Why Is China Building These Gigantic Structures In the Middle of the Desert?

[CreekDog]

Why Is China Building These Gigantic Structures In the Middle of the Desert? (from Gizmodo)

This is crazy. New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes. Is this a military experiment?

They seem to be wide lines drawn with some white material. Or maybe the dust have been dug by machinery.

It's located in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Gansu, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau to the west into the Kumtag Desert. It covers an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide.

The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit.

http://gizmodo.com/5859081/why-is-china-building-these-gigantic-structures-in-the-middle-of-the-desert

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. It is still possible to stop global warming and far greater attention is coming to that

but if not, people would need covered, sealed arcologies in which to survive.

Rich people, that is.

[sabrina 1]

2. Maybe they've made contact with Aliens?

I don't know. They do look strange, whatever they are.

[Riftaxe]

3. To summon ancient aliens!

of course, now off to 9/11 forum!

how did i know? history channel of course :P

[bananas]

4. Doug and Dave are up to their old tricks again. nt

[Prometheus Bound]

5. Just because

[SoDesuKa]

6. They're Being Inscrutable Again

When word got out that the Chinese were getting scrutable, they held a plebiscite. It's not easy to reach a consensus among so many people, but they finally settled on this piece of conceptual art.

"There!" they said. "Scrute this"

[WinkyDink]

7. Because they can.

[Bosonic]

8. Target area

for their http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment">Kinetic bombardment weapons system.



If you speculate, go big.

[Princess Turandot]

9. They've been viewable for years in Google Earth's imagery; see this 2006 discussion..

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=466030

[Scuba]

10. Housing development? Are those simply streets?

[SpiralHawk]

11. CROP SQUARES

Despite a few phony hoaxers (R) and their bullshit claims, nobody has yet really solved the exquisite mystery of Crop Circles. So the Chinese felt it was time to complexify.

[rgbecker]

12. Dirt bike race track!

[Shagbark Hickory]

13. They learned about subdivisions

[jberryhill]

14. Because they won't fit in the developed areas

Where else would they build them?

[raccoon]

15. Reminds me of the Cuban missile crisis. nt

[formercia]

16. 'Lazy Dogs', Flechettes and other 'kinetic' devices:

Lazy Dog "bombs" (sometimes called Red Dot Bombs or Yellow Dog Bombs) were small, unguided kinetic missiles, each measuring 1.75 inches in length, 0.5 inches in diameter, and weighing 207 grains, or about 0.03 pounds or 0.7 oz.

The weapons were designed to be dispersed over the battlefield with Mark 44 cluster adapters. Lazy dog bombs were technically not bombs because they used no explosive, but were in many ways equally destructive. Mark 44 cluster adapters were one of many possible means to deliver "Lazy Dog" projectiles.

--snip--

Experimental LAZY DOG projectiles of various shapes and sizes were tested at Air Proving Ground, Eglin AFB, Florida, in late 1951 and early 1952. An F-84, flying at 400 knots and 75 feet above the ground, served as the test bed while a jeep and a B-24 were the targets. The result was eight hits per square yard. Tests revealed Shapes 2 and 5 to be the most effective. Shape 5, an improved basic LAZY DOG slug, had the force of a .50 caliber bullet and could penetrate 24 inches of packed sand. Shape 2 could penetrate 12 inches of sand, as opposed to the six-inch penetration of a .45 caliber slug fired point blank.

--snip--

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Lazy_Dog_%28bomb%29

More historical background:

http://www.emotionprimitive.com/pdf/105-15pp.pdf (in French)

http://www.big-ordnance.com/Flechettes/Flechettes.htm