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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 08/28/2009 : 21:11:15
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The desert in which this particular spot is located has set a geographical record. This spot itself also has major significance in the fairly recent history of the United States.
1. What was the United States' designation for the location shown?
2. What's its historical significance?
3. What is the name of the desert surrounding this location?
4. What geographical world record was set in this desert?
By the way, I have no idea at all why there is a faint cross-hatched pattern of north-south and east-west lines on the desert surface. (This pattern is visible on the large version.) These mysterious patterns, as well as simple parallel lines, are widespread in vast swaths of this large desert.
5. Two extra points for a convincing explanation (not merely a wild guess, please) for the origin of the cross-hatch patterns and parallel lines.
Click for larger version
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/28/2009 21:37:41
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/29/2009 : 17:29:09 [Permalink]
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Hint # 1: This is a location in Central Asia South-West Asia.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/30/2009 16:23:02 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/29/2009 : 19:27:47 [Permalink]
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Hint # 2: When one visits this desert, one may be unfortunate enough to encounter the dread haboob.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/29/2009 20:36:59 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2009 : 00:58:11 [Permalink]
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Hint # 3: The historical event took place in 1980.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2009 : 08:24:12 [Permalink]
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Well; at first I thought it might be either Desert one or desert two, the refuelling sites in the Dasht-e-Kavir salt desert during the operation Eagle claw.
I wouldn't call Iran 'Central Asia' though. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2009 : 16:43:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Well; at first I thought it might be either Desert one or desert two, the refuelling sites in the salt desert during the operation Eagle claw.
I wouldn't call Iran 'Central Asia' though.
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Sorry, I've now corrected that to "South-West Asia."
Correct, the name of the desert that I was looking for is Dasht-e Lut, but that does seem to be the south-east portion of the larger Dasht-e-Kavir.
The site in the images is Desert One, where a haboob (sand storm), bad communications, and a fractured command structure caused collisions between aircraft, several deaths, and the abandonment of the US attempt to rescue the US Embassy personnel held hostage in Terran.
Remaining unanswered questions are:
4. What geographical world record was set in this desert?
and
5. Two extra points for a convincing explanation (not merely a wild guess, please) for the origin of the cross-hatch patterns and parallel lines.
Desert One is at geographic coordinates: 33° 4'30.12"N, 55°53'33.66"E
If you look at this area with Google Earth, the odd patterns extend out in all directions. They seem human-made to me, but how were they made, and why?
Here's an area just north of Desert One. I have greatly increased the contrast in order to make the patterns more clear. Note that the furrow-like patterns even extend into an area of crescent dunes, and have a line defining a border at the north end:
Click for larger version
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/30/2009 18:24:59 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2009 : 19:02:22 [Permalink]
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| I got nothing. I bet the lines are from mine-detecting or -sweeping operations. It's interesting that the lines to the west, near the road, have dotted lines between them. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2009 : 19:26:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I got nothing. I bet the lines are from mine-detecting or -sweeping operations. It's interesting that the lines to the west, near the road, have dotted lines between them.
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Forget what I wrote in the OP about "not merely a wild guess". Indeed, wild guesses are all we may ever get.
I notice that all around Desert One, there are shallow pits that seem to have been made by bulldozers pushing earth for a short distance into a pile. Some of these pits seem randomly spaced, compared to the regularity of the lines, while more seem aligned with then. Oddly, I see no dozer tracks. So whatever made the line patterns seems to have left more of a make than bulldozer tracks would have.
I think you may be on to something with the mine-detecting idea, Dave. Not that I am sure it's mines per se, but maybe some kind of military training exercise. Did Darius, the Shah, or Khomeini decree that thousands of soldiers slog across this desert, dragging some kind of scouring devices? Weird.
Edited to add: Maybe the lines and patterns themselves are dozer tracks? The dozers may have been equipped with mine-detection devices, and may have stopped to dig whenever they thought the detected something. It makes sense that they'd want to do this to clear an area around a known invasion site. But why would they sweep the desert for so many miles around? It's hardly a border zone, or strategic. Was it just for practice?
And the lines themselves seem to be just a meter or so wide. More on a human than a bulldozer scale.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/30/2009 21:35:02 |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 01:18:19 [Permalink]
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4. A NASA satellite recorded surface temperatures in the Lut desert of Iran as high as 71 °C (159 °F)[2] [3] , the hottest temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth
Mooner.....
How many points to get a Veyron? |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 01:48:11 [Permalink]
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Absolutely correct, bngbuck!
No Bugatti for you, yet, though. If you are indeed the retired intelligence analyst I suspect you are, what's the deal with those meter/yard-wide furrows all over much of the desert?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 02:25:35 [Permalink]
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Mooner.....
From the scale on the image, it appears the lines are roughly 50ft apart. You could miss a lot of land mines in between the drag lines.
How about land navigation aids in the midst of a haboob?
Actually, I know that they are sand linears created by UFO's for exactly the same nefarious purpose that those very same UFO's create crop circles in irrigated areas of the earth! It is to TELL US SOMETHING! What? I've been checking on that (thus my many mysterious absences during the last year.) All I know for sure is that God and Jesus and several FSM's are involved! And they were homeopathically oriented by Xemu (yes, that's an M) and psychokinetically executed by Thetans and you better not get too damn curious or something seriously bad will happen to you! Ever had sand in your snot?
These same folks have been down in Peru and a lot of other places like the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, Percy, San Jose, Yermo, Knott's Berry Farm, and Buena Park CA; also Lake Wales,FL; St.Ignace, MI; North Woodstock, NH; Blowing Rock, NC; Marblehead, OH; Gold Hill,OR; Ligonier, PA; Rapid City, SD; Lake Delton, WI; Jackson, WY; and Ansted, WV.----all damn mysterious, although some are more mysterious than others. Brrrrrrrr!
And then there's Lourdes.
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 02:32:11 [Permalink]
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Sorry, but I'm not giving credit for that.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 04:23:29 [Permalink]
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| Ever had sand in your snot? |
Yep. It's really fun when you are also dehydrated, your nasal mucosa is cracked and bleeding, and the sand grates against those small wounds. It's a special kind of annoying.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 04:44:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
| Ever had sand in your snot? |
Yep. It's really fun when you are also dehydrated, your nasal mucosa is cracked and bleeding, and the sand grates against those small wounds. It's a special kind of annoying. |
My family lived in Twentynine Palms, California for one summer in the mid-1950's. There were several sandstorms (and many thunderstorms, too) while we were there. I stayed inside on my Dad's advice. It was pretty spooky. The sand blasted the windows and fine dust managed to migrate inside. But I didn't get grit in my nose.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 09:20:45 [Permalink]
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Spent some time at White Sands NM when I was in the military. Not exactly a nice place, but thats probably why no one cares if the military uses it to practice blowing shit up.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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tw101356
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2009 : 10:27:16 [Permalink]
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I'm betting those regular lines are part of an ancient, or maybe just a few hundred year old, irrigation system fed by qanats. Fifty feet apart would be a reasonable distance for the underground feeder lines. Though long abandoned, they could still be providing some moisture and causing a difference in the appearance of the terrain. Could also be that they just show up as a disruption in the desert flora in the same fashion that old, plowed-under, roads can be viewed in aerial photos of farmland. The regular pattern of "dots" could be the feeder wells for the qanats.
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- TW
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What on Earth?: Desolation Row
