3173: Satellite Imagery

2025-11-27T04:50:14Z

2601:782:880:37E0:B11C:AB4D:74C6:4B5E: /* Explanation */ Typo fix

{{comic
| number = 3173
| date = November 26, 2025
| title = Satellite Imagery
| image = satellite_imagery_2x.png
| imagesize = 429x526px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Every weekend I take an ATV out into the desert and spend a day tracing a faint "(C) GOOGLE 2009" watermark across the landscape.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page's explanation has been obscured, and we're currently trying to figure out what it says. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

[[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] are intelligence analysts, scrutinising a projected image of an apparent satellite (or aerial) photograph. It features a parched landscape, of indeterminate scale, though has some clear watercourses flowing through it that suggest fairly wide rivers and tributaries.

In the middle of the image, spanning the river banks around a small bend, the image ''appears'' to have been pixelated, certainly to the two characters viewing it.

They express concern that they're relying upon censored resources. Their commentary indicates that they are perhaps working for an intelligence agency working with classified imagery, who would expect to be using raw imagery, not something obscured. They're first considering whether they'd been provided the 'public'-level classification prepared by the satellite operator. Alternatively, they have stumbled upon a location that higher levels of their own agency (or partner domestic organisations) deem of higher security than they are entitled access to. The most frightening thought, though, is that a foreign counter-intelligence agency is protecting their own national secrets by hacking into their systems and rendering them functionally useless.

To add to the confusion, the chosen location does not appear to have ''any'' information recorded for it, such as whether it should contain a military base (their own military's, of allied forces or that of a potential/actual adversary). The lack of any other information, in the light of clearly hidden details, leads to a justifiable level of paranoia and concern over what might be being obscured.

As the caption reveals, the ''only'' thing in that physical location are some very large squares, given various flat hues closely matching the original average ground appearance, entirely intended to be misinterpreted as post-process image pixelisation. This seems to be something that [[Randall]] has done a number of times, on the off-chance that someone will make the observed assumptions.

In the title text, he continues to further confuse the remote-sensing people by drawing a {{w|Watermark}} in the sand, leading people to believe the picture was taken in 2009 and is part of Google's publicly released material. Which, though it is indeed a possible source for the general public, could be unexpected in more serious and separately sourced ground imagery directly taken for more commercial, governmental or intelligence-agency purposes.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] are standing in front of a board, which is displaying a satellite image of an empty area. However, in the middle of the image there is a square area which is pixelated as if it had been redacted.]

:Cueball: Wait, when was this imagery taken? Is this censorship the work of the contractor? One of our people? '''''Foreign agents?'''''
:Ponytail: Do we know who's operating a facility at that location?
:Cueball: We can't find '''''anything'''''.

:[Caption:]
:My hobby: Setting up big colored panels in the middle of nowhere as a prank on remote sensing people.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
</noinclude>

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3173: Satellite Imagery