Mystery Sand Formation (Desert Week 2011)
Monday, 20th June 2011 by Alex Turnbull
For our first post of Desert Week 2011, we’re travelling to the Grand Erg Oriental, or 'Great Eastern Sand Sea' of the Sahara desert in north-eastern Algeria, where we find a mysterious formation in the sand…
The image was taken in 2005, and shows what appears to be a 100 metre-long (328 ft) groove gouged from the desert sand. Your first thought might be that a plane crashed here, but there’s no sign of any wreckage. However, with the constantly shifting sand it's entirely possible that any evidence of a crash has simply been covered over, but then why would the gouge itself still be visible?
Zooming in closer we can see that the formation actually sits inside a huge rectangle that has been partially worn away by the gouge itself - suggesting that the rectangle was here before whatever made the huge impression showed up. Could something have been aiming for this spot, and if so, what for?
So what are we seeing here? Clearly this is not a natural formation - could it be a crash site after all? The results of a missile test? A small meteor impact? Or something else extra-terrestrial?
More info about the Grand Erg Oriental, as ever, is available on Wikipedia.
Thanks to hank via our submissions form!
Wow… really interesting! I don’t think it was a plane though, only because there should be some marks from the wing dragging on either side. Then again, I only see one set of tracks leaving on the north side too so whatever it was it got away without much of a trace. Maybe a small rocket or missle test that landed out there? Cool find.
Looks more like some kind of environmental art type of thing to me. But an – admittedly very cursory – search has yielded nothing. The plot thickens.
There are plenty of artefacts around there, looking like foundations and ruins. Some are similar.
My guess would be it’s where someone landed with a parachute. The rectangle could be marked out for that purpose and the landing could cause a sand-slide, with an avalanche-type effect making a much bigger impression than the impact alone would.
A giant Dune sandworm. 😛
Tracing the line north-west points straight to an oil installation. There are a lot of flattened out rectangles, from temporary camps, around there too.
This could well be the answer then. An abandoned, or unfinished oil installation would explain the rectangle… but the mound? Hmmm.
i think could be a tomb of some sort, the missile shape could be a tunnel that goes underground but i don’t know what to think about the rectangle or another idea is its a fail missile test and the rectangle is to corner it off e.g police tape is used at crime
the linear mound looks to be typical sand slumping along the fall line, though it is not easy to see the true fall line from this photo. The rectangle? Who knows?
If you use google earth and turn on the google earth community layer you will find out it was made by a bulldozer and it’s related to the oilfields.
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1119596&site_id=1#import
Like Akim I think that the rectangle could be some target area for a missile test. And if it was a test, there probably wasn’t a warhead put on the missile. Otherwise the impact crater would be deeper and more round. The object came from south-west, impact on the sw-corner of the rectangle and through the motion the sand was heaped up towards the north east.
Saw Todds comment just after I posted mine. The last comment in Todds link seems legit.
Dune sand worms!
It’s quite neat to see this being talked about again. This object was originally found by “minel72” on the GEH forums. http://www.gearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?7604-quot-Ancient-alien-spacecraft-found-by-new-GE-member-quot&highlight=desertThe conclusion that we eventually came to on GEH was that it was part of an exposed pipeline.