What Did Google Earth Spot In the Chinese Desert? 257
New submitter snooz_crash writes "An Ex-CIA analyst requests your assistance in IDing a base that he has been observing for quite a while. The base has been in existence for several years, but its shape and location do not lead to an immediate answer to the riddle of 'what the heck is it?'"
Isn't it obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a cleverly designed denial of service attack against the CIA/NSA/etc. By making them waste time trying to figure out what this base is, they're keeping them from discovering actual information.
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And here I thought it was our base that r belong to the Chinese.
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It is obvious! (Score:5, Funny)
This is a clever trick designed by Slashdot to make people RTFA.
You're not making me fall into that trap, by gum...
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It can't be an underground complex (Score:4, Funny)
Agricultural rather... (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks to me to be some kind of agricultural/horticultural research. Some structures are clearly old defunct greenhouses and plastic tunnels. /T
Big U-shaped building may house offices. Big blue-roofed building to the right looks like a chicken farm.
North of complexes is what looks like a dried riverbed, a possible source of water (subsurface).
Re:Agricultural rather... (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing here is old or defunct.
Use Google Earth. Click the clock button, and drift back in time.
Nothing was here in 2009.
Its just a mining operation of some sort.
Maybe.... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe that's why he's an ex-CIA analyst.
Re:Maybe.... (Score:5, Funny)
Not necessarily. China may not be super secret squirrel any more about everything, but they still have plenty of secrets.
That said, it's probably a Wal-Mart.
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Not to mention they could just lie. After all, he's just some schmuck in their eyes.
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>That said, it's probably a Wal-Mart.
That's easy to check. Is it near a national monument?
Wal-Mart knew about Mexico bribery [cnn.com]
Ummm.... maybe go there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ummm.... maybe go there? (Score:5, Funny)
Go there, who does that these days? Click street view and read what the sign above the door says.
Re:Ummm.... maybe go there? (Score:5, Funny)
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Go there? Why not try calling a local official first? The site is right next to the city of Kashgar -- find a phone number and pick up the phone. (OK, find a native Chinese speaker first...) 60 seconds and few questions later you might have *an* answer, if not *the* answer.
Who knows, the city's website (http://www.xjks.gov.cn/) might even have news about the project. Although I think the site may be Slashdotted already.
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Tall 'U' Shaped Structure? (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's a prison, the other sites might be places for arrays of solar panels or perhaps mining sites with the intent of prisoners working on those things. I mean, when you're that far out are you going to make a run for it? The electricity and/or ore would be for nearby Kashgar, Xinjiang?
If any of that were true, I have no clue what this stuff would be though [google.com]. It looks like the upper left of that has had dirt pushed around to level out the ground for something to be built on top of it though. This went up fast but you might have to give it another year or two before it starts to take shape?
Re:Tall 'U' Shaped Structure? (Score:5, Informative)
That's a big substation though
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Going by the shadow of what looks like vehicles, I'd say that's a 2 or 3 story building, and it's early/late in the day so the shadows are reasonably long...
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I don;t think that is very unique at all... Given a layman's construction viewpoint of the surrounding structures, this would appear to be an industrial/earthworks park, not a military base. The structure looks like a simple shed in a large "U" shape, with an entrance gate in the center. This is very reminiscent of the grand walls and entries you see in lots of Chinese structures, even in otherwise mundane industrial settings. You can see a similar structure here [google.com] missing most of its roof.
Looking around the
Re:Tall 'U' Shaped Structure? (Score:5, Insightful)
With all due respect, you're talking out of your ass. Look at this picture [wired.com]. Notice that the image shown there is from 6/21/2011. What you call the "dilapidated buildings" didn't even have graded land or foundations a year and a half ago. If you have Google Earth installed then you can turn back the clock to see what else changed in 2 years' time. Those buildings are not dilapidated or in a state of disrepair, they are under construction. Try again, comrade.
