skyring: (Default)
Skyring ([personal profile] skyring) wrote2009-08-29 12:49 pm

Over the top

Last April, the penultimate leg of our wonderful Hong Kong/Cruise/France/BookCrossing holiday involved a Singapore-Sydney flight. Coming back over Australia, we flew right over a curious site, and I pulled out my camera for a few shots. Loaded them up on Flickr and thought no more about them.

Since then, they have consistently been the most looked at photographs on my Flickr page. Forget all the great travel photographs, shots of people smiling at me, Ringbear and books. It's this one:
Pine Gap

It's becoming (in)famous. During a routine Technorati search on my name, I spotted a curious site. Let me quote:
The fearful factor about such discoveries is that these 15 families already dominate world economy and international finance. The rest of the nations are expected to submit to their demands and work up a mutual treaty. The current global economic crisis could be a step towards the systematic economic destabilization that will mark these internationalists’ systematic rise to power.

Nutty, hey? And they used my photographs - with attributation - to illustrate the article.

[identity profile] awaywithfairy1.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
It's not Pine Gap, is it? Or were you too far east? Some kind of meteorological station? At any rate, they seem to have a nice swimming pool!

[identity profile] skyring.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
Well spotted!

Yes, it's Pine Gap. Looks quite striking from ten kilometres up, nestled between the straight lines of the twin ridges.

(Anonymous) 2009-08-29 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
Watch out! Next thing we know you'll be hauled in as a potential terrorist ...
Jen

[identity profile] skyring.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
Google Earth has the same site available, at a far greater level of detail, so obviously the existence and physical layout of the place is not considered secret enough to warrant any sort of "blacking out" such as the infamous White House roof censorship.

(Anonymous) 2009-08-29 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
I don't think the location's a secret at all. There's too many local workers from Alice Springs for it ever to be a secret. I hear they even run regular shuttle buses from town...

[identity profile] awaywithfairy1.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 11:14 am (UTC)(link)
Oops, the above anonymous message is from me (typing while not logged in)!

[identity profile] skyring.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 09:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Two anonymous comments. This is a worry!

Actually the first one was from my sister, who doesn't have an LJ account.

[identity profile] yokospungeon.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm Karen Silkwood!"

I liked that story, I'd never heard of her.

[identity profile] mojosmom.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
There's an excellent movie about her, "Silkwood", with Meryl Streep and Cher.

[identity profile] rubbergirl.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 09:55 am (UTC)(link)
Ah Pine Gap.

Have the men in black knocked on your door yet?

[identity profile] mojosmom.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 01:30 pm (UTC)(link)
You've got to love the loons! They do make life interesting and amusing. There's a sort of "what will they think of next?" pleasure in reading them.

[identity profile] skyring.livejournal.com 2009-08-29 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
What I liked was the five mile deep hole under the installation to recharge the batteries on distant nuclear subs. These guys have worked out their own physics, the stuff they don't teach in high school.

But, needless to say, they are utterly, crazily and short-sightedly wrong. They missed the most obvious clue of all - the 1:1 scale perfect reproduction in the installation grounds of Rosslyn Chapel.