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In Pictures: The Strangest Sights in Google Earth

pcworld.com — With its detailed satellite photos, Google's interactive map lets everyone be a virtual globetrotter. And some of the things we've found in our travels are downright bizarre.

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  • actown, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12Oprah Winfrey's head makes good mazes
    • themastersb, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9Google has better resolution images in the middle of nowhere Africa than it does with cities that have 100,000+ people
    • bobotheking, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Heh, I thought it was Brian Peppers at first.
  • Anrkist, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Farmer + Oprah = Two words I never thought would be in the same sentence.
    • unusualbob, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I figured it would be more along the lines of "Oprah buys her own personal farmer."
  • webweb, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Nice link, but for a much more comprehensive list, you really want to look at http://googlesightseeing.com/
  • Rodehodeh, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Not all of these ae that "strange" im sure some people have seen at least one of these. The one I dont understand is the jet in Italy WTF?
    • ChayD, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Maybe it's for training air cadets? There used to be an old aircraft fuselage at the air cadets HQ near where I used to live. Either that or it's a top secret base for VTOL aircraft?
  • unusualbob, on 10/11/2007, -2/+24WTF is that lake in Iraq? They list it with the fighter.
    (link)
    http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&t=k&q=Iraq&ie=UTF8&ll=33.395834,44.488921&spn=0.014153,0.020814&z=15&om=1

    i figure its where they are manufacturing the soilent green
    • chris9902, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7could be a fishing planet. But then again it's in Iraq so it really would be worse than that.
    • pmagayon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7Wow, that's a lot of Kool-Aid. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YEAH!
    • nonfamous, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11It might be a salt pan. You can produce salt by drying out shallow lake beds, and they turn bright colors (inlcluding red and pink) during the process. Photo here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_evaporation_pond
  • Chubakkaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14can someone explain to me the lake on in iraq?!?!!?
    • LaueOfficer, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3I presume it's just a developing issue, not all the colors worked out
      • unusualbob, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5These are usually digital images so that is unlikely. Also the chances that it happened only in the exact spot where that water is located are rediculous.
    • hydroplane, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17I think its part of the blood for oil program
    • grouchyman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Could it be some sort of algae bloom?
    • ph3rny, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2could someone explain 9 too? why is the car on the wall
  • IShouldBeWorkin, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15wow, some really cool stuff there. God bless all those people with nothing better to do than spend time looking through google earth
  • superguysteve, on 10/11/2007, -7/+13The lake is from the blood of the Infidel.
  • 1773nium, on 10/11/2007, -8/+7That lake is the drainage reservoir for tampons new product and development center.
  • 10001110101, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5WTF is up with Google giving certain countries the shaft? None of the cities are labeled in Iraq (most of the other mid-east countries are blank as well). Ditto for Mexico.

    FWIW, I think the "red lake" is in Baghdad, and is part of some sort of canal system.
  • SuperOmegaSlack, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18My friend showed me this one a while ago...it's the Naval base in San Diego. Take a look at the buildings!

