Is Google Maps Revealing U.S. Military Secrets? Take a Look At These Pictures
- Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:12pm by
Liz Klimas
- Print »
- Email »
Last month, Google Maps revealed what looked to be secret structures in China’s Gobi Desert. They were theorized to be used for calibration of spy satellites. But could Google Maps be revealing U.S. military secrets as well?
Fox News reports that U.S. Military bases are searchable on Google Maps, one of which seems to show a top-secret drone on the landing strip:
At Google Maps, anyone can search for the names of military bases and zoom in to see airstrips and possibly even top-secret military drones like the RQ-170 Sentinel lost in Iran last week. Aviation website Flight Global has done just that, and claims to have found the secret airstrip at Yucca Lake, Nev., used for testing the RQ-170.
The Google Maps site shows satellite images of either a Predator or Reaper drone on the airstrip, although Flight Global says the RQ-170 was tested there as well — information that’s surely of interest to the Iranian military, said Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force colonel.
“Iranians would be most interested in operational bases because that tells them how we fly our surveillance missions,” Leighton told FoxNews.com.
[...]
“Google is making public what was once the sole province of the military and intelligence community, making this a brave new world for the intel agencies as well,” he said.
Fight Global states that the image taken in early 2011 shows not only the drone, but more than 5,000 feet of runway, four hangars and details of the airfield, including ongoing construction.
Leighton told Fox News that while Google has the right to show these images, it should choose not to for national security. Leighton also noted that the military blocked Google Earth on military bases, due to up close photography.
On the other hand, Fox News reports Dr. John Michener, chief scientist at security firm Casaba, as saying that the military should know when satellites are overhead and take action to hide equipment it may not want seen.
Fox News reports that Google did not return a request for comment.






















Submitting your tip... please wait!
Comments (149)
JRE
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:49pmIn the 70′s while in the USAF I worked on the Bomarc missles.
Report Post »They were the same as an unmaned drone but were built in the 50′s.
Even they had onboard self destruct.
No body pushed the button guys.
drattastic
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:13pmI was hoping they were going to wait till a team of Iran’s top scientist started taking it apart then blow it up. Seriously why wasn’t it destroyed ?
oldschoolgreen
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:25pmdrattastic
Report Post »Great idea. Wonder if there isn’t something like that going on. Some passive sort of surveillance or tracking. Kid of fast an furious for the drone. They have to take it apart somewhere.
On the subject of Google, they don’t care. They are truly evil. When I came back from Iraq in 05 I discovered that Google Earth had really great high res pics of my fob. Distance and direction all one needs to land a mortar. I can’t prove it, but I am sure joes died because of it. Maybe someday a haji will write a memoir about how they used to Google Earth to shoot rounds at Americans.
ishka4me
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:32pmdid you ever think this drone was landed in iran on purpose? Possibly every chip with a virus? seems to be in pretty good condition, betwe knew it landed in Iran and probably could have easily destroyed it. Don’t know any of the answers but sometimes there is more to the story.
Report Post »TDOM
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:54pmthey did not destroy it because B.O. has a mangina what kind of an idiot lets our mortal enemy get access to our top secret stealth tech . The Admin. is playing Russian roulette with our security
Report Post »000degrees
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:02pmsomeone gave them a gift….
Report Post »quicker
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:07pmI would say that Obama gave them that gift.Just like Clinton did with China and North Korea
Report Post »Salamander
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:17pmAnybody remember the news, recently, where a key-grabber virus kept showing up at Air Force sites where drones are flown? Apparently, rebooting the sites and sanitizing their software proved ineffective. I wonder if the Chinese weren‘t in a radio van with the Iranians in their eastern desert and managed to ’grab’ a drone–thus the perfect landing, no destruct and no good explanation why we ‘lost’ it!
Report Post »recoveringneocon
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:24pmGoogle your user name from here on the Blaze.
Report Post »banjarmon
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:54pmButton button who has the button…IT SURE ISN’T BO the potus!!!
Report Post »Chet Hempstead
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:57pmIf you have to push a button it’s not a self-destruct, it’s a remote destruct. If it could receive a radio signal it wouldn’t have crashed in the first place.
