The strange hexagonal shape on the Australian coast can be seen on Google Maps (Credit: Science Channel / YouTube)
For a few years now, people have stumbled across a huge hexagon formation on Australia’s coastline.
Visible from space, the mysterious shape can be seen on Google or Apple Maps by anyone with an internet connection.
And despite wishful internet thinking that it’s some kind of Area 51-style secret base, its actual purpose is a bit more pedestrian.
The gigantic shape, which is located near the town of Exmouth on Western Australia’s north west cape, is in fact a military facility.
It’s called the Harold E. Holt naval station and is operated by the Australian Department of Defence on behalf of the Australian and the United States governments.
The naval station’s job is to send radio signals to US Navy and Royal Australian Navy ship and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and the eastern Indian Ocean.
It’s considered to be the most powerful transmission station in the Southern Hemisphere.
According to the book Raven Rock, which details presidential, military and political history, author Garrett Graff claims the station is made up of 13 radio towers.
The tallest, Tower Zero, sits in the middle while six other towers are placed in a hexagon around it.
The naval station as seen from the ground (Credit: Hash Khan / WIkimedia Commons)
According to Western Australian tourism site Australia’s Coral Coast, the base was used in World War II to ‘pass on messages between Australian and United States’ command centres and their ships and submarines’.
