The View From Above: desert

Showing posts with label desert. Show all posts

Friday, June 12, 2009

You'd never expect to find THIS out in the middle of the deserts of Egypt!

27°22'49.08"N 33°37'56.09"E

Just 2 miles west of the El Gouna resort, on the shore of the Red Sea (Egypt), lies an impressive example of land art called "Desert Breath." Created by Greek artist Danae Stratou and the DAST art team from 1995 to 1997. It covers 100,000 square meters, and took several years to create. When created, there was a fairly deep pool of water at its center, and the whole project was designed to slowly erode over time.

Friday, June 5, 2009

What exactly are these mystery markings in the Algerian Desert?

31° 1'9.84"N 7°58'32.44"E

Approximately 183 miles SW of the Algerian town of Touggourt, deep in the sandy desert, lies this unusual geoglyph. It's hard to say whether it is just a glyph in the sands, or an object buried beneath them. It certainly looks man-made. There are oil drilling operations this part of the desert, so it's possible it is related to that industry in some way. Does anyone have any information on this?

Why "View From Above"

I have an unquenchable thirst for exploration and mysteries. But that isn't the only reason for "View From Above." This blog exists primarily thanks to the despicable ignorance and laziness of the many, many people who will post a picture of some anomaly and simply make guesses about it, rather than do five minutes worth of research. I can't count the many times I've seen aerial pictures of "UFOs parked in a row on the beach" (They're beach umbrellas, you dork!) or questions like, "What's this aircraft doing sitting in the middle of the desert?" (It's a military firing range. They use junk aircraft as targets. Duh!) The unwillingness on the part of most people to do even a minimal amount of research just boggles the mind.

Another pet peeve of mine is the practice of posting an interesting site without a precise location. I don't know if it's laziness, oversight, or a desire to hoard information, but it's irritating as hell to me. That's why mosts of my posts will always include coordinates to the site.

I hope you'll enjoy perusing the sites I've listed. I can't take credit for being the first to "find" most of them, but I will do my best to let you know what I find out about them!

Michael Makai