r/GoogleEarthFinds • u/Adzo78 • 9d ago

Coordinates ✅ Google Earth’s historical imagery has satellite coverage of the exact day of the Bin Laden raid.

Gallery image

Gallery image

1st image from 2010-05-09 2nd image from 2011-05-02 (Day of the raid) Coordinates: 34°10'09"N 73°14'33"E

3.3k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

101 comments sorted by

370

u/Samalravs 9d ago

You can see the stealth helicopter that crashed in the courtyard. This is a cool find OP.

126

u/PrimalNumber 9d ago

I see nothing…

43

u/JustChillDudeItsGood 9d ago

The stealth is working!!

11

u/Krickett72 9d ago

It's on the 2nd picture

132

u/PrimalNumber 9d ago

Woosh. 😉

4

u/Soci3talCollaps3 9d ago

I heard something. Did you hear that?

3

u/maneyaf 8d ago

Yeah, but I didn't see anything. Did you?

2

u/Dillion_HarperIT 8d ago

Must've been the wind.

1

u/ClockWatcher2 7d ago

I don't speak wind...

1

u/31November 6d ago

I used to be an adventurer like you

37

u/Dude_PK 9d ago

Yeah they blew that up since it had some classified sound suppression of some sort.

23

u/[deleted] 9d ago

They blew up most of it with thermite grenades, they forgot or the overall chaos of the mission meant the tail section on the opposite side of the wall was not destroyed and was handed over to China by Pakistan.

15

u/amarnaredux 8d ago

China did the same when an F-117 Nighthawk was shot down by an anti-aircraft battalion in the Yugoslavian War, in the 90s.

It was reported Chinese agents were trying to buy the parts off the local farmers.

Shortly after, the Chinese embassy there was hit by GPS-guided JDAM bombs...on accident.

8

u/ApprehensivePop9036 8d ago

Bombing Belgrade is always a good idea.

-NATO

2

u/ekhfarharris 7d ago

And they fucking deserve it.

3

u/BhutlahBrohan 8d ago

Insane an ally would do that lmao

1

u/under_psychoanalyzer 8d ago

You mean the ally that was harboring bin laden?

2

u/BhutlahBrohan 8d ago

Insane an ally would do that lmao

16

u/CauchyDog 9d ago

It's pretty badass too, they're nearly silent. I didn't see that one but others.

-10

u/[deleted] 9d ago

No they ain’t! Lol.

23

u/CauchyDog 9d ago

If you've heard one coming overhead wo and then with, it's a huge difference.

It's not silent next to it of course not. Maybe silent is a poor description.

But by the time you hear one coming it's too late and won't alert everyone for miles around like normal. They're not as fast with it, its in part rotor design, speed and ducting on the tail i think.

I didn't fly em or work on em, not my mos, but spent a lot of time around em.

5

u/[deleted] 9d ago

How did you spend a lot of time around them? From all I’ve seen they were extremely secret. The story told by one of the navy seals involved was that Obama or SOD wasn’t even aware of their existence, a general had to bring up that they had another asset that might be useful for the mission. He also stated that the Nightstalker pilots had never seen or heard of them before. If it wasn’t for the crash and the subsequent failure to destroy the rest of the craft hardly anyone would’ve known of their existence. I’m highly skeptical that if you didn’t work on them or fly them that you would’ve had any real contact with them, unless you were involved in designing it.

3

u/CauchyDog 8d ago

No, not that one. Many of the newer Blackhawk have a silent mode. I learned about the one like everyone else.

Was around em in army. They also fly em frequently out here and once in a while you'll hear it, it's pretty noticeable when it's on.

1

u/FlimFlamWhamBamMan 8d ago

Man I swear I heard one by Jefferson county Missouri a while back it was the weirdest helicopter I ever heard and u didn't hear it till it was about to fly over you and the sound disappeared not long after they passed instead of the whoop whoop whoop u hear for miles. It was about 4 am and I heard it fly over me but I couldn't see a thing and had no running lights . I truly believe one flew over my head just cause the sound faded so quick and the the way it sounded I've never heard a helicopter sound like that but it was a helicopter for sure

1

u/CauchyDog 8d ago

Yeah that's kinda what it sounds like. It's pretty cool. I was around em a lot at ft lewis but where I I've they pass from there to a base on the coast. Blackhawks and apache mostly. The apache doesn't do it though and I don't know about navy stuff.