Obviously (Score:2)
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Now, if you want a possible military site in China try this http://maps.google.com/?ll=40.848586,109.628062&spn=0.032885,0.066047&t=h&z=15 [google.com]
It has what looks like high-explosive bunkers to the south-east, possible test firing ranges to the west, some nice tall towers or chimneys in the center and an oval track (for I don't know what) to the south
Re:Tall 'U' Shaped Structure? (Score:5, Insightful)
"With all due respect, you're talking out of your ass."
"Try again, comrade."
You sound a bit snide when speaking. Try to be more polite when correcting others or pointing out their lack of knowledge. Otherwise you sound like a dick. Obviously he had no idea you could roll back the clock. Aside from that he made a very interesting and well informed guess at what the facility could be.
Are You Brave Enough to Ask Questions? (Score:2, Troll)
If it's not a question, don't use a question mark.
Hey, look, buddy. I'm just the only one here brave enough to ask questions, okay? There's nothing wrong with asking questions, is there? Is it illegal? I'm just asking questions. I'm just wondering if maybe this is the site for China's deathray that Obama gave them the plans for under Jimmy Carter's guidance. I'm just asking questions. I'm not making any statements. You can't get mad at me for that. Is this what unions want? China to be free to build whatever they please in the desert? Again, I'm
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Ikea store (Score:5, Funny)
Blue roof, yellow trim. Built on cheap land for no good reason. Duh! It's an Ikea store.
Area 52 (Score:2)
PIg farm with big building for pregnant sows (Score:2)
This looks like a pig farm, Once they get the pregnant sows into the farrowing pens in the big buildings, they will eventually give birth an then a bunch of tiny huts will appear spread out through the larger farm area. It will take a couple of years to get up to full production/population.
Re:PIg farm with big building for pregnant sows (Score:4, Funny)
Nah, this is what a pig farm looks like from orbit [wowwiki.com].
Chinese copy of Hanford Reservation? (Score:2)
no cooling for reactors, so if it is, it's the processing site only.
secret apple factory? (Score:2)
railway and airfield close by
IDing (Score:2, Funny)
Try the maps on IBing
Re:IDing (Score:4, Funny)
According to Apple Maps it's the Swaffham branch of Sainsburys.
Maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the new burial grounds for the current ruling party. They always like to go out big don't they?
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I do see a bunch of square pits dug to the Northeast...
A stargate? (Score:2, Insightful)
For some reason this reminds me of Stargate. No idea why.
The building looks like (Score:2)
Gus Fring's chicken farm.
Subterrene Dock, Duh (Score:3)
Sounds crazy, right? Yea, that's what people said when I told them about HAARP 10 years ago; now it has its own website. [alaska.edu]
Crazy is, apparently, a matter of perspective.
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HAARP had that very website 5 years before you were telling people about HARP you idiot. Well OK they've made a few minor updates in the meantine.
http://web.archive.org/web/19970401121448/http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/ [archive.org]
Found Em! (Score:2, Funny)
That's where they are keeping Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Check the scale, not so ominous (Score:2)
The main building is about 150m wide. The two vehicles parked inside it, on the right side, are bulldozers / tractors. The "weird U-shaped thing" is the size of a house... might even *be* a house. The whole thing looks like an ag school field station or, at worst, a work camp (see the stuff to the right of the main building).
See you again in another few years.
Its: F*** You USA (In Chinese) (Score:2)
Kashgar? (Score:3)
Isn't that the location for an underground alien complex?
Looks like... (Score:2)
A high energy laser testbed. The barrels of oil, the cooling pond, the coal electric generators, and the long straight area that would be used for measuring beam focus.
High Winds - U-shaped building (Score:2)
High Winds in the area: http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/ResourceMap/sse_figure28a_rev.gif [udel.edu]
Paper on effects of high winds on U-Shaped buildings: http://nargeo.geo.uni.lodz.pl/~icuc5/text/O_18_1.pdf [uni.lodz.pl]
It's China giving the finger (Score:2)
to the Israeli Air Force.
