Giant Triangle
Friday, 24th March 2006 by James Turnbull
Here's a mystery for a Friday morning - why is there a giant equilateral triangle in the desert near the city of Surprise, Arizona? And why does the city have such a silly name?
It looks to me like it could be an old airfield but it could, of course, be aliens!
Thanks: Craig Simpson
Each side is 3 or 400 feet thick — several houses end-to-end, if you look at the nearby one. It also looks like there are several perimeter fences. If I had to hazard a guess, this is a missile silo. Surprise! indeed.
weird… it clearly looks like someone has been driving in it… there are small roads leading up to it… and what is this?? View Placemark
Look even closer and there is a plane just to the left…
Haha, no, just kidding. But I doubt it’s an airport either.
hmmm… i searched on google and found this: http://localphototours.metroshot.com/usa/arizona/wittmann/wittmann-2.html looks at the 4th picture… thats how the ground looks… the area is obviously called wittman… i reaturn when i have more information… stay tuned!
maybe some sort of race track…as there is what appears to be a speedway to the left.
ok, i found out what this is! its some kind of old “satellite airfield”, and was built during ww2… http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/AZ/LukeAux4_AZ_97.jpg http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/AZ/Airfields_AZ_Phoenix_NW.htm scroll to the bottom.
Airport or parking for planes
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/AZ/Airfields_AZ_Phoenix_NW.htm#lukeaux4
here some others: View Placemark View Placemark
An airfield would make sense. That’s what all of the airfields and enemy fighters looked like when I played F-15 Strike Eagle
Actually, if you zoom out a little, there’s loads of geometric shapes. Maybe they were experimenting with different shapes, given the lovely curves of the nearby town? Seems to me they settled on the best option, those circles are almost hypnotic.
did any of you actually read my posts?
Leave my home town alone. I kinda like the name “Surprise”. You will be hearing more about it as the town is over 100,000 population and host the Rangers and Royals for Cactus League baseball.
It is the old Luke AFB aux. field, some local maps actually mark it that way.
It’s definately an airfield.
Look at this similar one to the east. The triangle is the same size, but this one has been modified.
View Placemark
it might be some kind of hovercraft…
WWII airfield would almost certainly be correct. We have one just like that in our city, though it is still in use and one runway has been extended to handle modern jumbo jets. They were used for training pilots, and the reason for the three runways in a perfect triangle is that older planes were not as able as today’s planes to handle crosswinds, especially with a rookie pilot at the stick. Since you can land in either direction, there is in fact 6 runways. Dividing 360 degrees by 6 gives you a total range of 60 degrees per runway, or 30 degrees to either side of a runway. What that all means is that no matter which way the wind is blowing, a plane can land here with at the maximum a 30 degree crosswind.
My city’s similar airport is at View Placemark Sorry, it’s low res 🙁
Take a look little bit west in Google Earth, there is “town”. You can see straight roads but there is no houses! There is also some kind of oval shape racing track. Weird are americans..
Good lookin muhammed. Thanks for the links 🙂
The first thing I though of when I saw this post was “a giant traffic warning triangle. Maybe Earth really is just a broken-down truck on the galactic highway…”
Vogons. Definitely the work of Vogons.
OK, next mystery: What are these black rectangles just to the southeast of the triangular air force base?
View Placemark
Did anyone else notice that the town nearby has many golf-courses intertwined with the subdivisions. Maybe this is normal out in Arizona, but it looks odd to me.
View Placemark
Oh hey – “Keeping up with the Joneses 3”! You outght to submit that!
On to the rectangles– my first thought was solar panels but a moment’s inspection discounts that theory. Taking into account the trucks, I thought: Coal? There does seem to be a small strip mine over to the left, and just to the right there’s a slightly bigger black rectangle which appears to be in a pit. But why the strange loading strategy? Any other ideas?
here’s another one View Placemark
It looks to me that the black rectangles are part of photo and map alignment. They are translucent.
See, View Placemark
I don’t think that the black rectangles are part of the photo alignment. Judging by the way these trucks are positioned View Placemark You can also see what looks to be front end loader shovel marks in some of the rectangles, and what looks to be a front end loader in the top right of that frame. Plus the vehicle tracks in between the rectangles suggest this must be piles of coal. The “loading strategy” is definitely peculiar though.
