Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Lost Iraqi MiG!

The Case of the Missing Iraqi MIG-Solved!



A MIG was excavated from the sands of Iraq mostly fully intact, including the camouflage netting once used to hide this airplane. I suppose tons of rock and sand were better at hiding it, that is of course until someone found it and dug it up.

It is a Cold War-era MiG-25R Foxbat B, even now, one of the fastest combat aircraft, buried beneath the sands in Iraq.

Original Photos courtesy of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in a Powerpoint presentation (ppt) entitled:

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Lost Iraqi MiG"!


























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[edit on 31-3-2008 by battlestargalactica]

hahaha!! wow where they trying to hide it from the troops?? maybe the WMD's are buried, and maybe Jimmy Hoffa Too!!

reply to post by 2pakaveli

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Yes I suppose the Iraqis knew that they had no chance in successfully engaging US fighters and wasting a perfectly good airplane, so they buried it, planning on waging primarily a guerrilla war.

Neat photos, I wonder if we can find the buried stargate too, unless we already did?!

reply to post by battlestargalactica

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Nice find well done,i really enjoy this one!
Star and a flag

couple of questions come to mind.......

are there any more buried ????

where are its wings ??

thanks for posting OP

snoopyuk

I remember this one! - can't remember which thread or what I said, something about unusual aircraft pics I think. But I have some of those pics in my photobucket.


Caption - "Shall we stop here for lunch?" - "May as well, don't think we'll ever find those weapons!"

Apparently up to 30 Mig25's and SU25's were found - most of them brand new and buried with very little protection - and may never fly again, kinda makes me wanna go plodding round Iraq with a metal detector... Who's with me

[edit on 31/3/2008 by Now_Then]

reply to post by snoopyuk

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mmm the wings were probably detached and stored separately, or buried together with lots of other wing sections. The wings would structurally fatigue under the weight over time and elements, removing the wings is a standard practice for long term storage of aircraft I believe.

By the looks of it, it seems that the Iraqis planned on reviving the MIG at some point, it was hastily protected by plastic sheeting, intakes are covered etc.

I've uploaded the .ppt file from the DIA, the images are mega sized, click to download it...


PPT File...


[edit on 31-3-2008 by battlestargalactica]

reply to post by Now_Then

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Hah, I like your caption!

Hah, I'm with ya! Go ahead there and I'll meet up with ya
Probably so many mines, bombs, uranium and all those other feel good things buried there, would be a fun crazy kinda thing to do, if we were allowed, of course, by our government...they do know whats best for us after all...

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The Mig 25 was/is an pretty amazing airplane, mach 3.2 top speed.


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Here's a nice (dated) on the Mig2, (the description says its propaganda, but the US has the same sort of videos for our military aircraft...)

YouTube Link

and a MIG entering high altitude..neat video

YouTube Link

[edit on 31-3-2008 by battlestargalactica]

Anything under the sand should be visible with some of the current satellite technology. The same tech is being used by archeologists in Central America to find forgotten temples. Kind of funny they didn't go ahead and bury a hanger for the plane to sit in.

reply to post by battlestargalactica

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thats the problem with the Iraqis

image source: http://iastater.home.mchsi.com/ostridge.jpg


bloody cowards, they would rather bury their gear then fight like Real armed force.

i am glad about one thing im not in a country that buries its air force when it was out numberd and so on.

Well i was sitting here thinking

Hang on i seen these pics before, ages ago

and i was right:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

from 5 years ago

sorry .

I wonder what the US is doing with the finds in the desert, these aircraft should go to a cold war museum or some similar.

Either that or to Davis-Monthan AFB where all the other mothballed aircraft are.

reply to post by battlestargalactica

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At least one is the USAF museum at Wright-Patterson AFB.


external image

[edit on 31-3-2008 by oxillini]

Well IMHO one can't really put themselves in the shoes of the Iraqis and pass judgment on their courage (or lack of it).

Its really not that simple.

reply to post by Daedalus3

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well they did show how much of cowards they were?
its just my view that the Iraqi (former) forces were cowards

and pretty much showed that to the rest of the world when it comes to surrendering they are No1.

Agreed. It doesn't matter how fast the Foxbat is, it can be easily shot down by any US warplane in service today. What is the point, really? Perhaps the Iraqi's hoped the US would repeat the 1991 war, and stop short of Baghdad. They could of been saving it for the future.

No, it really can't. There was a case of one in Gulf War I that outran something like 4 F-15s, and 8 missiles that were fired at it.

Man.. you could only wonder at the condition of that pilots undergarments after he landed! That's a pretty wild ride, am I right I thinking the F-15 is top of the charts in climb rate??

reply to post by Harlequin

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Good find Harlequin. So why is this being presented to us as a new discovery?

reply to post by LLoyd45

How is it presented as new news, maybe you've perceived it as such, but the powerpoint present is labeled as 2003.

In any case its new to me, and several other ATS'ers so
I enjoyed seeing these images, it evokes a find of ancient archeology meets modern technology



The F-15 reports a 50,000ft/min rate of climb, while the MIG-25 reports a 49,200ft/min rate of climb (250 m/s). So roughly the same if the numbers for the MIG are correct.

Also the Mach 3.2 number as the max speed was not achievable most think (at least for sustained periods), as the turbines would not be able to handle the increased velocity of the moving air (spin too fast-not good for da engine comrade).



[edit on 1-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]