secret airbase on google earth

on the new update of google earth for vista i think i found a secret airbase please tell me what you think it is
the reason i think it is a secret airbase is because it is in the direct center of the pacific ocean it is only 2.2 miles long by 1.4 miles wide and the runway is exactly 1 mile long
please tell me what you think


the first image is the runway and the second is the whole island
and on the second image i made two red squares showing where the runway starts and ends

latitude 28°12'49.85"N
longitude 177°23'42.67"W


[edit on 18-11-2007 by xbrendanx]

You very well may have but is you can post a better picture than that I can't really make anything from it it looks more like modern art to me.

Originally posted by SE7EN
You very well may have but is you can post a better picture than that I can't really make anything from it it looks more like modern art to me.

that is what it shows it is the only blurry island i have found bit i will post a pic of the whole island if that helps

Is that Easter Island ?
I can't tell from the pics.

If it is, there is supposed to
be an emergency runway
there for the shuttle.

Just my 2 cent,
Lex

Originally posted by Lexion
Is that Easter Island ?
I can't tell from the pics.

If it is, there is supposed to
be an emergency runway
there for the shuttle.

Just my 2 cent,
Lex

i think easter island is in the Atlantic ocean near brazil

Can you post the Lat & Lon so those that want to can look at it through Google Earth also.

Without the co ordinates we can't determine it's location. And that is the most important piece.

latatude 28°12'49.85"N
longitude 177°23'42.67"W

It's Midway Island. There's nothing secret about it. It was the sight of one of the biggest battles of WWII in the Pacific. The US Navy sank 4 of the 6 Japanese carriers that were used in the attack on Pearl Harbor on June 4-6 of 1942 there. It's 1130 miles from the Hawaiian Islands. It was turned over to the Department of Fish and Wildlife after the military ended use of it and is now a wildlife sanctuary.

Can you tell us the name of the island? Google will tell you that, or give us the coordinates to search. I don't see it anywhere near the center of the Pacific.

My google earth says it's Henderson field and the island is Sand Island, which is part of the Midway Atoll. The airport is open to the public. www.airnav.com...

Actually it's NOT currently open. It used to be open to ecotours, but they stopped those in 2002. They're expected to start them again in 2008, but there haven't been any firm plans as far as I know to actually open it again.

For those that are new to Google Earth highlite, copy and paste this into the Fly To (search) box.

28°12'49.85"N, 177°23'42.67"W

[edit on 18-11-2007 by aerialview]

[edit on 18-11-2007 by aerialview]

thank you Zaphod58 for quickly finding that and to wveryone else who helped with this
to me it looked like a secret airbase because how small the island was compared to the runway

Originally posted by xbrendanx

Originally posted by SE7EN
You very well may have but is you can post a better picture than that I can't really make anything from it it looks more like modern art to me.

that is what it shows it is the only blurry island i have found bit i will post a pic of the whole island if that helps

Actually, turning on placemarks for Places of Interest in Google Earth, it's infact Sand Island and it's neighbour is Eastern Island.

Midway Atoll (also known as Midway Island or Midway Islands, Hawaiian: Pihemanu) is a 2.4 square mile (6.2 km²) atoll located in the North Pacific Ocean (near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago) at [show location on an interactive map] 28°12′N 177°21′WCoordinates: [show location on an interactive map] 28°12′N 177°21′W, about one-third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo.

The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide habitat for hundreds of thousands of seabirds. Island sizes are:

The location of Midway in the Pacific became important to the military. Midway was a convenient refueling stop on transpacific flights. It also became an important stop for Navy ships.

Wiki Link

So it's just an old air strip from WW2. There's a few around that area, I recall finding a website ages ago about one in particular that I can't remember the name of, but it looked amazing, and was setup to house a few hundred long term employees. It's since been decommissioned and all the structures torn down. A shame really.

Bugger, had I read 2 posts further down I'd have found you have the names now..

Just wanted to add that I love Google Earth, it's come a long way since the first incarnation. Google Sky is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

I see you have your answer about what this island is already but I wanted to give a tip for future finds. If you find a spot of interest and don't know what it is, go to your layers, expand "gallery" and then check the box for google community. This gives you the placemarks from the google earth community . That way you can see if someone else has found it and started a thread asking about it on GC. There is some great information on that site as many of these people are constantly scouring the earth looking for cool sites.

Happy searching! I love that they have incorporated so much different media into google earth lately, people can upload pictures to go with their placemarks and there are links to wikipedia articles as well on another gallery layer. There are also National Geographic points of interest, a NASA layer that shows where they keep their runways and buildings, and many many more. Just enable a few of the layers to see what all is on there. There is so much information on google earth now, the screen can get pretty cluttered if you leave it all on.

And if you haven't yet, click over to Google Sky, if you have the latest version of google earth just click the little planet on the toolbar right above the picture and you will see the starry sky which works just like google earth so you can zoom through the universe. Very cool...

Here is another GE link. Copy and paste this link into the Google Earth's Fly To (search) box).
31.0358°, 7.9882°

Zoom out then in or whatever. It looks like a bomb test area to me.

Man if I had read further down into the thread, I wouldn't have went looking for it in Google Earth manually!

Nice catch guys.

Shattered OUT...

The question is,

how come you can't visit the Wake Island for just a public tour?

[edit on 19-11-2007 by TheoOne]