By Herman Lai, posted Nov 18, 2011 at 5:59 PM, 1,960 views,

Google Maps “Mystical Structure” No Longer A Mystery

An array of mysterious structures and patterns etched into the surface of China’s Gobi Desert is NOT a QR code from aliens, it is NOT the street maps of Washington, D.C., NOT even Chinese weapons-testing sites. Who break all the fancy thinking? An expert named Jonathon Hill who works at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. Let’s see whether you agree with him or not.

The grids of zigzagging white lines seen previously is actually spy satellite calibration targets. Gizmodo gets that right…Hill explained it is nothing suspicious or revelatory. China was already known to operate spy satellites, and many other countries (including the United States) do so as well. He added the calibration targets are larger than might have been expected, what that means is the satellite cameras they are being used to calibrate have surprisingly poor ground resolution. Here is an example from Hill showing something similar appeared on the U.S.’s spy satellite:

The satellite image above is a calibration target for the Corona spy satellites, was built back in the 1960s, down in Casa Grande, Ariz., [at coordinates] 32° 48′ 24.74″ N, 111° 43′ 21.30″ W.

How about this? According to Hill explained:

“This is almost certainly a calibration/test target for orbital radar instruments. Since a significant amount of radar return is due to differences in surface roughness, they’re probably testing ways of making the areas around planes ‘bumpy’ enough that the planes are partially masked.”

All these calibration targets are not Chinese weapons-testing sites, but they still relate to Chinese military. Namely, the Chinese military probably uses radar instruments to send signals down at the target from above, and determine how much radar bounces back to the instruments from the fighter jets, and how much gets scattered by the Stonehenge-like arrangement of bumps surrounding them.

It allows the country’s radar experts can learn how best to hide China’s military operations from other countries’ satellites and possibly get clues for how to find carefully hidden objects in other countries.

Source: Life Little Mysteries via Shanghaiist