What is China building in a remote desert area? Vast, unidentified, structures have been spotted by satellites in the barren Gobi desert, raising questions about what China might be building in a region it uses for its military, space and nuclear programmes.
...The strange structures are in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, a remote area near the Mongolian border, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau into the Kumtag Desert.
This Google Maps image shows a four-by-four grid of what look like square holes or metallic quares surrounded by debris...
...Zooming into this area reveals what look like destroyed vehicles.
All of the sites are on the borders of Gansu province and Xinjiang, some less than 100 miles from Jiuquan, the headquarters of China’s space programme and the location of its launch pads. This Google Maps image shows what look like roads intersecting at crazy angles...
...Have the lines been painted on the surface or have they been scraped out by bulldozers?
Just to the west of that grid is something that looks like a target, with lines radiating out of the centre...
...Planes and what look like trucks can be seen at the centre of the target-shaped grid
Thousand of straight lines intersect in an enormous grid about 18 miles long...