The plot has thickened in the mystery of the giant structures in the Chinese desert.
Earlier this week, images from Google Maps surfaced showing a bizarre tangle of white lines etched into the Kumtag Desert in northwestern China.
According to Gizmodo, the lines cover an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide.
Since the initial finding, however, people have discovered a number of other strange structures in the Chinese desert. Along with another, similar collection of white lines, there are also huge complexes that that resemble anything from a collection of antennas to a collection of water cooling tanks to targeting grids for spy satellites.
Military experiments or the remnants of some alien culture come to earth? No one's really sure.
And now, to make things even more puzzling, a former CIA analyst has pointed out to Wired that, since 2004, someone has directed Google Earth's satellite to take hundreds of images of that part of the desert. "Can't have been cheap," he says.
The original formation that sparked all the speculation. It can be found on Google Maps here.
A closer look at the mysterious formation in the Kumtag Desert.
A second formation, similar to the first, can be seen in Google Maps here.
A crop circle? A target for spy satellites? Check it out in Google Maps here.
Another mysterious structure can be seen here.
Gizmodo points out that this complex measures five miles by 10 miles, and features two nuclear plant-like cooling towers, along with water treatment plans. It appears that this structure may actually be a fertilizer factory in Lop Nur.
Wired talked to a former CIA analyst, who said that, since 2004, someone has been ordering many satellite images of this part of the Chinese desert, and that it "can't have been cheap."