It is not often we see perfect triangles in the desert from space. Anybody know what this is?
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It is not often we see perfect triangles in the desert from space. Anybody know what this is?
Details here
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Erich von Daniken planted it.
This was a fun one.
Growing up in Phoenix in the 50’s & 60’s, I remember my father telling me about the old military auxiliary dirt fields with triangular shapes. I think some were even shown on Arizona roadmaps.
And to R. Craigen’s comment:
“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.”
…It does seem silly, but 303rd Ave isn’t a joke. It’s based on the Phoenix street numbering system, so it would be about 37 miles west of Central Ave.
I think there is an interchange on I-10 labelled 411th Ave, just in case 303rd isn’t absurd enough for you!
I’m impressed. The WUWT crowd had this NAILED in a day!
Way to go WUWT readers and commentators.
Hard as I look can not see it, where is it now?
For real, check google, they are gone now.
A base for a three-sided pyramid by an ancient Egyptian non-conformist who worried that more carbon dioxide emanating from all those mummies in conventional pyramids would cause the Nile to stop its green life-supporting farmland floods?
Supplementary Question.
What is the feature with many roads leading away from it, just NW of the triangle, 33.753461 -122.635644
This is much harder.
Old airfield.
OK. What the heck is this? I’ve asked some old-timer helicopter pilots from Fort Rucker and they just give me a blank stare.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=30.74%C2%B0+-87%C2%B0&aq=&sll=32.239521,-86.827698&sspn=0.549415,0.850067&ie=UTF8&ll=30.366655,-86.06329&spn=0.017514,0.026565&t=h&z=15
Abbotsford INTL Airport looks similar, but bigger.
49°01’27.77″ N 122°21’55.94″ W
Punch them babies into GE and behold the wonder!
BTW, CYXX is where I learned to fly a glider and several fixed wing aircraft while with the Royal Canadian
SpaceAir Cadets. 😎An overlay on the image, it’s too precise. More like it was added as a map reference of some sort.
mike g says:
May 13, 2011 at 5:54 pm OK. What the heck is this?
It is part of a plantation forest that was clear felled about year 2002.
Did you know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose “Sherlock Holmes” as a name for the great fictional detective, having first considered “Sherrington Hope”? Strange, but true.
I thought it was the first proposed site for the Pentagon, back before all the post-war inflation.
Not only is it an air field, likely for touch and go and use as a crash field, they were oriented in a specific manner so that airmen could get an idea of direction. Where I live there are five in close proximity built by the British for bomber training. Some fields used a triangle to allow pilots and airborne units to more accurately train for jumps and drops, and for bombardier training using targets. Mountainview is still in used, with airborne units dropping equipment and men into the areas between the runways from Hercules and Skyvans
mike g says:
May 13, 2011 at 5:54 pm “”OK. What the heck is this?””
Looks like some kind of surface mining operation . . . . maybe for “clay”, phosphates, or something similar . . . at least to me . . . maybe a freshly tilled area for replanting.
Do you know how long it’s been there?
@Laurie Bowen
I’ve been wondering what it is for a couple of years.
@Geoff Sherrington
Could be, as you say, “a plantation forest clear cut in 2002.” But, around here, they don’t waste any time replanting.
Interestingly, it disappears as you soom out. It could be it is a recent clear cut like Geoff says and the zoomed out picture is older than the zoomed in pictures.
Appears to be Luke Aux. 4. See the last picture at the very bottom of http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/AZ/Airfields_AZ_Phoenix_NW.htm
It’s three runways in a triangular shape simply so no matter what direction the wind is coming from, the pilot can land without ever having more than 30 deg crosswind.