If you zoom in on Google Earth, you’ll find the well-defined image of what appears to be an older-style small aircraft with a 10 m wingspan, about 200 m NNW of the precise southwest corner of the structure. Peter, above, identifies it as an old WWII airfield, so this is no surprise. The plane is evidently not in use, as can be inferred from the lack of ruts around it — except for a curious bluish smudge forward of the plane that does look a lot like wheel marks. I wonder what that represents? I’m thinking it is the remant of some sort of rail an unpowered plane could be mounted on and moved around on the site.
If you view this from an elevation of 500 m in Google Earth and adjust so that the triangle is in the bottom left of your screen, two other interesting man-made structures are visible: Circle City, which is a small town deliberately laid out to look like a crop circle, which is about 10 km NNE of the triangle; and the Chrysler proving ground, which is a (vehicle) driving range laid out in various geometric figures, found about 14 Km ENE of the triangle.
Jeremy
May 13, 2011 6:58 am
I’m guessing it’s a telescope array on a mountain.
David Madsen
May 13, 2011 6:59 am
I’m going to join with the abandoned WW2 airfields crowd. You can see another triangle just East of the one shown where a more modern (but equally abandoned) airfield has been constructed. My Google Earth has an icon designating this 2nd field as an auxilliary airfield to Luke AFB.
Some comments have been made regarding the Toyota Proving grounds. Those show up West of the triangle in question. Also in the general vicinity, I found the Chrysler proving grounds (NE of Wittmann) and the Volvo Proving Grounds (SE end of abandoned Luke AFB Aux Airfield).
Bob Johnston
May 13, 2011 7:00 am
Obviously more funds will be needed to study the phenomenon…
Andy
May 13, 2011 7:01 am
Old airfield seems likely….there is an abandoned plane just off the south-west corner:
33°44’36.52″N, 112°38’25.54″W
R. Craigen
May 13, 2011 7:20 am
Hmm, I missed a few things.
For one thing, viewing altitude for the above experiement is not 500 m (I’m reading Google Earth wrong), it is 12 km.
10 Km ESE of the triangle is another triangle (a right-triangle) found as part of an active airfield. Two Km beyond that is the Volvo proving ground, also geometrically pleasing though less interesting than the Chrysler one.
Another right-triangle that is probably related to an older air base can be found 20.5 Km ESE, a little northward of the two above features.
The Phoenix raceway can be found just NW of the Volvo track, but is less impressive than both the Chrysler and the Volvo facilities.
There is a lovely Dam site 10 Km SW of the triangle, but Google Earth doesn’t label it, even though it looks like a pretty significant structure.
The Chrysler proving ground is twice the size of the Volvo one, but there is yet another oval at least twice as large again (it’s long diagonal is almost 7 km), containing another, more “challenging” track, located 15 km due W from the triangle. This is surely another proving ground (Ford or GM maybe?) but the track is cryptically labelled N. 303rd Ave., which I take to be someone’s joke.
20 km due N of the mystery proving ground is another triangle, but this one is different in nature: Los Cabalerros Golf club, with the fairways contrasting green against the dry Arizona landscape, and laid out in a triangle.
Gotta watch it, this could get addictive…
Mike from Canmore
May 13, 2011 7:21 am
It’s a picture of a triangle.
Rick Lynch
May 13, 2011 7:47 am
The “center line” in the surprise triangle is very definitely a street. You can see it on Google streetview.
Rick Lynch
May 13, 2011 7:50 am
As I look at it again, the street is not the center line, but there is a street that nearly bisects the triangle.
My educated guess, assuming this is not; photo-shopped imaging or a fake, and assuming we have shifting magnetic poles . . . that these triangles are for “triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly (trilateration). ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation
In order to make our GPS’s work . . . “better, faster and more accurately” . . . If they are not, being used for that . . . . They should, could be!
anticlimactic
May 13, 2011 7:59 am
One idea is that the universe is just a huge computer simulation ….. looks like a scroll bar!
All the bomber training bases built during the second world war in Nebraska look pretty similar to your desert triangle. There were at least half a dozen. Most are now municipal airports. I immediately correlated it visually with runways. The lack of hanger or structures? Maybe an auxiliary field at an old air base – nothing stationed there just a place to go and practice landings and take-offs?
coaldust
May 13, 2011 8:37 am
EternalOptimist says:
May 13, 2011 at 12:57 am At first I thought it was an airfield.
