To Locate Underground Threats, Lockheed Scans Subterranean Gravity Signatures

By Clay Dillow Posted 07.15.2010 at 12:59 pm 6 Comments

Tapping Gravity to Locate Threats Underground Lockheed Martin

Having had limited success catching America's enemies by "smoking them out of their holes," Lockheed Martin and the DoD are turning to an airborne sensor-based platform to map the subterranean world and identify possible threats hiding there. As part of DARPA's Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure (GATE) program, Lockheed will develop a system that identifies underground targets by analyzing gravity signatures for the sign of man-made tunnels, bunkers, or caches.

The sensor platform will work from the sky, saving ground troops the trouble of traversing difficult terrain. Mounted on a drone or perhaps a manned aircraft, the system is expected to detect and classify characteristics of the underground as natural or man-made in real time using gravity gradiometers. These instruments, generally used in resource exploration or navigation, measure tiny differences in the Earth's density, and according to Lockheed should "discriminate a man-made void from naturally-occurring features such as topography and geology, yielding a near real-time map of what is underground."

But what then? If an underground bunker is detected but is determined inaccessible troops for geological or political reasons, DARPA has a few tricks up its sleeve, not least of which is an autonomous tunneling vehicle that can drop from a plane, burrow underground, and deliver a munitions payload to a location of the military's choosing. By comparison, "smoking them out" sounds antique.

[Lockheed Martin via Danger Room]

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6 Comments

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oldschool

07/15/10 at 2:35 pm

Please.... add HAARP, consider resonance ... rather than mechanical bore.. and see...

http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/

earthquake=Tsuanami=flood= ... Azetec calender ,

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/autonomous-bot-burrows-underground-deliver-deadly-payloads

Add HAARP and DARPA = scary facts.

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gizmowiz

07/15/10 at 3:09 pm

This should have been done a decade ago!!

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edisonkenevil

07/15/10 at 4:47 pm

I wonder if the densometer system is based on gamma ray backscatter scintilation or is it something else. Most of the logging and geological density meters use some variation of this. Makes me wonder the strenth of the radioactive source requried for that resolution.

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johnt007871

07/15/10 at 5:52 pm

Wonder how many of this Israel has ordered to look for Hamas tunnels? They seem to enjoy bombing those.

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andio76

08/02/10 at 8:30 pm

Oldschool,

Too little knowledge is a DANGEROUS thing....

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kregly999

08/07/10 at 5:35 am

Nickolas Tesla developed an earthquake machine based on sound frequency. An example is the I believe" the Tacoma bridge in the 50's that swayed itself into a collapse, based on the wind frequency that was perfect to cause it to wave around till it collapsed. He demonstrated this in Manhattan back in the 30 or 40's and shook buildings in Manhattan until the device was destroyed before any buildings collapsed. All his papers were supposedly turned over to some college I believe in Ohio by the American government that took possession of them. I find this hard to believe when he was the genius behind AC electric current which enraged Thomas Edison and his DC current model that did not work without a power booster every mile. Tesla also was convinced radio waves could be bounced off an object to determine it's altitude and speed. Twelve years before the invention of radar. Also the legendary Tesla coil which was built in Manhattan in 1918 as a 150 foot tower in an octagon shape that he believed would transmit wireless electrical power over great distances but was never given a chance to demonstrate it.
It is rumored the U.S. has built an identical replica with possible upgrades somewhere in Alaska.
Tesla was truly a man way ahead of his time and now we may only have the other technology to put in place some of Tesla's ideas.

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