Circles in the Owens Valley

[fishmonger]

Any idea why humans felt it was worth constructing these:

Circle near Mammoth

Circle near Paradise

Circle near the Bentons





And by the way, the map embed from the HST map feature does not seem to work any longer. Google cracking down on their API use or some misconfiguration?

[The Other Tom]

Motor cross race track, perhaps ?

[fishmonger]

Three of them? Also, one of them is paved. And what self respecting moto cross racer would race on a flat circle?

The first one near Mammoth has some DOT vehicles parked nearby, but that doesn't mean they actually constructed this. May just have adopted the place to park those graders and whatever else you can tell from the sat view.

[copeg]

And by the way, the map embed from the HST map feature does not seem to work any longer. Google cracking down on their API use or some misconfiguration?

Yep. They made changes to their API and are now charging for usage, all of which makes embedding maps in the forums unavailable at the moment.

[rlown]

Looking via Google Earth and the historical imagery, It appears that some of the circles have been there awhile. Might be worth it just to call the nearest city and see why they are there.

Google Earth is funny sometimes. This is a shot of the old HP Cupertino site. The funny part is GE's imagery shows the new Apple site being built and somehow overlaid with some of the old HP buildings. No, I didn't do the weird overlay, GE did it.

[John Harper]

Strange, all seem to be about the same dimensions. Maybe a Harley flat track bike on those circles, but not motocross.

John

[fishmonger]

My guess is that the first two may have something to do with road construction - like where they set up their local on-site tar mixers or rock crushers, etc. Probably a standardized setup out in the desert. The third one is just really old but may have been used for the same purpose. They all are relatively close to highways. It's just odd that they would be circular and that large.

Whatever the point if that is, there has to be a good reason for it. Those are not race tracks of any sort

In fact, I just found another one near Lee Vining, again just east of the highway, similar distance, this one has a lot of stuff piled up that looks like DOT related.

Circle near Lee Vining

[dave54]

Crop circles and UFO landing sites.
Sasquatch fairy rings

[Jimr]

I think you nailed it fishmonger. The huge circle is so heavy equipment can come in, load up, then round the circle to exit. I think #3 in your first post is as you suggest. Old and being covered by drifting sands. I think the backhoe and other heavy equipment (maybe a couple of 40' shipping containers?) are there because the old road construction sites are being used out of convenience when heavy equipment needs to be near a site.