November 20, 2011:  One of the strangest items found in Google Earth of late was a pattern of 20 meter (63 feet) wide painted "roads" in China's desolate Gobi Desert (coordinates are 40.458679,93.31314). The network covered an area roughly 1,000 meters by 1,800 meters. It was all a mystery, until someone went looking and found that the United States has used a similar size painted configuration in the 1960s, to give American spy satellites something to calibrate their cameras with. Current Chinese satellites are several decades behind American technology, and this is what the Gobi Desert pattern is apparently for. This was corroborated when a nearby "Stonehenge" structure was found, with the pillars radiating out from a central point. A similar American structure was used decades ago to calibrate radar satellites.

Thousands of curious Google Earth users are now scouring the Gobi Desert and finding all sorts of Chinese military sites. Google Earth sees all, or at least more than many military organizations would like.