ORAC
10th Jan 2013, 08:50
Wired: What Did Google Earth Spot in the Chinese Desert? Even an Ex-CIA Analyst Isn’t Sure (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/google-earth-china-hunh/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WiredDangerRoom+%28Wired%3A+Blog+-+Danger+Room%29&utm_content=Google+Reader&pid=1745)
Late last month, former CIA analyst Allen Thomson was clicking through a space news website when he noticed a story about a new orbital tracking site being built near the small city of Kashgar in southwestern China. Curious, he went to Google Earth to find it. He poked around for a while, with no luck. Then he came across something kind of weird.
Thomson, who served in the CIA from 1972 to 1985 and as a consultant to the National Intelligence Council until 1996, has made something of a second career finding odd stuff in public satellite imagery. He discovered these giant grids etched into the Chinese desert (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/colossal-structures-china/) in 2011, and a suspected underground missile bunker (http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1784/suspect-missile-facility-near-tabriz-iran) in Iran in 2008. When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a mysterious facility in Syria the year before, Thomson put together an 812-page dossier (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/04/american-spies/) on the so-called “Box on the Euphrates.” Old analyst habits die hard, it seems.
But even this old analyst is having trouble ID’ing the objects he found in the overhead images of Kashgar. “I haven’t the faintest clue what it might be — but it’s extensive, the structures are pretty big and funny-looking, and it went up in what I’d call an incredible hurry,” he emails.
So he’d like your help in solving this little mystery. What follows are 10 images of the site. If you’ve got ideas on what might be there, leave ‘em in the comments, drop me a note ([email protected]), or find me on Twi**er or Faceb**k. I’ll pass it on to Thomson.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/wp-content/gallery/china-mystery-structures/mystery-complex.png
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/wp-content/gallery/china-mystery-structures/western-structures-16-november-2011.png
Late last month, former CIA analyst Allen Thomson was clicking through a space news website when he noticed a story about a new orbital tracking site being built near the small city of Kashgar in southwestern China. Curious, he went to Google Earth to find it. He poked around for a while, with no luck. Then he came across something kind of weird.
Thomson, who served in the CIA from 1972 to 1985 and as a consultant to the National Intelligence Council until 1996, has made something of a second career finding odd stuff in public satellite imagery. He discovered these giant grids etched into the Chinese desert (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/colossal-structures-china/) in 2011, and a suspected underground missile bunker (http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1784/suspect-missile-facility-near-tabriz-iran) in Iran in 2008. When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a mysterious facility in Syria the year before, Thomson put together an 812-page dossier (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/04/american-spies/) on the so-called “Box on the Euphrates.” Old analyst habits die hard, it seems.
But even this old analyst is having trouble ID’ing the objects he found in the overhead images of Kashgar. “I haven’t the faintest clue what it might be — but it’s extensive, the structures are pretty big and funny-looking, and it went up in what I’d call an incredible hurry,” he emails.
So he’d like your help in solving this little mystery. What follows are 10 images of the site. If you’ve got ideas on what might be there, leave ‘em in the comments, drop me a note ([email protected]), or find me on Twi**er or Faceb**k. I’ll pass it on to Thomson.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/wp-content/gallery/china-mystery-structures/mystery-complex.png
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/wp-content/gallery/china-mystery-structures/western-structures-16-november-2011.png