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What are those strange white patterns in China's Gobi Desert? For weeks, experts have puzzled over the crazy lines that show up in satellite images.
Some of the theories have taken wild turns: Maybe they're messages directed at Earth-observing extraterrestrials, or part of a UFO development program, or the remains of ancient cities. But the leading theory is that these patterns serve a variety of purposes for the Chinese military, including calibrating satellite imaging systems and testing radar avoidance techniques. There have also been claims that these are "fractal antennas" to shield underground weapons facilities from ground-penetrating radar.
This particular crazy-quilt pattern was picked up on July 27 from an altitude of 423 miles by the Ikonos satellite, one of the spacecraft in a commercial Earth-imaging constellation operated by GeoEye. The picture is today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from space every day until Christmas.
Whatever the precise purpose of these patterns might be, it's not all that unusual for people to draw huge lines in the sand: Consider Peru's famous Nazca Lines, which were etched more than 1,500 years ago to form patterns that look like geometric shapes, insects and birds. Some of those patterns can be seen in their full form only from the air. More recently, archaeologists have puzzled over wheel-like patterns in the Middle East.
What do you think about the Gobi puzzles? Feel free to add your comments below, and check out these past entries from the Advent calendar:
- The full Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
- Dec. 1: An ornament in outer space
- Dec. 2: The masses in Mecca
- Dec. 3: Santa's shrinking domain
- Dec. 4: The monster of Madagascar
- Dec. 5: Antarctica stripped naked
- Dec. 6: Streaking for home
- Dec. 7: Pearl Harbor from above, 1941-2011
- Dec. 8: The rise and fall of the Dead Sea
- Dec. 9: How an eclipse dims Earth
- Dec. 10: Psychedelic storm
- Dec. 11: Beauty of the Inland Sea
- Dec. 12: Drone-spotting stirs up debate
- Dec. 13: Light up your St. Lucy's Day
- Dec. 14: Satellite spots Chinese aircraft carrier
- Dec. 15: Hooray for Hollywood
- Dec. 16: Olympics under construction
- Hubble calendar, from The Atlantic's In Focus
- 2011 Zooniverse Advent calendar
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
It's chinese so it's likely a recipe for eating dog or something stupid like that. Idiots.
Search the terraine around the image.....it demands you attention, so ignore it and Im betting you'll find what they want to hide, not what they are showing us.
China's new skate park. Estimated to hold over 1 million teenagers with poor work habits. I BLAME GOD!
For sure, Tapdancin! It's a long-forgotten Christo installation with toilet paper.
These are not calibration graphics like some believe. If you go into Google Earth and use the rewind time feature, you can see these lines "under construction". Other than that, I have no idea what they are.
This is simply the Chinese government saying hello to the people on my planet. Since they said hello using our alphabet, I am saying hello to your planet in your alphabet. Resistance is futile!!!!
Wait one. How much do those @!$%#s owe? No @!$%#!! We don't say hello to bankrupt planets. Go away now!!!
I like to save used toilet paper. Has anyone seen it? Oh here it is. Why did it stick to the internet? Hey the internet is wet. Did one of you pee on it? Hey go use a public toilet. Leave my laptop alone. Creeps like you are the reason I moved to China. Shoo. Get away from my computer.
Looks to me like a diversion. Resources used to study this are not looking elsewhere.
grab image, overlay (lighten only) on satellite view of manhattan and environs, rotate to match island and a few roads. what you have is a practice bombing range for targeting manhattan. those lines that don't match are direct bombing routes.
If you stare at it long enough, it becomes a 3D dragon
The lines kind of remind me on the VIET CONG tunnels in VietNam ! Coud be tunnles for nuclear radiation storage!!
May our perfect heavenly father love each noun by transfiguring all discord (impatience, unkindness...) into peace (patience, kindness...).
Jean Claude Christo did it .
the part kind of in the middle looks like a penis to me...
Definitely obscene, I don't know why the image has
not been flagged, I'm going to ask my congressperson
to form a committee, no amount of time or money would be
wasted addressing this; especially if you live in a foreign nation.
Whatever its purpose, it certainly seems to serve as a useful distraction.
the Chinese are trying to hide MADE in AMERICA with WHITE OUT .
I'm ruling out the "satellite calibration pattern" theory. Creating something this huge to calibrate a satellite doesn't make sense because of existing infrastructure. GPS sensors, cell towers, other types of transmitting sensors.
I'm only guessing, but to me it's more likely that this is a map that somehow made its way to the public domain. What type of map am I referring to? USGS and NASA rely on certain techniques to create super high resolution images. What they do is take super close up pictures of a certain area and then use those images and build a mosaic for the final image. So it's probably a map created by their software that they use to build the mosaic.