Report Post »Freddagg
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:00pmhopfully the owners manual isnt it the glove box.
Report Post »Worldsapart
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:25pmMaybe, just maybe, there are still some people who know what they’re doing at the CIA and the drone is just a misinformation campaign. Here’s to hoping against hope.
Report Post »Patrick Henry II
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:33pmObama wanted to give the Iranians the needed technology to atack Israel. Talking about a good guidance system. These could be used to deliver all sorts of dirty weapons to Israel including nukes.
Report Post »AmericaLastStandForFreedom
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:57pmTry http://www.ixquick.com . They do NOT track you like Google does.
This is the price you pay for FREEDOMS. Some of the people who run Google are NOT Americans. They are liberals. Figure it out.
Report Post »batteredyoungpatriot
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 9:11pmSSSHHHHHHHHH!!! if you say that too loudly somebody might hear you and figure out that Obama let it happen.
Report Post »Riffraffman36
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 9:39pmThat’s what I said when I first herd push the dam button
Report Post »mac410
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 12:27amWouldn’t you think they would have a “Lost control, self destruct. ” feature built in? Something that would blow the dang thing up if the home base that is flying the thing looses contact with it, the thread breaks and the thing blows up. It would be relatively simple to put in a circuit for that.
Report Post »qzak491
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 12:02pmThis was no accident, osama gave it to them to use against the Israelies. Why did osama not try to get it back, he wanted them to have it and this was the only way to do it and keep his ass clean.
Report Post »He is giving tanks and helicopters to Egypt to use against the Israelies. osama is a moslem working for the moslem brotherhood, you doubt it, look at what he has done for them, look at who is in his cabinet. There is no doubt, you know them by their fruits and his stink.
Canyonman5555
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 12:19pmIt was an concerted effort by the Obama Administration to give the Technology to Iran just as the Clinton Administration Gave China Top Nuclear Secrets. After all it is not fair for the US to have superior weapons.
Report Post »bboatmanable
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 2:18pmIt’s not that nobody “pushed the self destruct button.” NO plane has any ordinance (for self destruct) on it, nor are planes allowed to land with ordinance on them. There’s a very simple reason for this, if they crashed on landing then the bombs could likely blow up, injuring anyone who happened to be exposed and in the area, AND quite probably damaging the runway to where it is unusable for the imediate future.
Report Post »gunsofthepatRIots
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 7:47pmmaybe it has a microphone in it?
Report Post »enough_liberal_BS
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:46pmDo you remember the navy plane forced down during the Clinton term? Quite similar, except this time the Chicoms didn’t get the pilots too.
Report Post »BOMUSTGO
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:52pmYou talking about the P-3 Orion, that was damaged when a Chinese fighter plane struck it? it was forced to land in China. That was under G.W. Bush 2001.
Report Post »Salamander
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:18pmStupid Chinese jet jock with ****** bigger than brains! He died in the incident!
Report Post »Buddynoel
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:38pmThe Pentagon (and the Taliban, Al Qaeda and others) knows exactly when those Google photo satellites are flying overhead and what will be in the picture. After all, it‘s the Pentagon that DECIDES when those birds are flying and where in Earth’s atmosphere they will fly. It keeps the satellites from running into each other. Any “rogue” satellite snapping pics of government secrets will soon find itself developing severe technical propblems.
Report Post »TheLeftMadeMeRight
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:04pmWith everything else that Obama has done, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out Obama has re-aligned our spy satellites to photograph his children playing at recess in their private school.
Report Post »eagledown
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:20pmExactly,
Our military has been playing the cat and mouse game with spy satellites since the height of the cold war. The military knows that anything they put on the tarmac can be seen, and, they know when it can be seen. Whatever, not a story.
Report Post »cloudsofwar
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:32pmnow iran can develop drones to use against israel. thanks to obama. but no one in the MSM will say that.
Report Post »MichiganPatriot
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:24pmFunny how that works isn’t it…MSM is very careful not to put anything in the news that would make their Messiah Obama look bad!
Report Post »BOMUSTGO
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:24pmIsrael will just use them for target practice.