China's Secret Village Cloning Program (Score:3)
Remember last June, when a village in Austria found out it had been copied by the Chinese, down to the sashes and doorknobs? http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/06/05/2332224/china-secretly-clones-austrian-village [slashdot.org]
Now they're copying Area 51 in Roswell. Or maybe Six Flags.
Unicorn Lair (Score:2)
It's all spread out... (Score:2)
If you look at the second image you'll notice there's a fair bit of greenery nearby and what appears to be residential blocks.
Obviously ... (Score:2)
... they are applying stratagem 29 and decking the tree with false blossoms.
A user called "Anonymous Coward" has said it earlier in different words, but that was voted "funny". Probably because Mr(s). Coward didn't explain it properly.
Area 52 (Score:2)
NT
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The game a
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Call it: Cold War lol =)
Looks commercial/industrial (Score:2)
This isn't an isolated installation. There's a small city nearby. There's an airport, and just northwest of the airport, a big area surrounded by a neat oval of roads with trees and road dividers, like an unfinished mall or industrial park. Only a few buildings have been built inside the oval, and there's still farming in much of it. East of the city there are streets laid out, but no buildings. The area has the look of a big failed real estate project. Compare areas west of Las Vegas, or California City [google.com]
Not A Secret Base (Score:2)
If you switch to Map view it becomes even clearer
As you can see, this place is only a matter of 10 or 15 kilometers from a large densely populated town, it's only a couple of kilometers from a reasonably large airport, there are a lot of smaller farms and a few larger ones, the road G314 looks like it would overlook the "fac
Alien Spaceport (Score:2)
You fuckwits in the USA captured the first visitors and locked them up in Area 51. The Chinese are inviting them in, with technology sharing programs and a piece of the potential business profits.
I don't care. (Score:2)
China can build what they want. If you are so curious, just ask them.
Unaligned buildings would drive me nuts (Score:2)
In one part of the complex, two seemingly identical structures are going up, but they are at slight angles to each other. That's gotta drive someone nuts if they are like me. That said I wonder what some of my projects look like from space... I they are lined up down here, but maybe from orbit they'd be obviously crooked.
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:2)
Obviously, the answer is "no"...
It's a Rorschach-Test! (Score:2)
Chinese Base (Score:2)
Looks like a Chinese Base in the Desert to me.
what? (Score:2)
An Ex-CIA analyst requests your assistance
I'm am IT specialist. WTF does he want me for? lol.
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Re:Factory (Score:5, Funny)
Factory on the left, dorms on the right. Nothing to see here.
Sooo...
Newest Foxconn facility?
Where are the roof nets?
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If that were the case you'd expect the road to run straight from the dorm building to the factory and not take a half kilometer detour on it's way there. It looks like the plan is for traffic to run between the town to the south and the various sites at the complex with little traffic going between sites.
Here's a clue: the two units under construction to the right of the "dorm" look like what I imagine two coal fired power units under construction would look like. Some of the larger open-air structures arou
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Re:Factory (Score:5, Interesting)
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Shanghai and Hong Kong are trade cities. But the quickest route to Paris is now over land, not water. So the west is a good trading place, take the trains w
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Quickest matters little. Quickest remains via jet airliner.
Lowest cost per ton is where it's at. Which is the ports.
Re:Factory (Score:5, Insightful)
But the quickest route to Paris is now over land, not water.
But the cheapest way is still to ship things by ship, not plane or rail. Even if the USA was reduced to trade insignificance, the trading areas in the SE are still better situated to deal with India and East Africa (all those untapped resources, yum) than Western China, which hasn't been close to anywhere since the Silk Road closed down.
Why are there so many people in Atlanta? It's nowhere. What, all there for the peach plantations?
Sorry, but it is on a river. Probably the end of the navigable section (or at least once was -- inland cities often grow up at portages), and it grew up as a collection spot for the cotton plantations. Pre-Civil War, cotton was the biggest US export.
Many large cities started from nothing.
