Identify strange things on Google Maps

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > Identify strange things on Google Maps

Stathol: Jun 28, 2008

Have you ever seen something strange on Google Maps/Mapquest/etc. and wondered "what the hell is that?" Well then, this thread is for you. Post weird poo poo you've seen and help other goons figure out their weird poo poo.

What this thread is not:

"Check it out -- this mountain totally looks like a dong!"
"Some guy is getting mugged on street view!"
"Help me figure out what this totally boring and normal building is"

I'm mostly interested in trying to solve real mysteries, but "challenge-style" posts should be okay too, as long they're actually interesting/challenging. I.e., you already know what the weird thing is; you just want to see if anyone else can figure it out.

Example:

(Disclaimer: I don't think this will be very hard to figure out, but for the sake of not stumping the thread with the initial example, I've already done my homework and figured out what this is. However, I didn't know what it was before I stumbled into it on google maps.)

About a year ago, I was browsing around the Florida everglades on Google Maps. Hurricanes have forced the military to abandon a lot of old sites, so you can find all sorts of weird, abandoned, cold-war-era stuff out there. While I was screwing around, I came across this:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=25.371832,-80.426145&spn=0.019349,0.027165&t=h&z=15

It's located about 6 miles south-southeast of Homestead and Florida City on Old Dixie Hwy/Old Card Sound Rd. From the street view at the highway, you can see that there's a tall entry gate with a sign, but you can't read what it says. There's a guard house and, beyond it, faded remnants of pavement markings that resemble a helipad:

The main building has a perimeter fence around it, and a big gas generator. The main feature are the concentric rings around the building. They look sort of like fences, but I don't think that's what they are:

It's pretty clearly some kind of military facility, but it appears to be abandoned from the general condition and lack of any vehicles. I found this document [PDF] ("Cold War in South Florida: Historic Resource Study") from the National Park Service that identifies several facilities in the Key Largo and east everglades area, but none of them fit. It also made this reference:

quote:

One location popular with CIA personnel stationed at facilities in the keys was "Alabama Jack's," a bar on Card Sound Road with a reputation for "raffish clientele."

The street is right, but Alabama Jack's is 7-8 miles down the road, on the coast. Still, I guess it might be CIA :tinfoil:

I'm reasonably sure it's not an old NIKE missile site, either.

Any goons know what this is/was?

# ¿ Dec 1, 2010 18:46

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 03:23

Stathol: Jun 28, 2008

ReidRansom posted:

Probably an abandoned and disassembled wullenweber antenna installation.

That was much faster than I expected. You are correct. Apparently this is "NSGA Homestead AN/FRD-10 Array, Site Alpha". The AN/FRD-10 was a Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDDA), a.k.a. a Wullenweber. Basically, it was used a directional locator for radio transmissions, partly for COMNAVSECGRU (naval SIGINT), particularly for locating transmissions from Soviet subs, and also to locate the source of naval distress beacons for search & rescue. It was abandoned in 1993 due to hurricane damage. The antenna array really does resemble a series of fences, and were colloquially referred to as "elephent cages".

According to this random site, the secret nazi cross was indeed a helipad.

This site lists the locations of several other AN/FRD-10 installations. The one in Imperial Beach, CA is in a more developed area, and gives a better sense of scale:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...027165&t=h&z=15

If you zoom all the way in, you can get a nice isometric view of it. I don't know about the array itself, but the facility there is still active, so everything is in good shape.

Manchester posted:

That's funny, you can see that site when you zoom out pretty far too OP (a very conspicuous dot south of Homestead).

Yeah, that was what drew my attention to it in the first place. I was actually looking at a rather interesting and semi-famous(?) urbex target that was well off to the west-southwest from there, and saw this huge dot. I might post that one, too, because the history is interesting, but the actual site itself is extremely boring from a satellite view. And unless one of the urbex goons happens to recognize it, it would nigh-impossible to figure out what it is.

Manchester posted:

I wonder what other weird things you could find through googlemaps.

Let's find out!

Stathol fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Dec 1, 2010

# ¿ Dec 1, 2010 19:40

Stathol: Jun 28, 2008

psyopmonkey posted:

Ive been inside of the building surrounded by the dirt circle. There is nothing TS or crazy going on there, its just a military building.

I never really thought otherwise. The CIA :tinfoil:

comment was meant in jest.

psyopmonkey posted:

You should be more interested in the circle of trees to the south east of the building.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that just the remnants of the old AN/GRD-6 array that the AN/FRD-10 (the dirt circle) replaced?

psyopmonkey posted:

The Iron cross adjacent to the building in the west was due to "vandalism" in the late 80s.

Ah. I guess that's why it appears to have been sand-blasted off.

psyopmonkey posted:

To add to this "wonderful" thread:

Check this out!

Hmmmm...I've seen this somewhere before, but I can't remember what the explanation is.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 00:18

Stathol: Jun 28, 2008

Pigsfeet on Rye posted:

Color change may be due to sensitivity of the satellite camera.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.355938,-74.428596&spn=0.251262,0.41851&oe=UTF-8&t=h&z=12&vpsrc=6

That entire area seems to have been captured using near-infrared color photography (CIR). The original image captures three channels: IR, red, and green. This is then mapped to an RGB image like:

IR -> red
red -> green
green -> blue
(typical)

This is common for agricultural/environmental surveys. (Near) IR reflectivity from foliage is proportional to water content. Healthy foliage = reflect IR and green -> red/magenta. Dry foliage = reflects red, some green, and almost no IR -> green or brown.

For bodies of water, clear unsedimented water will reflect mostly blue light and not much else. So in CIR images, it looks black. Brown, cloudy water reflects more red and green (but still not much IR), so it looks cyan. Similarly, water with a lot of algae bloom will look green-ish, I think.

:science:

# ¿ Sep 11, 2011 03:27

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > Identify strange things on Google Maps