Google Earth

Von Fourche wrote:

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in
message .com...


On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:19:08 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):



If you ever run into a thing that looks like a Star Of David with the
points rounded, that's a SA-2 "Guideline" SAM site.
It's very distinctive:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...dd/Sa2site.jpg
These were the "flying telephone poles" from Vietnam, and the missile
that downed Francis Gary Powers' U-2.


Speaking of weird, mysterious **** in the middle of the desert, plug
these lat/long coordinates into your favorite imaging program and tell
me what you see. Anyone got a clue what the hell this huge, white
square surrounded by an even bigger ring road in the middle of White
Sands is? I mean, this thing is HUGE. You make it out from over a
hundred miles high.

33 36'14.97"N, 106 35'27.39"W





That image is what I was talking about in my other post. It's South
West of Trinity.



THANKS! That's just the clue I needed!
It's the base camp for the Trinity test as shown on this map:
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhatta...teMapLarge.jpg
That's about 10 miles SW from ground zero; and that's just where it's
located.
The image also lines up nicely with the lava beds to the WSW.

Pat

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Could be, but that map is for Trinity isn't it? This site is miles
southwest of the Trinity site. Unless you're suggesting this is the
site of another (larger) air- or surface-burst test? Could well be.


Nope, it's the base camp for the Trinity test personnel, that's why its
got the circular security road or fence around it.
The big rectangular area in the middle is where the buildings or tents
went so the ground was cleared.
The rectangular area shows up on this map (although the orientation is
off), and the mystery object is exactly where the base camp is in
relation to ground zero and the dark lava beds:
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhatta...teMapLarge.jpg
I assume the group of buildings to the ENE of the base camp site is the
visitor's center.

Pat

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 12:32:19 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):



Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Could be, but that map is for Trinity isn't it? This site is miles
southwest of the Trinity site. Unless you're suggesting this is the
site of another (larger) air- or surface-burst test? Could well be.


Nope, it's the base camp for the Trinity test personnel, that's why its
got the circular security road or fence around it.

I'm not so sure about that. Why would they have cleared such a huge
space? I never recall reading that they established such a huge
perimeter around the base camp for the test.

The big rectangular area in the middle is where the buildings or tents
went so the ground was cleared.

Why so damned big? It's almost 2/3 of a mile on a side? And why
maintain all the perimeter roads so well 60 years after the fact?

The rectangular area shows up on this map (although the orientation is
off), and the mystery object is exactly where the base camp is in
relation to ground zero and the dark lava beds:
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhatta...teMapLarge.jpg

The orientation is way off and distance is wrong. In fact, if the lava
fields are the same as depicted on that map, the entire scale is off.

The map you linked shows the base camp at 10 miles off. The center of
the Big Square is less than 8.5 miles away. And it's much bigger than
the camp site shown on the map. Very odd.

I assume the group of buildings to the ENE of the base camp site is the
visitor's center.

Pat



--
Herb

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
~ RAH

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 12:18:11 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):



Von Fourche wrote:

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in
message .com...


On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:19:08 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):



If you ever run into a thing that looks like a Star Of David with the
points rounded, that's a SA-2 "Guideline" SAM site.
It's very distinctive:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...dd/Sa2site.jpg
These were the "flying telephone poles" from Vietnam, and the missile
that downed Francis Gary Powers' U-2.


Speaking of weird, mysterious **** in the middle of the desert, plug
these lat/long coordinates into your favorite imaging program and tell
me what you see. Anyone got a clue what the hell this huge, white
square surrounded by an even bigger ring road in the middle of White
Sands is? I mean, this thing is HUGE. You make it out from over a
hundred miles high.

33 36'14.97"N, 106 35'27.39"W





That image is what I was talking about in my other post. It's South
West of Trinity.



THANKS! That's just the clue I needed!
It's the base camp for the Trinity test as shown on this map:
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhatta...teMapLarge.jpg
That's about 10 miles SW from ground zero; and that's just where it's
located.
The image also lines up nicely with the lava beds to the WSW.

