I was trying to find the infamous Area 51 on Google's new map site. Google has this fun thing were you can view satelite images anywhere in the world. You can scroll around real fast with it too. They have a version that is available to download too but it's a subscription service. Why pay for something that's free?

You can see satellite pictures of your hometown or even house if you're lucky. Here's Westhampton, my hometown. I'd give ya the link to my house but I sort of want my privacy. Crazy people could look me up anyway if they really wanted to, I guess I'm just paranoid.

Speaking of paranoia: Area 51. I took me a little while to search the net for it's location. Most of the sites have close-up maps and pictures of it, with no real reference points or coordinates. Eventually I found a livejournal entry of a guy that searched for Area 51 with Google's map too. He had a bit of a hard time also, but found it. All you really have to do is search for Rachel, Nevada and move directly west till you get to groom lake and the base. Or just click here. Read the comments on the livejournal page for more interesting info and theories. There seems to be a debate on the identity of the mysterious craters (or mounds) to the south west and the circular green fields to the north.

It should be noted also that these satellite images are a bit old too. I'm not too sure when though, maybe 1996 or something.

Fun stuff. I hope I don't waste too much time with this. Conspiracy theories get as silly as a religion, with just as much nutty followers with faulty thinking.

More detailed pictures:

http://www.fas.org/irp/overhead/groom.htm

http://terraserver.com/special/area51/area51.asp

Also mentioned in the lj comments was Nasa's World Wind software. It's free 3D views of the world (less resolution then google's):

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov

I'm downloading that now.

Ok World Wind is fun. Takes a while to load the pictures though but you can make it form the topography in 3d. Not too accurate or detailed as google's map thing, but what it does do is label everything under the sun. So I found out what those green round fields where. World Wind labeled them as Penoyer Farms, which I googled and found it to be a place in Rachel where they grow alfalfa using underground springs in the desert. They even have a phone number and an address. No conspiracy there. As for the mysterious mounds or holes to the south west of Area 51, they're labeled as Nevada Test Areas. World Wind also renders what appeared as mounds from above, as holes in 3D, probably from bombs or underground nukes, or alien death rays. Hey a person can always dream!