not a ufo or anything.......

Anyone know what this thing is?

33 43 18.16 N 115 30 26.81 W

My guess would be a collapsed water storage tank?

It pretty remote.

a reply to: Cakewalk

Here is the picture of that location



Looks interesting, if anyone lives nearby Joshua Tree Park I would go check it out for curiosity's sake.

a reply to: cooperton

Using the altitude and measuring tool, it is a shallow dish 88 feet across about 200 yards from the road and the transmission tower next to the road.

a reply to: Cakewalk


Looks very strange, I have no idea, just looked at the timeline pictures in GE, its been around for a long time.
Cant see any roads leading to it. But its almost to perfect to be nature made.

originally posted by: Cakewalk
Anyone know what this thing is?

33 43 18.16 N 115 30 26.81 W

My guess would be a collapsed water storage tank?

It pretty remote.

It appears to me to be a really large japanese rock garden.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I wish I had a jeep..... Im in phoenix and this would make a great daytrip.

a reply to: Cakewalk

It's 200 paces from a paved road. Why would you need a jeep?

originally posted by: pteridine
a reply to: cooperton

Using the altitude and measuring tool, it is a shallow dish 88 feet across about 200 yards from the road and the transmission tower next to the road.

Well that's interesting, on initial inspection, it looks convex, not concave.

The fact that it's a shallow dish suggests it was meant to catch liquid of some sort, but the fact that it has no cover on top of it would make it fairly useless for containing open water, what with the hellacious rate of evaporation that you would get in the desert.

According to the history of that area, there was a lot of gold and silver mining inside what is now the boundaries of the park. One of the methods of silver and gold extraction that's commonly used in that part of the country is called heap leaching. You pile up a heap of the crushed ore and spray it with an aqueous solution of cyanide. The liquid percolates down through the ore heap and leaches out the gold and silver. You do this in a basin of some kind so that when the liquid drains out of the bottom of the heap, you can catch it, pipe it off to a processing facility, where you can chemically extract the metals from the solution. It's particularly good at extracting precious metals that are in low concentration in the ore. I'm going to make a wild ass guess that this is a heap leach catch basin.

a reply to: 1947boomer

It looks either, depends on perception.

It looks strange.
I know i'm probably wrong but it could be a man-made water bed because it looks to be reflecting the geology around it.
Someone nearby is likely panning for gold like someone said,

a reply to: ManyMasks

Yeah perception of light source I think makes a difference, we assume the light comes in from the top and this changes how we then see a crater or dome



do-you-see-a-mountain-or-a-crater-in-this-picture
same image but flipped thru 90degrees.......trippy

So I suppose how we percieve up and down/orientation of things is key

A toppled Radar from battlefield 3 ?

originally posted by: SpaghettiHero
It looks strange.
I know i'm probably wrong but it could be a man-made water bed because it looks to be reflecting the geology around it.
Someone nearby is likely panning for gold like someone said,

Panning requires a stream or other waterway.

Heap leaching of low concentration ore usually requires a grinder and other facilities. Heaps have to be big because of low concentrations of the metals and the solution has to be pumped over the pile. If anyone gets there, look for skeletons of small animals and birds who were tempted to drink the leachate.

a reply to: Cakewalk

It may be a wildlife guzzler, a manmade structure to provide animals with drinking water. I see a lot of these throughout the mojave desert. They come in many shapes and sizes.

originally posted by: pteridine
a reply to: Cakewalk

It's 200 paces from a paved road. Why would you need a jeep?

Its ( hayfield rd ) actually a dirt road that follows high tension lines and south of that is a railroad. its a long hike from I-10

originally posted by: Cakewalk

originally posted by: pteridine
a reply to: Cakewalk

It's 200 paces from a paved road. Why would you need a jeep?

Its ( hayfield rd ) actually a dirt road that follows high tension lines and south of that is a railroad. its a long hike from I-10

Is the road a service road for the electrical towers and not passable by car?

originally posted by: Shadowhawk
a reply to: Cakewalk

It may be a wildlife guzzler, a manmade structure to provide animals with drinking water. I see a lot of these throughout the mojave desert. They come in many shapes and sizes.

Given the plant life in the dish implying a water source, this seems to be a good option.

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: pteridine
a reply to: cooperton

Using the altitude and measuring tool, it is a shallow dish 88 feet across about 200 yards from the road and the transmission tower next to the road.

Well that's interesting, on initial inspection, it looks convex, not concave.

Looking at the shadows it is certainly concave. The surrounding sand has fallen into it on the left side.