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Earth Oddities Seen In Google Maps / Earth / Street View

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Mr_Eamcat2

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Use the force LUECKE :lol:

I have no idea what to think.

Why would someone spend so much time (not to mention money) to spell out a word with trees over such a vast area?

Any locals who know if this is real or not (where is 'local' anyway?)
 
A

Anonymous

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The original search was for San Antonio, TX btw. :)

Dunno what the point of either a) Planting those to spell that or b) felling everything surrounding it.

Unless it's all a massive practical joke at our expense. Still, you have to admit, that's some very neat typography on such a large scale! I can't write that neatly. :)
 
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Mighty_Emperor

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Disussion here

where someone worked out it was done in 1,468,800 point ;)

It is about 2 and a half miles long and has also been phootgraphed from planes:

http://homepage.mac.com/grungy/.Picture ... CKE%3F.jpg

Nasa also used it as a test for its satellites:

We also made an empirical estimate of spatial resolution for lower contrast vegetation boundaries. By clearing forest so that a pattern would be visible to landing aircraft, a landowner outside Austin, Texas (see also aerial photo in Lisheron 2000), created a target that is also useful for evaluating spatial resolution of astronaut photographs. The forest was selectively cleared in order to spell the landowner's name 'LUECKE' with the remaining trees (figure 10). According to local surveyors who planned the clearing, the plan was to create letters that were 3100 ´ 1700 ft (944.9 ´ 518.2 m). Photographed at a high altitude relative to most Shuttle missions (543 km) with a 250-mm lens, Formula 3 predicts that each pixel would represent an area 28.6 ´ 36.0 m on the ground (table 5). When original film was digitised at 2400 ppi (10.6 mm/pixel), letters correspond to 29.4 ´ 18.8 pixels for a comparable pixel size of 27 – 32 m.
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http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/Sp ... fault5.htm

And someone explains it:

There was a write-up about the Luecke land in the Austin paper a few years ago. The needed to clear-cut an area for grazing land, but you always need to keep a certain percentage of the tree growth to maintain healthy wildlife habitats, erosion control, etc. They had the idea to leave the un-cleared areas in a pattern that spelled out their name.
Click to expand...
 
A

Anonymous

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Emp, you're boundless knowledge never ceases to amaze! :)

Cheers
 
M

Mighty_Emperor

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ProfessorF said:
Emp, you're boundless knowledge never ceases to amaze! :)
Click to expand...

In this day and age 30 seconds on Google can certainly make one's knowledge seem boundless ;)

Sorry what I meant to say was: Muhahahaha The Emperor Sees All and Knows All!!!!!

Sorry about the slip - normal service has now been resumed ;)
 
rynner2

rynner2

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Never mind the LUECKE - scroll down a little (or zoom out one level), and there's a weird looking face visible... :shock:
 
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Iggore

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They're circular crops.

MBC038.jpg


IMG_1775.JPG


Yeah, I know how you feel.
 
PeniG

PeniG

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Just to be clear - these are nothing to do with crop circles but are an artifact of an inefficient irrigation system which involves a single spigot spinning in the center of a field and sprinkler water in a circle. It's wasteful, since this method involves large losses to evaporation, and it's not great for the soil since it increases mineralization through wicking. But they're cheap to install and the corporations owning the fields don't care about the long-term health of their land.
 
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AnthonyClifton

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This week I flew from Chicago, IL to San Jose, CA and saw these things ALL OVER the western states we flew over.

I even saw them in areas that otherwise looked as blasted and lifeless as Mars. In fact, I saw them in places that, except for erosion, looked remarkably like Mars. Dry, barren, black-reddish land devoid of life.

But, nonetheless, someone decided they'd have a go at growing something there anyway. Craziness. :shock:
 
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zardozzz

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So the crops at the squared of edges of the fields is left to die of dehydration ? Or do they not plant there ?
 
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KeyserXSoze

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MeteorMaker said:
And what about this?
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.03628 ... &t=k&hl=en

It's inside McGuire AFB, New Jersey, where nuclear BOMARC anti-aircraft missiles were based in the 50's and 60's. In 1960, one missile was destroyed in a fire that released nuclear material from the warhead. Is the huge circle the razed and sanitized area around it, or simply an unusually large helipad, or what?
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They've captured the moon!!!111!!!! :twisted: :shock: ;)

I've seen those round fields on flights over the States, too. Freaky looking.
 
Cavynaut

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Apologies for bumping such an old thread, but these circular formations can also be found in Southern Egypt. Would they also be circular crop fields?
 
rynner2

rynner2

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Cavynaut said:
Apologies for bumping such an old thread, but these circular formations can also be found in Southern Egypt. Would they also be circular crop fields?
Click to expand...

???

Bumping a thread only one day old?

I thought there might be a hyperlink in your post somewhere, but can't find one.

So another whinge about this lousy MB....

Why won't it make hyperlinks obviously visible? :evil:
 
Cavynaut

Cavynaut

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You know, that's odd. I could've sworn that the first post was dated 2003. :? No, there isn't a hyperlink, I've been asked to ask if anyone knows what these markings are by someone who saw a picture of them somewhere else. And where better to ask?! :)
 
MeteorMaker

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Cavynaut said:
You know, that's odd. I could've sworn that the first post was dated 2003. :? No, there isn't a hyperlink, I've been asked to ask if anyone knows what these markings are by someone who saw a picture of them somewhere else. And where better to ask?! :)
Click to expand...
If someone had foreknowledge of Google Maps in 2003 and posted a thread about it, it would have been a Fortean phenomenon indeed, right here in the forum itself. ;)

About the hyperlink colouring, I second that. The strange thing is, some links get a distinctive colour, but not all.
 
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Fats_Tuesday

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Cavynaut said:
You know, that's odd. I could've sworn that the first post was dated 2003. :? No, there isn't a hyperlink, I've been asked to ask if anyone knows what these markings are by someone who saw a picture of them somewhere else. And where better to ask?! :)
Click to expand...

You may have been looking at the "Joined" date on the left by mistake. I do it all the time.
 
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wombat103

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and we still get told they cant find osamar.......
 
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Skeletonmaster

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Cavynaut said:
Apologies for bumping such an old thread, but these circular formations can also be found in Southern Egypt. Would they also be circular crop fields?
Click to expand...

Could well be. I saw very similar formations last year out of a plane window when I flew into Marrakech (Morocco) last year. I think those were date palm plantations. Could these be something similar?
 
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