But there is no surface station
There doesn’t appear to be any nearby asphalt or A/C units to increase the temperature, so why would they put one there?
Olen
May 13, 2011 9:08 am
It is either a Masonic symbol pointing to a Knights Templar site or a touch and go practice landing strip. Or put there by a geometry obsessive compulsive.
Douglas DC
May 13, 2011 10:02 am
The US Navy built literally hundreds of them in WW2 they seemed to prefer triangles more than the Army did. Both did however. Aux fields, training bases. Madras, Oregon is a good example. So was Pasco Wa. until a major revamp back in the early 70’s.
Corvallis Oregon, too as I recall… The Army built Madras, btw…
Kelvin Vaughan
May 13, 2011 10:06 am
It’s a device for removing co2 from the atmosphere. One side extracts c and the other sides each extract o.
Brandon Caswell
May 13, 2011 10:12 am
They are airfields. A handy layout as they allow you to always take off or land into the wind, no matter what direction it is.
There is one about 10 miles from me at 50.23.21.71N and 107.45.26.48W. The building is gone but there is an old bunker underground, not sure if it is actually explorable. It was part of a training facility in the area during ww2. This is actually the smaller second base, the main one is still being used as our city airport.
Robert A
May 13, 2011 10:17 am
‘Captain, if you look at it at 100X magnification you can see cigarette butts left by the sentries – this just has to be man made.”
“So let me see if I got this right. A twenty million dollar computer tells you that you got a triangular geographic anomaly but you don’t believe it and you come up with this?”
‘But Captain…”
“Relax Jonesey, you sold me, we just got to phone this in. If I get close enough, can you track it?” REPLY: Yes but the triangle is neither Red, nor evidence of it being made in October – great book and movie BTW – Anthony
Well, the former auxiliary airfield crowd seems to have it, which spoils my fine detective work. If you look just to the east you’ll find Patton Acres and Patton Estates, and just to the south is Patton Road, so naturally, I figured this had something to do with the triangular patch of the 2nd Armored Division. Brilliant (if I do say so myself,) but evidently wrong.
If you zoom in on Google Earth, you’ll find the well-defined image of what appears to be an older-style small aircraft with a 10 m wingspan, about 200 m NNW of the precise southwest corner of the structure. Peter, above, identifies it as an old WWII airfield, so this is no surprise. The plane is evidently not in use, as can be inferred from the lack of ruts around it — except for a curious bluish smudge forward of the plane that does look a lot like wheel marks. I wonder what that represents? I’m thinking it is the remant of some sort of rail an unpowered plane could be mounted on and moved around on the site.
If you view this from an elevation of 500 m in Google Earth and adjust so that the triangle is in the bottom left of your screen, two other interesting man-made structures are visible: Circle City, which is a small town deliberately laid out to look like a crop circle, which is about 10 km NNE of the triangle; and the Chrysler proving ground, which is a (vehicle) driving range laid out in various geometric figures, found about 14 Km ENE of the triangle.
I’m guessing it’s a telescope array on a mountain.
I’m going to join with the abandoned WW2 airfields crowd. You can see another triangle just East of the one shown where a more modern (but equally abandoned) airfield has been constructed. My Google Earth has an icon designating this 2nd field as an auxilliary airfield to Luke AFB.
Some comments have been made regarding the Toyota Proving grounds. Those show up West of the triangle in question. Also in the general vicinity, I found the Chrysler proving grounds (NE of Wittmann) and the Volvo Proving Grounds (SE end of abandoned Luke AFB Aux Airfield).
Obviously more funds will be needed to study the phenomenon…
Old airfield seems likely….there is an abandoned plane just off the south-west corner:
33°44’36.52″N, 112°38’25.54″W
Hmm, I missed a few things.
For one thing, viewing altitude for the above experiement is not 500 m (I’m reading Google Earth wrong), it is 12 km.
10 Km ESE of the triangle is another triangle (a right-triangle) found as part of an active airfield. Two Km beyond that is the Volvo proving ground, also geometrically pleasing though less interesting than the Chrysler one.
Another right-triangle that is probably related to an older air base can be found 20.5 Km ESE, a little northward of the two above features.
The Phoenix raceway can be found just NW of the Volvo track, but is less impressive than both the Chrysler and the Volvo facilities.