Pat

I don't think so. It's too big, the scale is wrong, it's too close to
Ground Zero (per the map you link to) and there's no plausible reason
why it should remain so well-delineated after so long. I suspect that
perhaps the base camp was somewhere near the southwest edge of the Big
Square there 60 years ago, but that the area was used for something
else more recently.

--
Herb

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
~ RAH

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Nope, it's the base camp for the Trinity test personnel, that's why its
got the circular security road or fence around it.



I'm not so sure about that.

It's in exactly the right place by bearing and distance from ground
zero to be the camp, and is of the same square shape shown on the map.

Why would they have cleared such a huge
space?


Because the area would be covered with rocks and scrub brush; under the
rocks is where the scorpions would be lurking, in the scrub brush is
where the rattlesnakes would be hiding. And come nightfall everything
would start to move around.
So they probably just bulldozed the area flat and barren.

I never recall reading that they established such a huge
perimeter around the base camp for the test.



I never did either, but it would make sense from a security point of
view considering all the important scientists and equipment that would
be there. They might have thought that all the construction might
attract the curious...or worse yet, spies.
Alternately, the ring road may have been a postwar addition.



The big rectangular area in the middle is where the buildings or tents
went so the ground was cleared.



Why so damned big? It's almost 2/3 of a mile on a side? And why
maintain all the perimeter roads so well 60 years after the fact?



There probably was a barren area around the camp proper for the
above-mentioned animal reasons; you also need parking and stowage space
for all the vehicles, construction equipment, and supplies involved.
This site is in the middle of nowhere so you need food and water for
everyone.
As to why the perimeter and area itself are so well preserved...see
below. This page has photos of the base camp back in the Trinity days:
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/tpixind.htm#
Here's an aerial shot of the camp itself:
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/Trinity...es/aircamp.jpg



The rectangular area shows up on this map (although the orientation is
off), and the mystery object is exactly where the base camp is in
relation to ground zero and the dark lava beds:
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhatta...teMapLarge.jpg



The orientation is way off and distance is wrong. In fact, if the lava
fields are the same as depicted on that map, the entire scale is off.

Checked out exactly by my measurements. The Trinity test site isn't the
circular thing next to the buildings to the ENE of the mystery object,
but is located well above it and fairly inconspicuous unless you really
zoom in on it. The key to finding it is the road layout.
And if I had been using my brain earlier I would have thought of
ditching Google maps and going over to the far higher resolution
Terraserver map of the area:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c
Trinity is to the upper right, the mystery object is in the lower left
corner and a abandoned mystery complex in the lower right corner. These
photos are from 1996, and show two new new circular areas to the N & NW
of the mystery object:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c
When you zoom in on them, you will note that each of these areas has
strange circular markings like a phonograph record...could these be
gravity wave furrows created as the alien saucers burrowed into the
ground, only now to be found tens of thousands of years later?
Well...possibly, but as a North Dakotan, they look a lot like the
patterns left by irrigation equipment as it rotates.
I think the Google image shows the start of a land reclamation project
on the old Base Camp site, and the Terraserver image shows it pretty
much finished.
This is pretty interesting though:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c
Those look like something that anti-aircraft guns would go in, or even
the dread SA-2 missile battery, so maybe this is a target range of some
sort and that ring road is to keep the unwary out of harm's way.
Here's a close-up of the Trinity Ground Zero BTW:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c
Question of the week is what is all this about?:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c
It's not a visitor's center like I thought, and looks abandoned.
Is this something rocket related? There are those three roads at the top
that converge on what looks like a launch pad or test stand:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c

Pat

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:42:08 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):



Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Nope, it's the base camp for the Trinity test personnel, that's why its
got the circular security road or fence around it.



I'm not so sure about that.

It's in exactly the right place by bearing and distance from ground
zero to be the camp, and is of the same square shape shown on the map.


I'm still not entirely convinced but I'm going to reserve judgment
until I've read your post in greater detail. I think whatever that
location is (as depicted by Google Earth/Maps currently) it isn't
merely the leftover base camp. Like I said, it may be a larger,
superset of the area covered by that original base camp at one time,
but I think there's more to it than that.