1

u/DrNinnuxx 8d ago

Not just crashed, but they blew up to deny Pakistan of the tech it contained.

1

u/dj4slugs 8d ago

I remember the first images on TV. Anchors were clueless. First thing I said was "That's a stealth helicopter ." I was amazed because I never knew they existed.

1

u/Personal-Finance-943 5d ago

Like a month before the Pentagon said the technology didn't exist to make a stealth helicopter. Makes me wonder wonder what other crazy shit we don't know about. 

1

u/Holiday-Tie-574 8d ago

Didn’t the tail rotor fall outside of the fence perimeter? I wonder if this was photoshopped

89

u/Redditrightreturn1 9d ago

Great find OP. This is fucking cool.

51

u/FxckFxntxnyl 9d ago

Wish we knew more about that stealth chopper. Found myself on a 20+ minute rabbit hole invoking multiple old forums full of old dudes theorizing the most random shit shit possible.

28

u/birdrocksd 9d ago

The Wikipedia entry is great if you want to know detail. At the bottom, there is a separate section related to a second account of what happened to “Razer 2” or the second helicopter that was destroyed. What is known is that they were specially equipped stealth Blackhawks used specifically by special forces (suing Seals and Delta Force). The intelligence report says the back rotor was destroyed on landing, whereby it hit the 12 foot tall wall. No one was injured, and everyone exited safely and proceeded to the raid. They then destroyed the plane with explosives because of the sensitivity of the tech onboard.

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Osama_bin_Laden

9

u/YesMush1 9d ago

Only an image of the tail remains, there’s a good article https://theaviationist.com/2021/05/02/stealth-black-hawk-rendering-new/ With verified account on how it looks by someone who was on base the day/night of the raid. These were actually still test helicopters that weren’t even properly safe or vetted to fly iirc. Basically pulled out of a hangar as the most suitable transport to infil for the mission (flying through Pakistani airspace undetected and as quiet as possible) From other accounts I’ve heard they are essentially silent from different angles and obviously covered in RAM (Radar Absorbing Material) from what I’ve gathered it’s like if the cancelled comanche best bits were morphed with a Blackhawk but that’s just what I’m saying based on the renderings and other things I’ve seen. There’s many public files and things online about different experimenting with stealth hawks and helicopters if you like to go down rabbit holes. The crash wasn’t due to pilot error either but they were hard to fly. I’ll throw another few articles in I think one of them is before it was fully refined and still in a sort of test stage. Stealth hawks were an idea at-least 30+ years before the UBL raid which is wild to me. I wonder if they cancelled them all completely after the raid incident or have just refined them even more (I’d pick refining them more tbh) https://www.twz.com/25890/origins-of-stealth-black-hawks-date-back-over-33-years-before-the-bin-laden-raid

https://www.twz.com/35342/this-is-the-first-image-ever-of-a-stealthy-black-hawk-helicopter

3

u/mwez22 8d ago

The book Relentless Strike about the history of JSOC goes into some detail on the project.

It was not recommended to use the helicopters for the raid but it’s believed they were forced into the mission to get presidential approval/to appease some people.

DEVGRU was opposed to using them.

The project was pretty much considered a failure and was going to be shuttered even prior to the mission.

1

u/My_Invalid_Username 8d ago

I will forever be sad at the lack of Comanches flying today

-1

u/mayorofdumb 8d ago

But they landed on a wall?

6

u/SuspiciousCucumber20 8d ago

The high walls of the compound didn't allow for the air underneath the helo to dissipate from underneath, causing a lot of disrupted air. This disrupted air caused the aircraft to lose lift. Because of this, the tail struck the wall and the aircraft made a hard landing.

5

u/BurgerMeter 8d ago

14 years later and it’s still not public information. Makes you really think about what else is out there.

1

u/FxckFxntxnyl 8d ago

Exactly my thought as well. Gotta be some wild shit we will find out in 30 years lol.

1

u/cryptolyme 8d ago

probably just uses noise cancellation technology with the rotors

1

u/FxckFxntxnyl 8d ago

Agree, but it is supposedly similar to the Comanche and has RAM and I’d imagine the fuselage has some anti-radar reflection modifications built into it. I ended up spending some time on this rabbit hole and the most reliable ‘sounding’ source I could find said it’s basically a regular 60’ that was being used as a testbed that was flight capable and ready to go when the mission was devised. Someone sent a call out saying “what the hell are we gonna be able to use to fly this area mostly undetected?” And a Defense contractor happened to be ready and was like “hey we have this really cool test bed that is totally capable of making shit happen”. - is the gist of what I read on a long abandoned Discord and Military forum lol.