There is a lovely Dam site 10 Km SW of the triangle, but Google Earth doesn’t label it, even though it looks like a pretty significant structure.
The Chrysler proving ground is twice the size of the Volvo one, but there is yet another oval at least twice as large again (it’s long diagonal is almost 7 km), containing another, more “challenging” track, located 15 km due W from the triangle. This is surely another proving ground (Ford or GM maybe?) but the track is cryptically labelled N. 303rd Ave., which I take to be someone’s joke.
20 km due N of the mystery proving ground is another triangle, but this one is different in nature: Los Cabalerros Golf club, with the fairways contrasting green against the dry Arizona landscape, and laid out in a triangle.
Gotta watch it, this could get addictive…
It’s a picture of a triangle.
The “center line” in the surprise triangle is very definitely a street. You can see it on Google streetview.
As I look at it again, the street is not the center line, but there is a street that nearly bisects the triangle.
Here’s one at Harris Neck, south of Savannah, Ga. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=33.744375%C2%B0+-112.633221%C2%B0&aq=&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=12.501051,28.256836&ie=UTF8&ll=33.716594,-112.530255&spn=0.01717,0.027595&t=h&z=15 Zoom out as needed. Also found on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Neck_Army_Airfield
My educated guess, assuming this is not; photo-shopped imaging or a fake, and assuming we have shifting magnetic poles . . . that these triangles are for “triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly (trilateration). ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation
In order to make our GPS’s work . . . “better, faster and more accurately” . . . If they are not, being used for that . . . . They should, could be!
One idea is that the universe is just a huge computer simulation ….. looks like a scroll bar!
Seems somehow connected to this.
All the bomber training bases built during the second world war in Nebraska look pretty similar to your desert triangle. There were at least half a dozen. Most are now municipal airports. I immediately correlated it visually with runways. The lack of hanger or structures? Maybe an auxiliary field at an old air base – nothing stationed there just a place to go and practice landings and take-offs?
EternalOptimist says:
May 13, 2011 at 12:57 am
At first I thought it was an airfield.
But there is no surface station
There doesn’t appear to be any nearby asphalt or A/C units to increase the temperature, so why would they put one there?
It is either a Masonic symbol pointing to a Knights Templar site or a touch and go practice landing strip. Or put there by a geometry obsessive compulsive.
The US Navy built literally hundreds of them in WW2 they seemed to prefer triangles more than the Army did. Both did however. Aux fields, training bases. Madras, Oregon is a good example. So was Pasco Wa. until a major revamp back in the early 70’s.
Corvallis Oregon, too as I recall… The Army built Madras, btw…
It’s a device for removing co2 from the atmosphere. One side extracts c and the other sides each extract o.
They are airfields. A handy layout as they allow you to always take off or land into the wind, no matter what direction it is.
There is one about 10 miles from me at 50.23.21.71N and 107.45.26.48W. The building is gone but there is an old bunker underground, not sure if it is actually explorable. It was part of a training facility in the area during ww2. This is actually the smaller second base, the main one is still being used as our city airport.
‘Captain, if you look at it at 100X magnification you can see cigarette butts left by the sentries – this just has to be man made.”
“So let me see if I got this right. A twenty million dollar computer tells you that you got a triangular geographic anomaly but you don’t believe it and you come up with this?”
‘But Captain…”
“Relax Jonesey, you sold me, we just got to phone this in. If I get close enough, can you track it?”
REPLY: Yes but the triangle is neither Red, nor evidence of it being made in October – great book and movie BTW – Anthony
It’s a secret Mason’s base.
Zoom in: http://wikimapia.org/#lat=33.7459315&lon=-112.6317716&z=16&l=0&m=b
If you REALLY zoom in, you can see an abandoned airplane off the lower left corner…
Well, the former auxiliary airfield crowd seems to have it, which spoils my fine detective work. If you look just to the east you’ll find Patton Acres and Patton Estates, and just to the south is Patton Road, so naturally, I figured this had something to do with the triangular patch of the 2nd Armored Division. Brilliant (if I do say so myself,) but evidently wrong.
Wittman Auxiliary Army Airfield #1, Glendale, AZ
33.72 North / 112.53 West (Northwest of Luke AFB, AZ)
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/AZ/Airfields_AZ_Phoenix_NW.htm
WE’VE FOUND THE GATE!