Friday, February 08, 2013

Drone City: This must be the place

A couple of posts down, I said I'd publish the location of the secret U.S. drone base in Saudi Arabia -- the one that has everyone so angry right now. Wired says they've found the thing, by way of Bing maps (but not Google Earth). Go here.

How do we know this is the right place? It's right near the border with Yemen. The base disappears when you zoom out, indicating recent construction. (Older Satellite photos were no doubt used at the farther range.) While I'm anything but an expert at interpreting satellite imagery, I know that the desert sands quickly reclaim tarmac or paved areas unless they are kept clean. You'll see no drones in the Bing imagery, but you'll see hangars. No roads link this base to any city. This looks right to me.

2 comments:

Pennelope Pennebaker said...

Joe, ever seen a runway w/o direction markings?

Bob Harrison said...

Back in 'Nam days, we built 'em all the time w/o markings. Dirt doesn't paint too good and I suspect sand doesn't either.