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More Mysterious Structures in China Found Using Google Earth — Even Ex-CIA Analyst Can’t Explain

Jan. 10, 2013 9:20am Liz Klimas

More than a year ago, mysterious structures spotted by Google Earth satellites in China’s Gobi desert caused quite a stir, especially as people tried to identify just what they could be. Now, more baffling structures were discovered by a former CIA analyst and even he can’t quite put his finger on what they could be for.

Wired’s DangerRoom reported that Allen Thomson was looking for something unrelated on Google Earth in southwestern China — an orbital tracking site that he’d seen mentioned on a space news website — when he stumbled upon structures he could only describe to Wired as “pretty big and funny-looking.”

Here is the complex he found on Google Earth at 39.6 N, 76.1 E near the city of Kashgar.

Google Earth Reveals Mysterious Complex in China

(Image: Google Earth via Wired)

The man who worked for the CIA from 1972 to 1985 and with the National Intelligence Council until 1996 told Wired he doesn’t have a clue what the complex is but does point out that it “went up in what I’d call an incredible hurry,” based on the dates of the images.

The image on the left shows the foundation for one of the largest buildings on the site on July 21, 2011. The image on the right shows the progress made on the structure by Nov. 16, 2011. (Image: Google Earth via Wired)

The image on the left here shows the state of the middle structures in the complex as of July 21, 2011, while the right shows them on Nov. 16, 2011. (Images: Google Earth via Wired)

Wired explained that this isn’t Thomson’s first aerial find. He found some of the grid-like images in China’s Gobi desert in 2011 and in 2008 found what was thought to be a missile bunker in Iran.

See all 10 of the images Thomson pulled out here. Let us know in the comments what you think this complex could be.

While we’re on the subject of Google Earth revealing potentially secret structures in China (it has been accused of revealing secret areas in the United States in the past as well), North Korea is a secretive frontier for which the satellite tool has been used to gain insights into what is going on there. In fact, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is in the country this week on a private humanitarian mission, which was not supported by the U.S. State Department. Reuters pointed out though that Google Earth might not be something Schmidt will showcase to North Koreans.

One way Google Earth has been used in North Korea is to reveal its prison camps, or gulag system. TheBlaze has reported about the images showing such camps before. Some bloggers, like Curtis Melvin and Joshua Stanton, make frequent use of Google Earth not only to expose the camps but other facilities in North Korea.

“It opens up areas of North Korea that no foreigners are allowed to see at all,” Melvin said to Reuters.

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Comments (177)

Anna Fallaxis
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 8:00am
As if this is as close as satellite photography can get? Come on people, do you think our military uses Google Earth? Existing technology would enable you to read the inscription on a dime laying in that sand. Somebody sent me an interactive photo of a mountain range last week – one of those just-for-fun things – and I could zoom in on pebbles and tiny objects. It’s absurd to think our government doesn’t know what this Gobi Desert site is, but they’re sure not going to release close-ups or tell us. I think we can be pretty safe in assuming that whatever this facility is, it’s not for any purpose remotely humanitarian. Probably a chemical weapons manufacture and storage facility. Why else would it be located in one of the most desolate spots on earth. That row of objects seen from above are all Liberals with their heads in the sand. Chris Matthews will tell you it’s an egg roll factory.

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jbcheesehead
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 7:22pm
Perhaps it’s a holding facility where they can use waterboarding tactics on Obama, Pelosi, Reid and others to figure out whey they think they can borrow money and then not repay it.

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Mr Sanders
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 2:26pm
Well, I know one thing, they are moving vast amounts of earth. There’s a huge stockpile area to the Noreast and the roads look as if they are made of the same materials.

At first I thought them to be production lines but the buildings have too many vertical structural supports for that to be viable. These concrete troughs or chutes that they are encasing look like storage of some type. Could it be a missile/rocket production facility? proximity ot Iran? They could just be very large water caches? I thought… but they seem to house these long chutes made of concrete. Nuke waste disposal?

Nonetheless… no rail is present but they do have a large airport to the souwest. The fleet of trucks and cement mixers to the east near the stockpile area is astonding. Building so close to the Pak-Afghn border is a question mark too?! Interesting!!

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sparkyrules
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 11:40am
Pop

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raderby
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 8:54am
zoomed in, it is odd to see a green fuzzy edge near 2 of the structures – is that chroma smear from the space lens? or is something growing there? Looks like a line of grapes in a vineyard. So how in the desert? Not much water in evidence.

