The cover of
Espionage Game, a novel about Groom Lake that we publish (click
to get to our home page), was created in part from an actual 1988 Soviet
satellite photograph, purchased from them in early 1990 by the author.
This only proves that not only were the Russians fully aware of Groom
Lake, but also that they had no need to hide that knowledge from the American
government. So much for the myth of hiding the base from them!
Below is a 1988 Soviet satellite photograph of
the top-secret US Air Force testing facility at Groom Lake, NV. It is also known as Area
51. Groom Lake is a dry lakebed most of the year, and as such, affords an excellent
natural airport. Located about 95 miles northwest of Las Vegas, NV, Groom Lake is in the
middle of the Nellis AFB Bombing and Gunnery Range, making Groom Lake a very secluded
Known by such codenames as Dreamland, the Box, and the Ranch, the facilities
at Groom Lake were originally opened by "Kelly" Johnson in 1955 as a place to
test the U-2. Since that time, virtually every top-secret American aircraft was tested at
the Groom Lake facility. Although an open secret for over thirty years, even today the US
government still refuses to acknowledge the existence of the base. However, there can be
no question that the Soviets not only knew of the existence of the facilities in 1988, but
also clearly had known for years. The image was taken early in the morning when the length
of the shadows could be used to estimate the heights of various buildings and when the
winds were still calm, eliminating the effects of dust. In addition, the desert is still
cool at this time and so there would be no distorting convection currents. Such timing was
not accidental. The Russians timed this exposure carefully.
The image was taken by a Soviet Cosmos satellite on July 17, 1988 at 8:34 AM PDT. This
image is a survey-mode photographic color transparency measuring 30 cm by 30 cm
(approximately 12 inches by 12 inches). Taken at an altitude of 275.7 kilometers (171.3
miles), the transparency covers a land area of approximately 100 kilometers by 100
kilometers. Figure 1 is a small section of this image and shows Groom Lake about as it
appears on the original transparency. Even a casual examination of the transparency would
reveal the existence of the runway running across the lakebed.
The photographic film used to take this image is very fine grained. The actual
transparency delivered by Soyuzkarta is a copy of the original, making it a second
generation. This, in turn, was sent to a photographic lab with a super-sized enlarger and
a number of photographic enlargements were made of the area around Groom Lake. These were
printed onto Cibachrome paper. Parts of the resulting enlargements are shown in figures 2,
3 and 4. It wasnt until the enlargement shown in figure 4 that the actual grain of
the transparency could be seen. These Cibachrome prints were then digitally scanned at
several DPI densities. Those used in this web page were scanned at 100 DPI so as to match
the resolution of your computer monitor. Much more detail can be seen in the 600 DPI
The resolution of the original image is claimed by Soyuzkarta to be between five and
seven meters. The actual resolution is closer to two to three meters when the Cibachrome
prints are examined. Thus the digital images shown in figures 1 through 4 are not really
representative of the Cibachrome prints. Two compromises had to be made to
make it possible to download images over the Internet to you. First, they
were scanned at 100 DPI – a very low resolution, and second, they were
heavily compressed with JPEG, which further decreases the quality of the
fine detail. While this may not be apparent in the figures themselves, you
can click on each and download an enlargement and see
just how fuzzy they are. Most of the fuzziness is due to the JPEG compression.
Figure 5 is representative of the "image enhancement" done just
fifteen years ago.
Back then, computers were slow, disks were small and memories were limited to 128
kilobytes. Since the goal of such enhancements was to impress some world leader or
another, the images were typically scanned digitally and then posterized (that is,
converted to 256 colors and the colors manipulated to make them look nice) as this one
was. Then labeling was added so that the leader had no problem in understanding what they
were supposed to see. English translations were added for those of you who dont read
As such, this sort of enhancement is crude by todays standards. An example of
todays standards can be seen on the Federation of American Scientists
http://www.fas.org/. Their IKONOS image was taken on April
2, 2000. It is well under one-meter resolution although claimed to be only one meter by
Space Imaging. In reality, it is closer to .25 meters. Although it is difficult to see any
really fine detail on the JPEG images you can download, look carefully at the shot of the
shipping/receiving building. You can see the lines in the parking lot. Those cannot be
much wider than 15 cm (6 inches).
Click on images to see
© Satellite photograph provided by ContiTrade
Services Corporation, New York and Soyuzkarta, Moscow, Reproduction is unauthorized except
by written permission. Used with permission.
© Satellite photograph image enhancements Copyright 1991, 1992,
and 1999 by PRW. All rights Reserved
© Copyright 2011 Poitin Inc. All rights reserved.