking at old training areas, that were old 5 years ago.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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. ;-)