I was amazed at these photos of the Lockheed Aircraft Plant in Burbank, California being camouflaged during WWII with huge swaths of painted canvas to make it look like a residential neighborhood from the sky. My folks grew up in LA and my father tells me that similar camouflage techniques were also used at North American and LAX. Sadly, there only seems to be seven published photos of this effort. Check out the whole set and larger versions of the images at MilitaryPhotos.net.

Before and after images of hiding Lockheed:

Side of a building or a grassy hill?

I wonder what kind of tricks our government has up its sleeve to obscure defense installations in these days of high-resolution satellite imagery and Google Earth?

Thanks, Mom!