Weird shit you find on Google Earth

[kentauros]

Here's one, that looks like it was built just for the calibration of satellite imaging:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=34.950673,-106.508691&hl=en&ll=34.950367,-106.507612&spn=0.002097,0.003184&num=1&t=h&z=19

I mean, it looks like a large-scale photographic target!

[kentauros]

1. So, no one else goes looking around

just for the hell of it, and has anything similar to share?

Here's another one to spur some interest (maybe):

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=34.975256,-106.444224&spn=0.002231,0.0035&t=h&z=19

[Major Nikon]

2. I see a lot of strange stuff flying around at low altitude

I probably should start tagging the GPS coordinates to I can research it later.

Someone told me this is a hydrophonic farm. It looks pretty neat from the air at a few thousand feet.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=30.543357,-103.931791

[kentauros]

3. Yeah, they have to grow that stuff somewhere!

That's cool that it's out near Fort Davis, too. I haven't been out there since the early 1980s, and never in a plane. And there's some old volcanoes to look at there, too, if you've seen them

Now, here's something that's just plain odd:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=34.883071,-106.508943&spn=0.008933,0.014001&t=k&z=17

I've been zooming around the Sandia Laboratories area, looking at their weird buildings, and went south to see older evidence of whatever they've been doing out their over the decades. That group is one of two, with the other one further to the ESE on the same road. They don't look military, either, so I have no idea wtf they're doing.

Originally, I was trying to figure out what those various red rectangular patches were in the imagery. I still don't know what's going on with them, other than some kind of marking system.

[Major Nikon]

4. I've done a lot of flying around Fort Davis

I've never noticed any volcanos, but many volcanos are easy to miss from the air unless you are specifically looking for them. The best volcanos I've seen from the air is the San Francisco volcano field, located in Arizona. There are hundreds of cinder cone volcanos, and many of them are quite impressive. Meteor Crater is not far from there and is very impressive from the air also.

[kentauros]

5. That first one looks like Mars!

Beautiful photos though

And I may very likely be misinterpreting the geology of West Texas (I only had two geology classes, over thirty years ago.) I think this is what I was looking at some time ago and thought it was volcanic, when it may be more like early crust-formation with "intrusions":

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=29.471883,-103.590088&spn=0.606755,0.896072&t=h&z=11

[Major Nikon]

6. That's a very desolate area around there

In most areas volcanos are hard to spot because they get weathered away by erosion. I've done a lot of flying right around that area next to Big Bend. There are huge canyons big enough to fly into around there, as well as some interesting mountains. Santiago Peak is my favorite. It doesn't look all that interesting in Google maps, but if you load it up in Google Earth and look at more of a side view, you can tell it looks just like a big obelisk or a smaller version of Devil's Tower. I found my picture of Meteor Crater. This photo was taken at 12,500' above sea level.