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What Did Google Earth Spot In the Chinese Desert?

Posted by Unknown on from the secret-alien-base dept.

New submitter snooz_crash writes "An Ex-CIA analyst requests your assistance in IDing a base that he has been observing for quite a while. The base has been in existence for several years, but its shape and location do not lead to an immediate answer to the riddle of 'what the heck is it?'"

6 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't it obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's a cleverly designed denial of service attack against the CIA/NSA/etc. By making them waste time trying to figure out what this base is, they're keeping them from discovering actual information.

  2. Maybe.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe that's why he's an ex-CIA analyst.

  3. Ummm.... maybe go there? by mark-t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You'd get a pretty good idea, I think... if you simply went to the area. If it's a secure location, you'd get some idea of what it is based on the type of people who are guarding the entrance.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:Ummm.... maybe go there? by Albanach · · Score: 5, Funny

      Go there, who does that these days? Click street view and read what the sign above the door says.

  4. Ikea store by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Blue roof, yellow trim. Built on cheap land for no good reason. Duh! It's an Ikea store.

  5. Re:Factory by dwye · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But the quickest route to Paris is now over land, not water.

    But the cheapest way is still to ship things by ship, not plane or rail. Even if the USA was reduced to trade insignificance, the trading areas in the SE are still better situated to deal with India and East Africa (all those untapped resources, yum) than Western China, which hasn't been close to anywhere since the Silk Road closed down.

    Why are there so many people in Atlanta? It's nowhere. What, all there for the peach plantations?

    Sorry, but it is on a river. Probably the end of the navigable section (or at least once was -- inland cities often grow up at portages), and it grew up as a collection spot for the cotton plantations. Pre-Civil War, cotton was the biggest US export.

    Many large cities started from nothing.

    Barring Persepolis, Berlin, Washington DC, Riyadh, and Brasilia (all sacred capitals rather than pre-existing natural cities), name them.

    The only thing you need is water, and even Phoenix didn't need that.

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but my maps show Phoenix on the Salt River, a major tributary of the Gila River, a tributary of the Colorado, so before LA started sucking it all dry they had loads of water, probably even a navigable channel out to the Gulf Of California.

    Cities grow up when people have a reason to stay THERE, rather than a day's journey or more away. They stay around when there is still a reason to stay there when things change (hence the lack of population in most Western ghost towns), or when the change is not big enough to make enough of a difference.