Category: Reveal

What once was a thriving shopping mall built in the early 1960s found itself dying by the mid 1990s. The anchor stores had all left, and what was still around was mostly cafes, small independant stores, and a ton of empty space.

Then, at 9:02am on April 19th, 1995, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City was bombed by domestic terrorists. 168 people were killed and another 680 injured. A third of the building collapsed within seconds of the blast.

The occupant agencies in that building had to go somewhere, and they found a willing and accomodating landlord in the management of Shepherd Mall. The empty stores were quickly converted into office space, and federal agencies moved in and were up and running in weeks. Secret Service, ATF, even Federal Court proceedings could be managed in the mall while plans were made to replace the federal building, which would take several years.

After the federal agencies moved out, the space was still available for state agencies, as well as commerical entities such as Insurance companies. This place, which had been destined for the wrecking ball before the bombing, was now thriving in a new life.

Those who found this site included:

• hhgygy
• Garfield
• Eloy Cano
• Paul Voestermans
• Martin de Bock
• Graham Hedley
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse

And after the hint:

• Turriant

This Buddhist pagoda at the edge of the Andaman Sea is submerged for most of the year. During the festival month of Tabaung, the water level drops and the pagoda become accessable for pilgrims to journey to.

Those who found it before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Graham Hedley
• Martin de Bock
• Garfield
• Eloy Cano
• Paul Voestermans
• Phil Ower
• Bas van Limpt
• Angie CF
• Lighthouse

And after the hint:

• bernd

The third largest hydroelectric dam in the world is Itiapu on the border of Paraguay and Brazil. Each country gets half of the power, but since Paraguay uses a fraction of the power that Brazil does, they sell a big chunk of their share back to Brazil, but there’s a complication. Paraguay’s electric system runs on 50hz and the half of the generators at the dam that belong to Paraguay generate at that frequency. Brazil runs on 60hz and their generators generate at that frequency. So how do you get the part that Paraguay generates at 50hz to Brazil in a usable way.

That’s where Furnas Ibiúna substation comes in. At the dam, the part going to Brazil is converted to DC and sent down a couple of 800KM transmission lines which brings the power to this location. Once there, the power is converted back to AC, but at the 60hz frequency necessary for Brazilian use, and provided to the country’s grid.

You’ll note that this is a rare reveal without a picture. There wasn’t any that were particularly interesting or revealing.

Those who located this site before the hint:

• Martin de Bock
• Eloy Cano
• Garfield
• Phil Ower
• Paul Voestermans
• Angie CF
• hhgygy
• Lighthouse

and after the hint:

• Graham Hedley
• Bas van Limpt

By TGCP – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

This facility serves as a test bed, calibration, and benchmarking site for new technology in offshore wind turbines. There are 9 slots for testing, usually 4-5 in use at a time. At any given time, the largest available wind turbine is being tested here, most recently a 222m rotor diameter monster producing 14MW.

Those who spun around this place before the hint were:

• Glenmorren
• Martin de Bock
• Paul Voestermans
• hhgygy
• Garfield
• Phil Ower
• Eloy Cano
• bernd
• Lighthouse
• Graham Hedley

  and after the hint:

  • Bas van Limpt
  • Angie CF
  • Jazzy_baby84
  • BX29
  • Gillian B

  The series completes with Garfield leading with 19 points.

While most of the football world has been watching either the UEFA or COPA tournaments, the football players in the town of Orissaare, Estonia had probably have their eyes open for the 2015 Tree of the Year. It’s in the middle of one of the football pitches in the town. The tree was there long before the football pitch was set up around it!

Found before the hint:

• Glenmorren
• Paul Voestermans
• Lighthouse
• Robin
• hhgygy
• Eloy Cano
• Bas van Limpt
• Felix Bossert
• Phil Ower
• Garfield
• Martin de Bock
• Graham Hedley
• donaaronio
• Angie CF

After the hint:

• Bernd
• Gillian B.
• BX29

After visiting a location just east of Sofia, Bulgaria with contest #866, we returned to the capital of Bulgaria this week with the Snail House. Designed and built to be environmentally friendly, it is said to have nothing straight (walls, windows, etc.) The snail’s mouth is the front door, the eyes are ventilation for the building and the bee on the back is a chimney!

Found before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Martin de Bock
• Paul Voestermans
• Garfield
• Eloy Cano
• Lighthouse
• Phil Ower
• Felix Bossert
• Graham Hedley
• Bas van Limpt
• Angie CF

After the hint :

• LawnBoy
• Gillian B.

Along a service road near St. Johns River in Florida sits a 154-foot-long remnant of the U.S. Space Shuttle program. A test fuel tank that was built in 1977 and used for stress testing before any shuttles took flight offers a unique chance to get up close and personal with part of a space shuttle.

This tank used to be on display at the Kennedy Space Center. But after the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA announced that they would remove the test fuel tank to make room for the retired space shuttle Atlantis, along with a new exhibition facility. The tank was auctioned off and sold to the Wings of Dreams Aviation Museum in Keystone Heights, Florida.

According to Abandoned Florida, it took a 200-foot barge, two tugboats, and cranes to transport the massive tank from Kennedy Space Center to Green Cove Springs, where it would be temporarily held before moving to its final destination. But the logistics of moving such a massive structure proved difficult, and that temporary staging site seems to have become the fuel tank’s final home. It’s been sitting in Green Cove Springs since 2013, and the Wings of Dreams Aviation Museum closed in 2019.

Before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Martin de Bock
• Paul Voestermans
• Graham Hedley
• Glenmorren
• Garfield
• Angie CF
• Bas van Limpt
• Eloy Cano
• Phil Ower
• donaaronio
• Lighthouse

After the hint:

• Ashwini Agrawal

This week was a visit to Kazichene, Bulgaria and the abandoned railway station that once hosted the Bulgarian Royal family.

Built between 1906 to 1911 as the gateway for the new Vrana palace, the closest royal residence outside the capital of Sofia. On one side special trains brought the royal family and distinguished guests from all over Europe, and, on the other, a small-gauge private railway transported the family and guests to the palace to the southwest in less than 10 minutes.

Before the hint:

• Paul Voestermans
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse
• Graham Hedley
• hhgygy
• Garfield
• Bas van Limpt

After the hint:

• Angie CF

This week, we went out into the Indian Ocean to the remote atoll of Aldabra, home of a very large number of giant tortoises. The Aldabra Giant Tortoise can weigh up to 250 kg.

Aldabra happens to be the world’s second largest atoll, around 1200 km southwest of Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles on the island of Mahe. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984 protecting it from tourism to protect the delicate ecosystem. There is a small research village on Picard Island in the west.

Found before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Graham Hedley
• Garfield
• Paul Voestermans
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse
• Eloy Cano
• Angie CF
• Bas van Limpt

This week, we went to one of the busy border crossings between China and Mongolia. It’s located between the towns of Elian, China and Zamiin-Uud, Mongolia.

The border control station handles vehicular traffic, with the Trans-Mongolian railway also crossing here.

Before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Eloy Cano
• Garfield
• Phil Ower
• Graham Hedley
• Paul Voestermans
• Bas van Limpt
• Lighthouse

After the hint:

• Angie CF