FLIR: A historical note

As a teenager, I was digging around in my parent's garage and I came across a rather curious photograph. I was looking at it trying to figure out what it was when my father walked in, saw what I was doing, and explained.... Once upon a time he'd been an engineer on the team that designed/built the very first FLIR. When the team was ready, they'd driven the FLIR to the top of a local mountain, turned it on, and viewed the surrounding valley. At night, of course. It was the first time a FLIR had ever been used.

They took a picture of the display.

That picture was what I held in my hands.

Cool.

Two weeks ago, my father passed away. Yesterday, while going through his things, I came across the picture and figured folks here might be interested in a bit of history.

I also spent some time on google maps trying to figure out exactly where the photo was taken. It wasn't easy given that the photo would have been taken nearly 50 years ago and much has changed, but I believe I have found the location. Note that the FLIR would have been facing west.