Report Post »UrbanCombatSurvivor
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 7:59amYou think that is by mistake?
Report Post »@leftfighter
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:32pmWow, Blaze! This story is as old as satellite imagery on the internet.
I was able to zoom all the way into Top Secret areas that I was aware of back in the ‘90’s. All you needed to do was know what you were looking for.
The only difference being that today you might get a slightly clearer picture than you could back then.
Report Post »SomeRandomPerson
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:26pmYeah, this isn’t new. If you have Google Earth you can look up area 51 and see the whole base. Of course it doesn’t show much, but it’s there.
Report Post »ishka4me
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:43pmNo big deal, been on the aircraft carrier jfk with the navy giving free tours, you can drive into Fort Bragg, when i was stationed in Berlin the Russians would observe us train. You cand do a google search on U.S. secret weapons and get hundreds of results with videos. Many of the new weapons, planes and capabilities looking like things from star wars. You could buy a model of the stealth 10 years before we admitted to having them. It is not hard for anyone to gather intel on us because we are free. Training with the German’s, French and Brittish during the 80′s none of them could keep up with us in physical stamina or tactics. In our military a pfc could take over a platoon if needed be and no other military trusts their soldiers to lead, and our military is designed that way, in fact it is the motto of the Army Infantry “Folliow me”
Report Post »Legal Immigrant
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:36pmISHKA?
You’ve never met a Canadian Infantryman I gather? They are used to doing the impossible with nothing.
Report Post »marion
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:27pmIf we could spend more than 10 years keeping the F117 quiet and unseen, then when the first Gulf war started have five wings on the ground overnight, I don’t get too worried about this. I know how it looks, but we spent most of the cold war giving little pieces and parts to the USSR, covertly or otherwise, as a means of making a balance of power that didn’t go too far (too big a gap causes the lesser to be more agressive, this reduces those attempts or concerns). As hard as it is to understand, one nation having the capability to do what it wants when it wants to, and another that can’t do anything close to that, is a more dangerous situation than having the second nation think it is close in capability to the first one. Although I do hate this on the surface, we will know soon enough if they are intelligent enough to reverse engineer it, and then we know what their capability is and they think they are equal to us (which they aren’t).
Report Post »ChiefGeorge
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:32pmWell said!
Report Post »spfoam1
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 9:05pmSomehow, I think that scenario works better with rational adversaries than fanatical ones willing to die in a nuclear exchange.
Report Post »felix
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:10pmthe RQ drone was given to iran by the regime , same as CLITON gave nuclear secrets to iran !
Report Post »TangoBravo
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:15pmYep, not a shocker. ooops, we forgot to blow it up after it landed in Iran…
Report Post »BTW, google loves to watch what you look up. Remember they were busted earlier in the year for sharing information with Big Brother?
jungle J
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:16pmexactly!
Report Post »kbstreet1
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:09pmObama GAVE Iran the Spy Drone! The immediate and obvious questions were these: 1) Why didn’t we try to recover the drone? 2) In lieu of a rescue effort why didn’t we bomb it into oblivion? THE ANSWERS WILL SHOCK YOU – or maybe not. Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that apparently the Pentagon pleaded with Barrack Hussein Obama to give the order to do just that. The Pentagon initially wanted to send a Special Forces team to recover the drone. Obama shot down that suggestion. Then the Pentagon offered up Plan B, blow it to kingdom come. FOX News reports that there was third option and Obama struck that down also. Obama refused all three of those options and now Iran and China have a brand spanking new fully functional top-secret US RQ 170 Sentinel Drone. They have our drone, paid for with our money. (From Conunderground.com)
Report Post »historyforgotten
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:15pmIt’s being Traced. Fox won’t tell you everything. You have to learn to read between the lines, with Media Outlets. NewsCorps, MSNBC, CNN, etc…only give you opposed views of a Story. One Sees only Heads…one Sees only tails….Put them together, and you can See the Whole Coin.
Report Post »hidden_lion
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:26pmIt is not being traced. Wouldn’t do any good to trace it anyhow. We know where it is, they are showing it on tv. This is the 2nd piece of Classified equipment Obama’s admin has let fall into enemy hands, actually third if you count the wikileaks debacle. Assange should have been tried as a spy.