Barring Persepolis, Berlin, Washington DC, Riyadh, and Brasilia (all sacred capitals rather than pre-existing natural cities), name them.
The only thing you need is water, and even Phoenix didn't need that.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but my maps show Phoenix on the Salt River, a major tributary of the Gila River, a tributary of the Colorado, so before LA started sucking it all dry they had loads of water, probably even a navigable channel out to the Gulf Of California.
Cities grow up when people have a reason to stay THERE, rather than a day's journey or more away. They stay around when there is still a reason to stay there when things change (hence the lack of population in most Western ghost towns), or when the change is not big enough to make enough of a difference.
Re:Factory (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition to my money being worth 1/10th what it was yesterday, people will want to sell their dollars because it's "unstable", so the demand on the dollar will fall, so it'll take more of them to buy a Chinese widget. Domestic inflation may stabilize after the initial inflation, but international effects will be huge. At least at the end, the US will be able to manufacture for a profit because of the weak currency. But the effect is not controllable by the US government. What is controllable is to default. The government can pick a patricular security held by a particular person (or country) and select to not pay it off. Poof, debt gone, and no inflation, no drop in dollar. Though I would expect that would create a sell-off of T-bills, so the budget must be in the black before the first default. But the results are much more controllable.
There's no "need" to default when they can print their way out of trouble, but the effects on the economy are different, so they are both valid options. Why would you devalue your currency to print your way out of debt when you could simply not pay it back?
Re:Factory (Score:4, Informative)
Why would you devalue your currency to print your way out of debt when you could simply not pay it back?
Historically, these two have gone hand-in-hand. That is, governments that can't pay their debts also frequently have trouble funding anything without just printing money.
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If worse happens, then I'm more right, not wrong because everything I predicted came true, just the flood came in the window rather than the door.
I wasn't saying you are wrong. You are wrong in everything else you say, but not that ;)
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You do have some unusual ideas, for example, that China is building empty cities to house people after a collapse. That is a new idea, so while it sounds silly at first glance, I'm going to think about it for a while to see if there is something deeper.
I am most interested in your idea that "light" socialism is the answer, since that certainly hasn't been proven. It is as easy
Re:Factory (Score:5, Interesting)
What exactly do you mean by 'light' socialism, and why do you think it is the answer (presumably the question was "which government will survive?").
Single payer health care is cheaper and better than what the US has now. As such, collective health care is like cheaper and better insurance. And so many programs like Head Start saves more money than it costs, so even a libertarian should like it, as it results in an overall smaller government. I consider myself a libertarian, but I agree with Libertarians on just about nothing. The issue is that I'm not the kind that believes in toll sidewalks and 100% private roads. Some things, like the post office, are socialist, and still explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. It always amuses me when the rabid constitutionalists ignore the parts of the Constitution they don't like. The libertarian fore-fathers *knew* there were some things the government should do. Like the post. And if they were doing it today, I firmly believe that they'd put health care in that lot. We all pay for the post offices and post roads. Communistic libertarians.
You do need to bribe them with their own money. "If you vote for me, I'll cut your health care costs in half - *and* improve the quality of care." Voting in UK-style NIH would do that, and that's a good bribe. "If you vote me in, I'll tax everyone but you and send you a check for $10,000,000" is a bad bribe. Bribing people with efficient government isn't a bribe. We don't have to deliver the worst possible government to pretend it isn't a bribe. The police are a "bribe", and even the most libertarian Libertarian believes in at least that one service, right?
I have trouble discussing what Libertarians belive. I've joined 3 different local LPs, but whenever I discuss my issues with them, someone on Slashdot asserts that it never happened because my characterizations were so far off from what they would like the LP message to be. I try to stick to libertarians (with the small L, and no P). but the problem there is I'm the opposite of the LP, but consider myself to be libertarian. There is apparently no such thing as a libertarian that believes in responsibility.
Re:Factory (Score:5, Interesting)
look like what I imagine two coal fired power units under construction would look like.