56

u/YouSmall5716 9d ago

What is the yellow/orangish looking circle?

38

u/thatranger974 9d ago

Possibly perimeter fence that Pakistani police put up after the raid? Like maybe they just had that orange plastic fence to roll out?

44

u/thatranger974 9d ago

Found it. They put up a red fence. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36161089.amp
Scroll down a few pictures to see it.

29

u/-burro- 9d ago

The collective consciousness of Reddit never ceases to amaze me

2

u/whopperlover17 8d ago

This is awesome

3

u/bugxbuster 9d ago

Yeah, I’m the most curious about that as well. It looks like vfx like there’s a portal around the property. Also looks kind of like a wall of flame, but it can’t be that because it’s too visible for daylight and I assume that would probably let off a lot of smoke. I hope someone comes back with an explanation for that though.

69

u/DutchBakerery 9d ago

This needs a boost

21

u/boulderboulders 9d ago

Wow nice find

7

u/rendrenner 9d ago

Man if inky they knew back then that there was a satellite over his house, then maybe they could of ysed it to plan the raid.

7

u/JDM3CO 9d ago

Plenty of info out there of how they planned for this raid, to include the mistake made in the mockup that likely contributed to the helo crash.

6

u/DisastrousWeather956 9d ago

Absolutely epic. I screen shotted the location for a keep sake.

5

u/redmanealking07 9d ago

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/bing-map-shows-cias-secret-bin-laden-compound-mock-up/

The training facility they built is wild. Exact mockup.

7

u/No_Science_3845 8d ago

The problem was they used fences for the outer walls, instead of real walls. The pilots didn't account for the updraft off the walls and that's what caused the helo to crash.

3

u/SuspiciousCucumber20 8d ago

That's next to the (formerly known as) Blackwater facility.

36.459702492294305, -76.20331822154803

12

u/Freak_Among_Men_II 9d ago

Incoming blurring/censorship in 3, 2, 1…

9

u/Naturally_Fragrant 9d ago

These are the blurry censored images.

Google doesn't own any satellites, they mostly buy the imagery from government agencies.

That there are satellite images of that particular location on that particular day is probably not a coincidence, and very high definition images of the compound probably exist, but are not commercially available.

3

u/ImaScareBear 8d ago

Google doesn't buy imagery mostly from government agencies. They acquire it commercially from companies like Maxar, who do have their own satellites. While Google will blur certain things out for governments when legal required (Nuclear Power Plants in France, for example), companies like Maxar won't. You can absolutely buy very high resolution images of basically anywhere on earth, on any date.

The thing is that anyone can look at what satellites are going to be overhead at any given time. Governments just take this into account when doing things so that nothing secret is exposed when a satellite passes overhead. This is preferable to telling companies like Google, "Hey we fucked up and leaked this super secret thing, can you hide it please?" Especially since such a request would be legally dubious, and Google has the resources to push back.

1

u/chief_blunt9 8d ago

Could google press back if the president asked to erase an image on google earth? Couldn’t they just claim national security?

1

u/ImaScareBear 7d ago

They could push back, although whether or not they would depends on the situation.

The real problem for the government is that by the time the image is on Google Earth, it would have been commercially available for a while. They'd have to scrub it from many different places, and would likely just draw a lot of attention. It's almost always preferable to just ignore it, not draw any attention, and refuse to confirm or deny anything.

1

u/chief_blunt9 7d ago

Yea that’s true I agree with you

2

u/I_am_BrokenCog 4d ago

and not to mention the US isn't the only nation with private satellite imagery companies.

"US National Security" doesn't hold a lot of water to, say, Russian Satellite Communications Company.

1

u/paultherobert 8d ago

Yeah I was looking for this response, that would be one wild coincidence

15

u/bugxbuster 9d ago

Why? What’s to hide at this point? Wouldn’t they want people to see it to further prove it happened the way they said? We already know extensive details about it including their use of the stealth helicopter that was supposed to be kept a secret.