Report Post »ICanComment
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:41pmCall me nuts, but I still think the one on Iranian television is a fake. It just doesn’t add up – the shape, the color, the crudely “welded” (Bondo’ed) seams, but most of all the deliberately obscured landing gear. Even if they had a damaged drone, big deal – the landing gear is broken. Why cover it up? There’s something else going on here and neither side is talking. (understandably.) I’m still not convinced the Iranians even have it, let alone have it in one piece. Did we “lose” a drone? Yeah, most likely, but of all the details discussed, that’s the only one that seems to adhere to any level of certainty.
Report Post »Salamander
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:24pmIt did kind of look like a Revell Model from the 60′s!
Report Post »Danang1972
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 8:19amReply to ICANCOMMENT: I agree, take a close look at the engine intake grill – looks a bit askew at the joints – I am not a rocket scientist ( many years on the B-1B) but that grillwork looks like it came out of an Iranian model kit.
Report Post »HeSaidWhat
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:06pmThese are not the Drones you’re looking for!
Report Post »enough_liberal_BS
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:42pmmove along, move along
Report Post »Carter John
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:03pmWe don’t need to see his papers.
Report Post »Worldsapart
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:34pm^^Nerds………
…….I love it. ;)
Report Post »last frontier
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:52pmThe military has been building stuff with Russia looking over there shoulders for years from space and on the ground, while the commies at Google are not helping, the military knows to run there sensitive stuff at night, China and Russia already know the locations and layouts of all our secret sites and have missiles pointed at them Obamas friends the Rogue enlisted terrorists are already on the bases and the non enlisted friends don’t have the capability to get on the bases.
Report Post »NewLife56
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:47pmI still say, didn’t Obama ever hear of a SELF-DESTRUCT Button? Doesn’t anyone understand how utterly STUPID is is to build those drones and not include a SELF-DESTRUCT Button?
Report Post »Ok-Sure
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:53pmAGREED!!! No sensible explaination for not having that simple yet important feature. The only logical explanation is they wanted to give it up. No rescue mission, no self-destruct, in fact kind of just brushed aside by everyone MSM and politicians alike.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:53pmI heard that Obama failed to give the order . .. I don’t know .. but it does sound about right. Didn’t he wait until the last moment to give the go ahead on taking out Bin Laden?
Report Post »historyforgotten
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:10pmThe Drone is being Traced. Once the Drone is moved to Secret Sites in Iran, We can Track it. It was Crashed on Purpose…not on accident.
Report Post »Dismayed Veteran
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:13pmI don’t believe the Idiot in Charge had anything to do with the design of the drone. We can blame him for a lot of things but not this. I do believe we should take it out. So what if Iran declares war on us. What can they really do?
Report Post »Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:31pm“Didn’t he wait until the last moment to give the go ahead on taking out Bin Laden?”
Report Post »——————————————————-
@CATB
I seem to remember reading that Obama hemmed and hawed around with Valerie Jarrett so much that Leon Panetta had to give the kill order.
Shotgun167
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:57pm@historyforgotten,
It’s being traced?…kind-of how those “Fast and Furious” guns were traced?
Report Post »Carter John
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:07pmHISTORYFORGOTTEN
Report Post »Iran will never fly it they will dismantle it and copy the design if they were smart they wouldn’t have shown the video since we would have never heard of it else wise. then the administration could give them more stuff
aLinedog
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:12pm@Anon and Irrev:
Report Post »That’s what took so long? Ref:half-hour plus span between breach and termination confirmation.
I know how the troops spent it. They had him, likely within 5-10 minutes, and were waiting for the kill order. That leaves a lot of time to have fun with that sick bastard. Not torture, just mental abuse. :D a LOT of mental abuse.
Salamander
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 6:26pmMaybe Obama flunked “Button Pushing” at Harvard?
Report Post »nuttyvet
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:45pmThe drone in question is what we call a “flying wing.” The one in this picture has a straight wing rather than the swept wing of the drone… not the drone in this pic.
Report Post »Vickie Dhaene
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:45pmObama is our ENEMY WITHIN. We must take action to stop his Treasonous Acts.
