Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

March 30, 2014

Weird Things on Google Maps/Earth

I always have my laptop on and am surfing the web all the time.  Whenever I'm watching TV, I have to look up hundreds of things I see or hear because I need to know the answers. I'm also a map junkie.  Recently I was watching yet another documentary about Sasquatch, and I wanted to see the specific places in Washington State where some of the incidents took place.  While zooming over the landscape, what looked like a dice cube came into view.  What the hell?  


I zoomed in and found this tract of logged land, which left 5 round, perfectly spaced, circles of uncut trees. It made me wonder what it looks like if you can walk around in that bit of land. 

And then that got me wondering what kinds of weird things that the satelites have captured for Google Earth and Maps.  Late last year there was an article on CNN about a family in Richmond, CA which was asking Google to remove one of their satelite views which showed their son, a murder victim, dead by the side of the railroad tracks with a police car.  As of that article, the image hadn't been removed.  Having lived in CA I knew where to look and my curiosity got the best of me and I followed the railroad tracks through Richmond and sure enough, there was the image.  You couldn't see anything gruesome, but I could totally see how inappropriate and unnerving that was.  Of course I have not and would not post that here.

I decided to google something less sinister, which was of course crop circles.   I easily found a listing of a few of them and decided to look them up and see if they were still part of Google Earth/Maps.  Here are some images that I screen capped off the maps.  I'm glad they were left on the site.  The bottom two are in Avebury, England.  They are man made.  I was unable to find any that were deemed mysterious in origin.


Someone carved 'Wanker' into this lawn in New Zealand.  

That of course made me want to see the satelite shot of the Cerne Abbas Giant in England.

I tried to find the Nazca lines in Peru but they weren't dark enough to see.  Have you ever looked for weird things on Google Earth/Maps?  If so, what did you find?

22 comments:

  1. You have an intriguing mind! I'd never have thought to google these kinds of things. :)

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    1. It's too bad I didn't have this unquenchable thirst for knowledge when I was in college and not appreciating it.

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  2. I looked for the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris before I traveled there. I also checked out our apartment rental location. I love to use Google Earth.. Used it to show daughter some neat things about the Louvre, too. Curiosity is a good thing.

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    1. Yes I've looked at where I've lived in the past. Whenever I'm homesick for Victoria I do the street view and 'walk' around downtown. I can't shop in my fave stores but at least I can see them.

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  3. I tried 2 find the pyramids in Egypt, buy couldn't see them :(

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    1. I have looked at them Sheila, they are hard to see because of the triangle shape but you can see them if you zoom in.

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  4. I haven't looked before but now i think i will start checking it out!

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    1. I can lost for hours looking at those maps. Let me know if you find anything funky!

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  5. The area around Avebury and Stonehenge often has manmade crop circles to intrigue the tourists. I photographed some several years ago next to Old Sarum, the original site of Salisbury

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    1. Yes I should have put the disclaimer that those were man made crop circles. I couldn't actually find any 'mysterious' crop circles that ended up on google maps.

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  6. Hi JoJo,

    First of all, thank you for using the word, Sasquatch. I have met a Sasquatch in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. I have "proof" from a past posting.

    Plenty of strange things to be found on Google Maps. Of course, the first time you use it, you check out where you live :)

    Have a good Sunday.

    Gary

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    1. I interchange 'Sasquatch' with 'Bigfoot' but mostly I use Sasquatch. You saw one? I need to read that post.

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  7. wow, I will have to play with those Maps and see if I can find something good! I did look where I live before - saw my Mum having a yard sale, lol!

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    1. that's a riot that you saw her yard sale!!! LOL!

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  8. I haven't read of that case about poor teenager before... it is horrible!!!

    I was looking for different things in the maps but not for crops art and all. I shall some day. I used to like walking in NY once with that option in google maps. Also I revisited Moscow's places where I used to like going to... It is pretty awesome that we can do all these nowadays.

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    1. Yes it was very sad about the teenage boy...I would be upset too if I was a relative of his.

      How did we survive w/o the internet?

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  9. The crop circles are soooo cool.

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    1. I was hoping for a mysterious one but man made are good too.

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  10. Oh my, I just can't stop cackling over that "wanker" carving. What's funniest is that, only those flying over it, or using google maps, would be able to read it. Wonder how many actual wankers have seen it.

    Thanks for the giggles, JoJo.
    Be well.
    xoRobyn

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    1. I was curious if the person did it for google earth. It is a riot!

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  11. I love checking out my own neighbourhood on google maps. We also look for holiday places we rent we found our last villa in Turkey was more rural than we were told so at least we knew before we went.

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    1. If it wasn't for google maps I would have had a hard time researching places to live when I moved back to the east coast. What looked like a fairly nice rental in photos turned out to be a trailer park and I didn't want to live in one.

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