UPI August 03, 2006
Military secret spotted with Google Earth
BERLIN, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- A German man using Google Earth to study faraway places says he has stumbled upon a site on a Chinese military base that had been secret for decades.
Identified only by his computer name, "KenGrok," the man zoomed in until he saw what was a miniature replica of China's disputed border region with India, ABC News reported.
The two countries went to war over the issue in 1962, and the impasse remains.
The Sydney Morning Herald said Chinese authorities said the terrain was a tank training facility, but Tim Brown, a specialist in satellite imagery and a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, laughed the explanation off, as he said the scale of the terrain is about 1:500.
"Tanks aren't going to be driving through that," said Brown. "That's guys walking along, looking at it -- it's just too small (for tanks)."
He said while the find was new, the concept wasn't.
"The Japanese had one before Pearl Harbor ... (and the Chinese) have full-scale airfields, oriented like Taiwanese airfields."
© Copyright 2006, United Press International, Inc.