On the Google Earth Community BBS, I found one reference to it as the
"Stallion W.I.T." whatever that is. Interestingly, googling that
phrase turns up one relevant hit: a November 2005 list of permanent
latrines scattered throughout White Sands showing locations, how often
they're serviced and who to contact about it . . . ;-)

Anyway, I'll check out that Terraserver imagery and see what it shows.

--
Herb

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
~ RAH

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in
message .com...

THANKS! That's just the clue I needed!
It's the base camp for the Trinity test as shown on this map:
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhatta...teMapLarge.jpg
That's about 10 miles SW from ground zero; and that's just where it's
located.
The image also lines up nicely with the lava beds to the WSW.

Pat

I don't think so. It's too big, the scale is wrong, it's too close to
Ground Zero (per the map you link to) and there's no plausible reason
why it should remain so well-delineated after so long. I suspect that
perhaps the base camp was somewhere near the southwest edge of the Big
Square there 60 years ago, but that the area was used for something
else more recently.

Don't forget there was a lot of ground level work done at Trinity after the
big boom, just to find out what exactly happens. Isn't all of the Trinitite
gone, for that reason?
-
Jim

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 18:33:44 -0600, James Nowotarski wrote
(in article
):

Don't forget there was a lot of ground level work done at Trinity after the
big boom, just to find out what exactly happens. Isn't all of the Trinitite
gone, for that reason?
-
Jim

The imagery Pat linked to in the other sub-thread show the area in much
higher resolution and are probably of more recent vintage. As Pat
suggests, those images seem to show that the entire inner area appears
to have been cleaned or turned in a circular fashion - there appears to
be grooves or runnels throughout the whole area, perhaps in preparation
for some future use that might require relatively clean terrain. A
new, calibrated test range of some sort? There are a variety of new
deep-earth penetrator weapons under design currently - perhaps this
large circular area is being prepped and instrumented for tests of
those? Or perhaps it's a bounded-off disposal area for
lightly-contaminated surface materials from other locations? Who
knows. I did find a reference to it being called the "Stallion
W.I.T." but nothing much more.

Either way, Terraserver's images are higher res and more recent, but
damn, I love being able to scroll and move around so fluidly in Google
Maps on broadband and let me tell you, flying around the world in
Google Earth is damn near hypnotic! If you haven't tried that app, you
really should.

--
Herb

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
~ RAH

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

On the Google Earth Community BBS, I found one reference to it as the
"Stallion W.I.T." whatever that is. Interestingly, googling that
phrase turns up one relevant hit: a November 2005 list of permanent
latrines scattered throughout White Sands showing locations, how often
they're serviced and who to contact about it . . . ;-)

Anyway, I'll check out that Terraserver imagery and see what it shows.


The level of detail is far, far, higher than the Google maps. On the
Terraserver image the whole area in the rectangle (actually the
rectangle isn't there anymore or maybe it was put in after 1996, but
that wouldn't explain where the circular feature above it went) is
pretty much empty except for that odd thing that looks like a abandoned
AA or SAM site. At least this lets you see that the circle around the
rectangle is a road, not a wall, although there may be a fence
associated with it as the design (a circle subdivided into fourteen
straight segments) is identical to the one around ground zero.
An alternative to the irrigation theory is that the soil has been plowed
by something driving in a spiral out from the center point of the two
large circles.
What I'm interested in now is the abandoned complex of the east of the
circular thing- this looks like it could be rocket related, particularly
given that those roads converge north of it, much as one would expect
them to do at a launch pad. These are major roads and quite wide...when
I first saw them I thought they might be runways due to their width.
There is also some sort of a circular feature at the heart of this complex:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...e+sands+%7c%7c
The remnants of a blockhouse? A raised diamond-shaped structure (if I'm
reading the shadows right), and what may be a explosives storage bunker.
The whole area is a complex spider web of roads and paths, one of which
leads straight up to the Trinity test site.

Pat

James Nowotarski wrote:

Don't forget there was a lot of ground level work done at Trinity after the
big boom, just to find out what exactly happens. Isn't all of the Trinitite
gone, for that reason?



I found this interesting story of where some of it ended up:
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/Trinity...es/sleepin.htm
My late uncle had a piece of it. He was Civil Defense director for our town.

Pat