August 19,
2008: A Taiwanese journalist found an
army unit posting dummies around its base, and reported that the military was
so short of men, as it was using mannequins dressed as soldiers to man
checkpoints, and not very convincing ones at that. Questions were raised in
parliament. An army representative said, publicly, that the dummies were there to
fool spy satellites. Privately, the general apparently warned the media and
politicians to back off. Spy satellite deception has been a growing military
activity since the 1970s, when it was revealed that the Russians spent enormous
amounts of money and effort to try and fool American spy satellites. After the
Cold War, it was discovered that some of those deceptions were effective.
China
launched its first spy satellite in 1975, and by the 1990s normally had at least
a dozen of them in orbit. Until the late 1990s, these were the kind of
satellites that had to return their film to earth for developing. This method
was dropped by the United States in the 1980s. The Chinese have since moved on
to digital photo satellites, which transmit images to earth. The U.S. began
using this technology in the 1970s. Digital satellites can take a lot more
photos, and that means the potential enemy has to put a lot more effort into
deception.
