Interesting "structure" videoed by pilot...what is it?

[Digit]

Jumped onto Coast to Coast site to check it out and found the oddest looking picture of what appears to be a "man made mountain".

From the post...

"The coordinates are 32' 42' 04.72" N, 110' 40' 36.39" W. It's just to the west of Mamoth, north-northeast of Tuscon."

"What I taped was a 'fake-looking' mountain covered in what looks like mesh. I have asked a few people that should know what it is and nobody would explain it. One person I talked to was a friend of a friend who had worked at NORAD. He looked at me after I told him, kind of chuckled nervously and said, "I wish I could tell you," as if he knew what it was but could not tell me."

"My guess is that it is several miles long comparing it to the mine. If you look closely, you can see that it has ribs under the mesh covering to give us a guess on the height, and also that it is a hollow structure."

Here is a link to the http://www.coasttocoastam.com/photo/view/man_made_mountain/44761?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+C2C-Photooftheday+%28Feed+-+Coast+to+Coast+-+Photo+of+the+Day%29

Anyway, I just found it interesting.

[jobycom]

1. I don't know, but googlemap Tiger, pinal, AZ

Then scroll just to the west and a little south of it, and you can see that same shape without the cover on the satellite image. Can't tell what it is, or what the circle by it is, but someone built a big tent over it, I guess.

[Drunken Irishman]

2. It looks kinda like a penis.

[jobycom]

3. Which means maybe it's Dick Cheney's undisclosed location?

[Drunken Irishman]

4. I tried finding it on the Google Map thingy and the directions you gave...

But I couldn't. :(

[jobycom]

6. tiger, pinal, arizona?

Works for me. Even gives me the same coordinates the pilot gave.

[jobycom]

7. Oh, wait, forget the scrolling part.

I scrolled from Mammoth, Pinal, AZ to find it, but Tiger is the town just on the edge of it, so don't scroll. It's right there.

[jobycom]

5. There's a Wikipedia article on the ghost town nearby. It's a mining region

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger,_Arizona

"The Tiger or Mammoth mine is a famous mineral locality, especially for wulfenite. In addition, the mineral yedlinite is a hydrated oxychloride of lead and chromium found only at Tiger, and first noted on preexisting specimens in 1967."

Maybe someone discovered something useful there again? It's pretty close to the highway and an airport, and there are roads all around it, so it doesn't look like a top secret anything. Just a hole in the ground.

[nuxvomica]

8. In Google Earth, it looks like a strip mine

Same shape as the mesh mountain. Note you have to convert the apostrophes on the leading numbers (32 and 110) into degree signs. Otherwise, it takes you to a geophysical institute in Vatican City.

[Iggo]

9. It's that Face on Mars that looks like The Shroud Of Turin. (n/t)

[Richardo]

10. It's a tailings pile from that big pit right next to it.

What's the mystery?

[semillama]

11. Ding ding ding! Winner!

Once the guy said it was right next to a mine, then everything became clear. It's almost certainly waste rock or tailings from a mill.

[jobycom]

12. Why's it covered?

I know nothing about mining.

[Richardo]

14. Might be to keep the dust down. Or to keep it from running off into the watershed.

Just guesses.

Also, on second look I can't tell whether it IS covered. It might just be a different texture than the surrounding landscape - like freshly-dug dirt looks different than its surroundings :shrug:

[jobycom]

15. Have you looked at the Googlemaps satellite picture?

Since you said that, I've been looking at it trying to see if what I thought was a hole is actually a mound. You know how it's hard to tell sometimes whether a straight-on pic goes in or out? Is that a mound, or did they clear it away and leave a hole?

No idea why this fascinates me. :)

[Richardo]

16. The terraced structure is the hole - the other is the pile.

I have looked at Google Earth and still don't see a cover.

[jobycom]

17. There's no cover on Google.

It's just in that picture on the Coast to Coast web site. I keep trying to make that just a raw pile, and it might be, but the edges look awfully straight, on the bottom left corner especially. Still, could just be the result of scale, i guess.

The satellite pic on Google doesn't look like a cover. I could see the hole next to it.

Patience with me. I'm a flat-earther from the Gulf Coast. If it's over twenty feet high, it's a scary mountain to me. :)

[Richardo]

18. It's like those photos of the moon where what you KNOW is a crater looks like a hill.

http://static.indianexpress.com/m-images/Thursday%20,%20Sep%2024,%202009%20at%201032%20hrs/M_Id_110492_moon_surface.jpg :D

[MilesColtrane]

13. That's where they keep the 2012 ark for North America.

You mean you didn't get your ticket?

[Kali]

19. Mammoth is/was a mining town.

as noted above, and isn't coast to coast all about aliens and tinfoil shit?

[PufPuf23]

20. Could it be a self-contained "heap leach" cyanide

gold mine?

Low grade ore is piled and then sprinkled with a cyanide solution and carries out the gold in solution. The crushed ore is put on a tarmc and the site is sealed and the leach solution re-used because of arid conditions and the toxicity.

I may be wrong. I just went off the CC site and did not look at Google Earth