Report Post »IMPEACH, IMPRISON, AND EXECUTE !!!
faithwalker
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:37pmThis shouldn’t suprise anyone, this admin. doesn’t want any secrets between enemies, just our friends
Report Post »smackdown33
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:36pmWe just gave away a high tech drone. So, why are we worrying about a few pictures?
Report Post »crackerone
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:46pmWhy the hate smackdown? He’s asked for the drone back!
Report Post »CatB
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:55pmLOL .. oh yea .. they will give it back … talk about insane. If they did it would be in pieces with the most secretative missing.
Report Post »SmallGovBigGuns
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:35pmi feel like any country of any concern to our government secrets have access to their own satelites. they arent googling it. if we dont like it maybe we start figuring out how to knock them down. including googles if we are worried
Report Post »SquidVetOhio
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:35pmWhile it‘s true Google isn’t revealing anything the Chi-com sats haven’t seen. I’d just as soon not make it easier for the bad guys to Google intelligence agaist us. Let’s make them work for it!
Report Post »hidden_lion
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:29pmChinese have satellites but terrorists and other enemy nations don’t, except they do thanks to google. Terror groups can do all their nefarious planning on google earth.
Report Post »ROMANS 10-9
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:32pmAnybody remember when the O administration was taking names?
Report Post »Carter John
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:10pmMost of the terrorists names we already had, now the O administration is also taking citizens names. All under the domestic terrorists threat of course, never mind the first American on the top 10 terrorist wanted list was a liberal eco terrorist
Report Post »Todd P
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:45pmIf you post on The Blaze or anywhere else on the internet, the O has your email address, name, street address, names of everyone in your family, and can probably tell you what you had for breakfast. Not that they would ever DO anything with that information, of course……
Report Post »This_Individual
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:30pmThis isn’t showing anything that is classified.
Report Post »gonetotheright
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:30pmThe most photographed countries on the planet are China and Russia. Just who took all those photographs?
Report Post »plastinoid
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:23pmOf course Google is showing our Military bases and secret weapons, Obama wants it that way.
Report Post »Sirfoldallot
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:36pmLets not forget he had the last comand on our stealthl RECON plane . He wants to distroy the America he hates thats not a Socialest contry. He could of had our spy plane self destroyed , he chose not.
Report Post »randy
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:22pmI’ve been giving serious thought about getting rid of GOOGLE as my search engine. But today, my mind is made up…… Anything but GOOGLE from this day on And will be firing off am email telling them so.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:33pmThat’s why I stopped using YouTube as a registered user .. you have to agree to link it to Google .. I do not trust Googe in the least.
Report Post »aLinedog
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 4:15pmI have been on that train for a long time now. Ask and occasionally Bing. Honestly, neither are as well connected, but that’s kinda the point anyway.
Report Post »Danang1972
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 8:23amGive Dogpile a try – it works for me!
Report Post »JLGunner
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:20pmTry and google map something in China. Won’t happen.
Report Post »commentloading
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 7:20pmHmmm, I have a really nice picture of Beijing here on my Google Map so I’m not sure which google you use but mine shows China just fine. You have to get a clamp and squeeze your monitor some to get really clear images but it all seems to be there.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:17pmIs Google Earth showing this stuff? Yes.
Deliberatly? Yes.
Under Obama order? Yes.
Mr Obama and his cronies will do anything to make us more and more vulnerable to our enemies they can. They WANT the US to fall.
Report Post »oldeagle101
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:24pmI totally agree.. He is also deliberately destroying the economy.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:24pmAgree completely .. we are so unsafe under Obama .. both from within and from outside.
Report Post »65Mustang
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:52pmI agree totally with your assessment. My father always said we were giving enemy nations too much information regarding our military and he passed away in 2001, now with all the advancements in technology, it is even worse…and yes Obama condones this sneaky behavior.
Report Post »Mandors
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:15pmIf Google maps has these images, our enemies have had them for long time. The only people who are really kept in the dark about most of these programs are the people who pay for them.
Report Post »Lawrence7
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:30pmThat’s exactly what I am thinking, Mandors
Report Post »