Its probably just a mining operation, of some kind because there is no major transport, no huge power lines, no stacks, convener belt systems. (Coal fired plants would have all of those, and aren't nearly so spread out).
No major rail lines.
No paved roads, just low traffic low speed gravel roads (90 degree corners etc).
Only the eastern most group of buildings seems to be fenced
There are "tailing pile" looking like humps, but not nearly enough for this to be a high burden mine requiring massive material removal, unless they are dumping the tailing back down the mine. There appear to be fields of spread out tailings with lots of bulldozer marks just east of the blue topped building.
The lack of security, transport, massive power, and distance to population centers (which themselves are not that big) all suggest small mining operations, perhaps by several different organizations.
Nothing was there in 2009, so it may be still in the process of drilling to deep ore bodies, and not actually in production yet.
The thing about desert areas is every little truck track shows up forever.
Re:Factory (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are correct--the geography and topography give it away.
If you'll look at the image with the least zoom, you'll see that the facility is built at the edge where two different alluvial fans intersect--the "softer", darker soil is the newer alluvial fan that has eroded down into the much older deposits. There is also a natural formation that runs along this boundary that appears to be a dike--a naturally formed wall--that extends down into the earth. It kind of looks like the Great Wall of China if it were to be viewed top down.
The boundary between these two alluvial fans is essentially a cliff that has exposed the lower layers of of the older deposits at the top of the images. This is an ideal location to find exposed deposits, deposits that otherwise would have been hidden far beneath the ground had erosion not exposed it.
I suspect this is a "dry mining" facility that is going to be mining some substance from this location. That dike is important--since the flow of that alluvial fan appears to come from the top of the map, that means the dike would act as a sort of "trap", much like the riffles in a miner sluice-box--heavier elements would become trapped behind the dike while lighter material flowed over the top to be washed away by the lower elevation alluvial erosion. Much of the excavation in the images that is not associated with a structure appears to be centered around this dike.
The long structures, located in several locations, appear to have individual units inside them (some of them are in construction and have not yet had a roof installed, allowing you to see what appear to be shallow pits, one after the other, lined up inside). These could be "shakers", what amount to a crude centrifuge that uses gravity instead of centrifugal force, to perform an initial separation of materials. Normally, heavy metals are separated in centrifuges after being mixed into a slurry, but that would be difficult in this location--I don't see a drop of surface water in any of these images. That being said, processing would be focused on methods that used as little water as possible.
Another clue is the large "U"-shaped building. This building is located centrally, downhill from the majority of the other operations and has another interesting feature--several small structures that are located a ways away, but have clearly visible tracks (construction or merely vehicle marks) that all lead back to that building. I suspect these are well-heads that tap water located underneath the floodplain that the facility is located on. This water would be used for final separation in centrifuges located inside the main building. The central gate-like feature could be the final distribution point of a two-armed processing facility.
So, my guess is either barium mine, or a lithium mine. Any heavy metal, really, even gold. Any dry-mining facility would look similar at this stage of development--the tailing piles visible are just the start (sample shafts). The real tailing piles will show up once the facility is active.
Interesting considering this article:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/01/09/0449218/worldwide-shortage-of-barium [slashdot.org]
Further thoughts... (Score:5, Interesting)
As is often the case, heavy metals can occur in mixed deposits--several different kinds of minerals in one deposit.
After looking through the images more closely, something stood out that I should have noticed immediately--this isn't one facility, but four. They simply share a resource deposit. Look near the dike and it is obvious that each section has it's own access road up and over the dike where they become inter-connected by a wide road that extends the full length of the images.
If you'll look at one of the images that shows the entire facility, you'll notice that the rectangular area that contains structures is roughly divided into four mostly equal areas. Each of these areas has totally different structures--the left most has the "shakers" and the the building I suggested might contain individual centrifuges. The next area contains only the long buildings, but also has neat rows of processed materials, perhaps the tailings from testing these structures. The next area has a large single facility, maybe suggesting a more refined process or merely the desire to keep our eyes off of the more telling equipment. The right-most image shows yet another sort of facility that combines the long row buildings with an adjacent building of moderate size.
