Spy Photos
8. United States, 2000
The Public Eye project of the Federation of American Scientists
ordered this IKONOS satellite image of the secret U.S. airbase
called Area 51—located at Groom Lake, Nevada—to test the
limits of the government's "shutter-control" policy. Groom Lake is
one of America's most sensitive and closely guarded military flight
test centers. After a two-month delay that included the release of a
two-meter Russian image, Space Imaging, which is a subsidiary of
defense contractor Lockheed Martin, finally released the image. The
hangar seen here is configured to allow an aircraft within to taxi
or "drive-thru" with its engines running, out of view of prying
satellite eyes. The horizontal black line at the bottom center of
the image is a blast deflector, which enables the hidden aircraft to
run its engines to full power without damaging nearby buildings or
vehicles.