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CIA U-2 Spy Plane Photos Find a New Life as ‘Aerial Archeology’ at the Penn Museum

By Peter Crimmins | WHYY
Published September 19, 2022 at 2:18 PM EDT
University of Pennsylvania researcher Emily Hammer sits beside a facsimile of a U-2 spy plane cockpit that is part of her exhibit at the Penn Museum. The exhibit shows how she used declassified film taken in the 1950s for archaeological purposes.
Emma Lee
/
WHYY
University of Pennsylvania researcher Emily Hammer sits beside a facsimile of a U-2 spy plane cockpit that is part of her exhibit at the Penn Museum. The exhibit shows how she used declassified film taken in the 1950s for archaeological purposes.

Spy surveillance pictures taken from 13 miles above the earth by U-2 reconnaissance planes during the Cold War are now on view at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.

WHYY's Peter Crimmins reports the once top-secret military pictures are now tools for studying the ancient world.

(Original air-date: 9/16/22)
WHYY Regional News
Peter Crimmins | WHYY
WHYY’s arts and culture reporter Peter Crimmins first became interested in radio in the fourth grade, when he smuggled a contraband crystal-diode radio into the Boy Scout summer camp. Subsequent radio projects were more successful.
See stories by Peter Crimmins | WHYY