(to enlarge the pictures, click on the photo)
At one point in 2004, Burmese military regime has constructed two special buildings in Burma. They were not ordinary buildings. The military sealed off the perimeter of building sites with its troops. These locations were out-of-bound areas to the adjacent local villagers. The hills selected for the sites of the buildings were bulldozed off to the bedrock -- gigantic mass of earth was removed with men and machinery. The regime took it so secretively that villagers who worked in those sites didn’t know what kind of buildings they were for. Photos on every steps of construction of a large ‘factory building’ in Myaing Township was known by Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) of Norway, in 2006. But at that time, the exact location of Myaing factory couldn’t be pinpointed yet. The other factory was unknown until early 2009 when Google posted satellite imageries in the area of Pyin Oo Lwin (POL), formerly called May Myo. Burma observers debated about the POL site being a nuclear processing plant. In late 2009, Google posted satellite imageries covering Myaing region. There it was -- the Myaing factory building. It was the Burmese military’s designated “Factory-2” (F2). It was also a prototype of ‘Factory-1’ (F1) in POL. These two are a twin factory -- the color, the size, and the dimensions are all the same. A defector and a former military engineer with Burmese Army, Major Sai Thein Win, revealed what these Burmese military’s secretive buildings were about, to the entire world in June 2010. Now, let’s see how geospatial work played a role in ‘the hunt for F2 and what F2 was all about’ in this essay.
The Killing of a Hill
Next four slides depicted how Burmese military had made a hill to disappear from the planet of the earth. Eleven photos displayed on these slides were obtained by DVB in the 1960s. DVB knew that that excavation and construction events occurred in Myaing Township; and that a factory has been built at this location.
The Building of a Giant
Now, you can imagine how much time and money the military would have spent for the excavation and hauling of earth for this massive volume of dirt. As seen on the following slide, photos of the F2 show that it was a gigantic structure they built. Thanks to DVB for sharing these photos.
The tracking of F2
(To enlarge the pictures, just click on the photo.)
References: Maj. Sai Thein Win; Robert Kelley & Allison Puccioni (JIR); DVB; Google Earth re-established and posted on September 20, 2011 by winnerscircle.
