Fortune's Philip Elmer-Dewitt first noticed that the facility was missing from Google Earth back in October 2010. The address of the 183-acre land parcel that Apple had purchased the year before showed a real farm instead of a server farm even though video footage of a massive white building at the address had emerged on YouTube.
After the iCloud pre-announcement, Elmer-Dewitt checked the address again on Google Earth -- something he says he did two weeks before, only to find green farms. This time the satellite image included Apple's massive building, which has little employee parking and a single road leading in and out. As suspected since 2009, it looks a lot like a building that might host an ambitious cloud project like iCloud.
"How was Apple able to keep Google (GOOG) from displaying this particular swath of satellite imagery -- imagery provided by the USDA Farm Services Agency? That's still a mystery," Elmer-Dewitt writes.
Update: A Google spokesperson said that the company recently updated aerial imagery in Lenoir, NC. While a photo dated 4/10/2010 with no data center in it appears in the image timeline for the address in question, only half of that photo was actually taken then. The other half, which would contain the data center had it been taken on 4/10/2010, was actually taken on 5/30/09.