kaiharris•18d agoMost Upvoted

The 1950s aerial photo that changed everything at the Cahokia site

I was going through old USGS photos from 1955 and noticed a weird dark square near Monks Mound that wasn't in any modern images. Pulled up LiDAR data from last year and sure enough, there's a clear depression there that got completely missed for 70 years. Ground penetrating radar next month should tell us if it's a structure or just a weird soil deposit. Anyone else ever find something obvious in old photos that got overlooked for decades?

3 comments

3 Comments

troy83217d ago

Bet the guy who flew the plane had no idea he snapped a mystery.

hollyc9217d ago

Whoa, wait - you mean the pilot might have literally had no clue what they were flying over? That's wild to think about.

evan_wilson1816d ago

Right lol reminds me of this time I was flying back from Florida and the pilot came on the speakers like hey everyone look out the right side you might see something cool. Turned out to be this random lighthouse in the middle of nowhere on some tiny island. Probably had no clue what it was either just thought it looked neat. Bet half the stuff pilots see from up there is a total mystery to them.