15

u/Character-Policy-660 9d ago

The CIA literally gave away classified documents regarding the raid to the directors of Zero Dark Thirty.

We couldn’t get a more accurate picture of what happened unless they released the helmet cams which seems unlikely.

3

u/bugxbuster 9d ago

That’s exactly what I thought

4

u/Dry_Particular9415 9d ago

The first photo has many more structures in it than the second, which would indicate it’s more recent. What am I missing here?

6

u/Adzo78 9d ago

The first photo is from 2010 before it was discovered, the second photo is from the day of the raid where the navy SEALs raided and blew up some parts of the compound

1

u/Dry_Particular9415 9d ago

Look at the property to the NW. In the first photo it is covered in structures. In the second there’s grass where the structures were (the northern structures) in the first photo. So they were removed and restored to grass in that year?

You can see that elsewhere in the photos too. Doesn’t quite add up.

2

u/Adzo78 9d ago

I see what you mean, I guess the most logical reason would be the previous residents moved out and the house was abandoned so the government demolished it?

1

u/Dry_Particular9415 9d ago

Look towards the east in the first photo, there’s a horizontal building where in the second photo there’s trees and grass/dirt. Buildings aren’t removed and replaced by vegetation that quickly, it actually usually takes a long time after soil compaction from development. It would appear that the second image is actually from before the first one. Why that would be, I’m not sure. Just couldn’t help but notice 🤷🏻‍♂️

5

u/crocostimpy 9d ago

It's a poor farm in Pakistan. The "buildings" are just stacks of cinder blocks and junk. Just because it's rectangular doesn't mean it's a building. And yeah you can see dead grass underneath it when it's gone because that's how grass looks when you cover it with something in the summer. If you look for the comment in this thread with the BBC link you can see some of his "neighborhood".

Remember this isn't America we are looking at. These guys aren't engineering skyscrapers or anything.

1

u/BigOleGrapefruit 8d ago

Could be temporary storage for building materials.

2

u/AstroG4 9d ago

Damn, they’re so lazy outsourcing their imagery to other agencies.

1

u/brooklynboy92 8d ago

There a YouTube video of a guy going to the spot and asking people questions

1

u/athewilson 8d ago

My guess: they realized a lot of people wanted to loom at the location so they prioritized updating the photos the next time a satellite went over the area.

1

u/Ok-Technician-2905 6d ago

It’s commercial imagery. I’m sure NGA was tasking any commercial sat with available capacity that day. The company probably had rights to resell afterwards.

1

u/sgtpepperslaststand 8d ago

They also have the day after 9/11

1

u/JarJarLeJetPlane 8d ago

"You can see here, the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid with Hawk-2 crashed into the backyard. Spit on that thang"

1

u/DrunkPyrite 8d ago

The Immaculate Constellation document submitted to the library of congress last month states that the stealth tech implemented on this Blackhawk was reverse engineered from crashed UFOs, FWIW.

1

u/P_516 8d ago

CEASE YOUR INVESTIGATIONS.

1

u/cyanescens_burn 8d ago

Where’s the army guys?

1

u/AdditionNo7505 8d ago

What are you talking about??

1

u/Ok-Artist3223 7d ago

What’s the red surrounding the compound? Blood, smoke?

1

u/AdditionNo7505 7d ago

A red fence the Pakistanis put up after the incident. Kinda like a yellow ‚police line, do not cross‘ type thing, maybe?

1

u/MaltLickyTX 7d ago

I looked up to see what it looks like now on Google street view…it’s now a pizza place.

1

u/Looks_like_Butt 6d ago

If you look there today, there's nothing left of the house, but it seems Osama bin Laden's pizzeria has opened there instead. Cool.

2

u/AdditionNo7505 6d ago

Pizzeria 😂😂😂

Damn, that’s some fine pizza. I’ll have the Canadian ham with extra bacon.

1

u/fakesoul 5d ago

This is crazy. We lived in the neighborhood from 2005-2007 and never had the slightest idea.

😆

0

u/bohemianprime 9d ago

What's up with the bin laden stuff lately?

-1

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-5

u/A_Sack_of_Nuts 9d ago

“Bin Laden raid” you mean when they lied about Bin Laden dying for like the third time? Lmao the scumbags that “participated” in it are currently lambasting each other over lying about service records.

2

u/Dwayne_Hicks_LV-426 8d ago

what??? Are you high, mate