Perhaps the Chinese have located a region rich in numerous materials, each requiring a different method of processing, and this odd facility is simply co-located because the ore is of mixed content.
Another aspect that backs up a dry-mining location is the fact that there is a sizable community just "down-stream" from the facility--dry-mining techniques (including the recycling of centrifuge slurry) would prevent waste from entering the waterways located near that community, provided that tailings were redeposited on the opposite side of the dike after processing.
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Perhaps it's mining.
But there's what plainly looks like a military installation just to the southwest of the place, with what seems obvious to be a test track [goo.gl] for some manner of tracked vehicle.
For reference, this [goo.gl] is what the manufacturer's test track for the Abrams tank looks like in Lima, Ohio.
Zooming in on the Lima site [goo.gl] reveals the exact same sort of pattern as that in China [goo.gl].
But then again, when looking around the neighboring city I see a lot of stuff that is hard to explain, so who knows...
Re:Factory (Score:5, Interesting)
"... but there isn't a lot of earth-moving equipment around, not much ground has been disturbed yet..."
Actually, there is. Most of it is located in the lighter area towards the top of the map--it is hard to see them, but that place is littered with many little roads. Most of these end at some excavation--the deposits are coming from the top of the map and are then being brought down these roads to the facilities.
Aye, I noticed the water as well. But it is already being used for the very reasons you stated--irrigation and the town downstream. Wet-mining uses massive amounts of water and leaves you with lakes of toxic slurry to get rid of--there is nowhere to get rid of something like that but flush it downstream right into town. Dry-mining solves this issue.
The "U"-shaped building has a pretty extensive ramp going up the dike to the row buildings--It wouldn't surprise me if a large conveyor belt is constructed down this ramp, connecting the two structures.
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Nothing to see here.... (Score:3)
Selective responses from the end of the Wired article....
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My main point is this location is not of sensitive nature, being that all foreign satellite topography imagery for public use is heavily screened.
I'm trying to parse that, and the best I can get is that he's saying the US government censors google's imagery of sensitive locations in other countries. I can see them doing that for allies like Israel, but it is really hard to make a case for the US censoring pictures of Chinese sites.
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Looks like a mining operation, with the underground entrance at the bottom of the U shaped structure.
You're correct. Mining and refining.
Probably something with a low recovery ratio, like a rare earth. This makes it wasteful to ship the bulk of it elsewhere for refining, so it's done on site.
Some strip mining:
http://goo.gl/maps/ENccv [goo.gl]
Post-process waste:
http://goo.gl/maps/cxjrV [goo.gl]
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What, like this? https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=area+51&hl=en&ll=37.233726,-115.804396&spn=0.001452,0.002926&sll=52.8382,-2.327815&sspn=9.031557,23.972168&t=h&hq=area+51&z=19 [google.co.uk]
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A rather large map of the the Nevada TTR [airports-worldwide.com] places the airfield in section 76.
And the wikipedia entry for Juterbog Airfield [wikipedia.org], a former soviet military base in East Germany, states
Experts suggest that the airfield has been copied by the United States Air Force, as part of its Tolicha Peak Electronic Combat Range (TPECR), in the western part of the Nevada Test and Training Range.[1]
Located 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) northwest of the TPECR is an airfield target (N3722 W11650), designated "Eastman Airfield Target", "Target 76-14", or the "Korean Airfield". However, it has a northeastern taxiway loop which is characteristical for Jüterbog, and three ramps in front of hangars on the western side of the loop. The other taxiways have a similar layout, although the runway is about 400 metres (1,300 ft) shorter. There are two accompanying SAM sites, one 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) northwest of the airfield, and one 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) northwest just like the original.[1]
So it's a rather elaborate bombing target.
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Ah, now I understand "Troll". Sigh. I thought I had checked that link.