A Texas Man’s 3-Mile Long Signature, Now Being Used by NASA In Space

Maybe you've noticed it looking out your airplane window while flying into Houston, TX. One Texas man has certainly found a unique way to leave his mark on his property. And now NASA has found an important use for it.

Have you seen it before?

According to Atlasobscura.com, it is a humongous geoglyph. It spells out the last name of the landowner Jimmie Luecke. And it is the world’s largest signature (proving once again that everything is, in fact, bigger in Texas). "Created originally out of simple egocentrism, the giant “Luecke” of eastern Texas wound up proving quite useful, albeit unintentionally."

The Useful Side Effect

An unintentional but useful side effect of the massive John Hancock made of trees is that NASA has found an important use for it.

"The giant signature has been used by the U.S. government to analyze its satellite imagery. By clearing forest so that a pattern would be visible to landing aircraft, the landowner created a target that's also useful for evaluating spatial resolution of astronaut photos.”

Next time you're flying between Houston and Austin, be sure to keep an eye out for the giant name "LUECKE," spelled out with over three miles of trees, and if you're wondering how many trees it took, it's a lot of trees, each letter stretches thousands of feet in each direction.

That's a lot of trees.