Goodyear airfield, not far away, is a “graveyard” for disused commercial airliners awaiting the scrapper: View Placemark
Black Rectangles = Solid Waste Landfill
19401 W Deer Valley Rd, Surprise AZ http://www.azdeq.gov/environ/waste/solid/download/active.pdf
¿likely organized in the rectangles for easy access?
At the Goodyear airfield – i know its a plane ‘graveyard but ghost planes? Ahhhhhhhhhh! Get Scooby Doo on the case.
View Placemark
The original triangle on Topozone: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=12&n=3735303.00004362&e=348101.999995456&datum=nad83
And more clearly on the smaller scale map, strangely – http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=12&n=3735303.00004362&e=348101.999995456&datum=nad83
ZOMG Its teh Triforce Piece ~ ___~);;’ Wat out there! cause Ganon’s prolly after it p:
I’m going out that way tomorrow for an excercise, I’ll let you know if I see anything weird! No wonder we have so many UFO sightings!
On one of my maps it shows it as a Luke AFB Auxillary Airfield (Closed to the Public).
The oval shape track is the Chrysler Proving Ground where they test cars. It is closing down soon.
Landfill for the small black rectangles is correct.
The oval track to the west is an automobile test track. May belong to Chrysler. Low res to prevent anyone from checking out the latest prototypes I guess. Very highly protected and guarded, much like a military base.
Regarding the loading strategy, it must be to avoid major fires if one of those piles lit up. You see a similar strategy for tire dumps.
Ever wondered how they calibrated satellite cameras during the cold war? Turns out they drew great big geometric shapes in the desert at a known location and gave the satellite instructions to photograph it. This also trained crews how to give accuate instructions to satellites.
The racetrack is the Toyota Proving Grounds. I used to work there during construction during the late 80s early 90s. The triangle is an emergency airfield for Luke AFB.
Its an old airfield. If you look around the area there are about 4 or 5 more almost identical to it in size and shape. This one however is the only one which does not have other bits added to it. See directly to the east of it and also just north of maricopa.
Re: the waste disposal company
I don’t think it is piled up refuse, I think those are dumpsters, the kind you find near construction sites. They seem to be about 20 feet long, according to the legend. Deployed like that, they could just back a truck up to one, pick it up and drive away.
Muhammad and russ hit the nail on the head it is an AUX field from Luke AFB. I am In the Air Force and have heard of it from older airman and also my uncle who was stationed out there about 20 years ago.
If you take a look at the bottom left of the triangle and mesaure up .12 of a mile you will see an old airplane i suppose left there many years ago. Or i could be insane and seeing things.
Russ is right. I live near here in Peoria. This is a military area, and there are all kinds of old airfields and runways out yonder…
I grew up in wittmann az near those strange things! i didn’t know about them til just a couple months ago. crazy shit went on out there!
zorg: darling, the ufo’s broken down again! nice one
Sorry guys no mystery here, this is an old landing strip the multiple directions allow for taking off and landing in multiple wind directions. They are common in the old air fields that are around luke air base to areas of the goldwater bombing range.
Old triangular airfields were very common for the reasons mentioned here. However they often intersected (not always). This to me doesnt show any sign of surfacing such as gravel and perhaps is in fact an old bombing target. I grew up near an aerial bombing range in Australia which is in fact still in use. The target used for approach is a large triangle which I think this is more likely to be.
Is it only me who can see the little planes? They look oddly pale and landed at odd angles. One in water it seems?!
hey its weird cause there is a giant triangle in the dessert and im studying it do you have some info on it.
hey that is weird with a triangle in the dessert do you have any more info on it i really want to know im studying it .
Not sure if anyone has posted anything like this but, I used to live there. I lived off 161st and Skinner Rd in Surprise. I might sound like a weirdo but I used to see crazy stuff out there all the time. I remember when i was a kid around the early 1990’s there was a very large brush fire that went along the highway (Hwy 60+ 163rd Ave) and where the triangle shows up. Those google satillite shots were taken after that fire. Where did those triangles come from?? If anyone out there knows anything about it, please let me know.
[email protected]