If they really want analysis, we need a much closer zoom. Or higher res photo and let us zoom.

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Sicialian Eyeball
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 8:53am
Probably Chinese FEMA camps or a really big Chinese Buffet. $14.95 AYCE! Belly up,wide eye.

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JonQ
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 8:16am
Its a titanium sponge plant – for refining titanium ore (rutile, ilmenite) to make the pure titanium used as a starting point on all kinds ot titanium alloys. This region is supposed to be rich in lots of ores. Looks like they are mining from the old river bed? The ore is just sand – fine grained, not big chunks or crystals. The US companies get most of their ore from australia.
That’s my guess.

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Vic Tory
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 7:56am
Chinese FEMA camp

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huey6367
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 7:51am
I’m gonna say it is China’s version of Siberia. And I base that on absolutely nothing.

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freenj
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 7:08am
Soylent Green production facility.

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Robert Hawk
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 4:58am
Looking at historical Seismic maps, that area between China and its neighboring countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) is quite common for seismic activity. This is most likely the reason it has taken many months to complete the foundations of the facilities in the pictures and their related buildings. Living on shaky ground, the Chinese most likely know more than we do concerning the foundation requirements needed where vast numbers of earthquakes occur.

It could be noted that the facilities may not actually be related in their purpose, since the one on the extreme right is separated from the others by what appears to be a high and encompassing wall. Walls and seismic activity usually don’t mix well together. The wall would also make that facility independent from the others.

Civil Engineers could determine more accurately what the foundations and related structures would be used for. Best guess is they are some type of support system for the large city to the south. China has issues with its infrastructure which usually follows decades behind its needs. Since it is a communist country, there is a tendency to ignore expansion planning, which usually places them in reaction mode as they grow.

http://cegrp.cga.harvard.edu/files/historical_seismic_map_china_md.jpg

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Spirit Warrior Woman
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 2:10am
Probably just another damn Walmart.

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Bombgod1
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 12:30am
Dang those little Chinese kids can work fast. Must be another Nike factory.

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Faith in God
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 11:34pm
caption states: x cia cant figure it out…. maybe thats why he is a XCIA?

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Salamander
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 11:31pm
Milk powder factory?

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sirscott
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 11:25pm
Okay, if the lines are types of GPS mapping or mapping guides for whatever, we wouldn’t see it using normal satellite photo. It seems like I can’t see detail landscape underneath, as if the lines are somehow hiding whats really there, or perhaps even hacked into the satellite, not necessarily by the Chinese government.

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- sirscott
  Posted on January 10, 2013 at 11:39pm
  oops, I was referring to this part: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/spy-satellite-calibration-is-that-the-answer-to-chinas-strange-desert-images/
  
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DisposableWorker
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 10:47pm
Vehicle Assembly Area

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brentbach
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 10:46pm
It is a factory for producing Soylent Green. Shh.

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TRILO
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 10:28pm
There is a lot of unexplained events as of late. If one connects the dots, the outcome will not be good.

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Repent Amarillo
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 10:02pm
I worked 26 years at a nuclear weapons facility. I believe this site is a high explosives development and testing facility.

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And.then.there.were.none
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:56pm
It is the vault for all of our I.O.U’s

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- Salamander
  Posted on January 10, 2013 at 11:32pm
  Overflow storage annex for Fort Knox, KY?
  
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ree758
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:31pm
Its Obama land.Like Disney but alot more expensive!!

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RightThinking1
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:05pm
It needs to be ironed.

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OBummer the Great
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:05pm
It seems to me to be a containment facility for all the dead beats in America who are in the cart rather than the ones helping pull the cart. The Chinese know that if our boy OBummer continues on this road (and he will) of his strategy of transforming America (putting everyone in the cart)…. They have no chance of getting their money back they are loaning us. It will keep the rest of us working and buying more of their crap without the drain of people suckling on the teat (I didnt want to say nipple) of society. Or it’s housing for that deadbeat rappers ” baby mamas”. You see, this rapper just ended a 2 year long tour there and I’m sure he has hundreds of other children and girlfriends over there too who need housing.

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JonQ
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 8:49pm
Its a titanium sponge plant (refining rutile or ilmenite titanium ore into pure titanium)

kashgar has lots of mineral deposits, titanium ore included. need lots of electricity for the process.

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