Re: Google Earth



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/TrinitySite/Images/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/manhattan/images/TrinitySiteMapLarge.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/image.aspx?T=1&S=14&Z=13&X=111&Y=1163&W=3&qs=%7cwhite+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/image.aspx?T=1&S=14&Z=13&X=110&Y=1162&W=3&qs=%7cwhite+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/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=13&X=1766&Y=18596&W=3&qs=%7cwhite+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/image.aspx?T=1&S=11&Z=13&X=907&Y=9318&W=3&qs=%7cwhite+sands+%7c%7c
Question of the week is what is all this about?:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=13&Z=13&X=226&Y=2325&W=3&qs=%7cwhite+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/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=13&X=1812&Y=18614&W=3&qs=%7cwhite+sands+%7c%7c

Pat
.

Quantcast