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=san+diego+ca&ie=UTF8&ll=32.675352,-117.158267&spn=0.008471,0.020084&t=k&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1
    • unusualbob, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5those are 4 L shaped buildings, it doesnt look like they are attached when u zoom in
      • BGFeltenink, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Attached or not the architect sure as hell knew what that looked like. I doubt it is anything short of deliberate.
  • swordedge, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1very nice pictures
  • jjb123, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I found Foo Camp in the download, it's under the "High Resolution" category.
  • tucsonsun13, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The lake in Iraq may be water flooded with some sort of clay or iron oxide.
  • darkskinfan87, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Billy was excited when Career Day came around. His dad was a fighter pilot for the Air Force. But his dad was running a little late that morning because his flight exercises took longer than he thought. So instead of taking the jet back to base, he thought of a better idea...
  • deutscheBag, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15I cant find Waldo in any of these
  • micahwilli, on 10/11/2007, -2/+16** OK, Pet-Peeve alert. **
    Despite what you see in the movies or on 24, The really clear high-res stuff are NOT satellite photos. They are digital orthophotography taken from AIRPLANES with camera mounts. It cost my county $250,000 to have a vendor fly over to make 6-in pixel photos.
    It doesn't make it any less interesting,
  • robwhite1979, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0they missed the pock-marked land mine fields around the world that resemble everything from an octopus to the virgin Mary if you play 'connect the dots'... oh, and @fs77: you decide how the comments are ordered in your profile set up. Most likely you have them set to 'sort by most diggs' which does just that. If you want them in chronological order you can set it up that way too, but putting the comments with the most diggs at the top of the list really is the best way. Hope that helps.
  • flibuste, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The jet fighter in the residential area close to Paris is probably related to the Aeronautics/engineering school that is nearby. I would say it's some kind of retired plane used as a landmark.
  • gutterboy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7That last photo that also links to the blood red pool in Iraq, I have a theory. I think that the red pool and the green pool are like that epoxy bomb in die hard three. If ***** really goes to hell in Iraq we will break the damn between them and level the Mideast.
  • uppercut, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Cool pics! The Badlands Guardian looks like he's listening to an iPod.
  • OropheR, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I'd like to see Google adding high-res maps for Russia in Google Earth....we will find many interesting stuff there to look at.
    • ChayD, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Even the low-res ones are cool for atomic bomb crater hunting, or spotting secret antenna arrays for their experimental OTHR.
  • GaidinTS, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That's cool, I saw that Truck wreck in Bismarck, ND.

  • Skootles, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0The "Giant White Ball" is likely a sattelite / space related thing. We have one in our little town:
    http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=%EF%BB%BF45%C2%B020'58.75%22N76%C2%B0+320.63%22W&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=45.349725,-76.055716&spn=0.002503,0.005783&t=k&z=18&om=1

    It's owned by some space agency..
  • bobakanush, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Decent
  • Raistlen007, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5#4 is not a crop circle. It's a SAM site. The radar sits in the middle, and launchers are arrayed around it so to shoot down aircrafts from all directions. You can even see the square dirt mound around each.
    • ChayD, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1He's right, you know. It's located on Nellis airforce range. Must be for testing new designs and training SAM operators.
  • bickdigg, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2for the Jet Fighter, it is in a I.U.T (Institut Universitaire de Technologie, something like University but technical) and the building also hosts an Energy and Energy Saving Lab.

    Finally something on digg just down the road =)
  • benlindelof, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Buried for [PIC] spam until I can block it in the Subject page of my Profile.
  • LadyTronix, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Re: jet in paris, I'd go with the aeronautical college idea. Here is another from the Engineering college in Pisa, Italy. Scan SE to see the leaning tower

    http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=43.725002,10.39415&spn=0.0025,0.005021&t=h&z=18&om=1

    And another cool thing from near where I grew up

    http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&t=h&ie=UTF8&ll=50.813619,-2.475041&spn=0.002186,0.005021&z=18&om=1

    :)

  • NiX0n, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3So, the first pic looks like a Native American listening to an iPod :P
  • duggtodeath, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1This fighter jet is just odd:
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134186-page,16-c,mapping/article.html
  • madbadger, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0just to clarify, despite many people's conceptions, Google Earth was not the first to have public satellite photos where you could view these images. Microsoft TerraServer and NASA World Wind existed before Google Earth.

    Morever, quite a few of the images weren't satellite photos either, they were taken from an airplane.
  • DanJohnHarris, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3No way in ***** it can be considered even 'close' to clear enough to read the labels on the bikinis in that beach. You're lucky if you can tell what color the people are, and whether they are male or female. Exaggeration is such a downer when, inevitably, it is exposed.
  • johnsstone, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Raistlen007 is correct on #4 it is a SAM missile site.......
  • kallahar, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0The "Missile Silos" listed under "Open Secrets" are grain elevators, not for missiles. http://www.shopmidland.com/photos/index.cfm?
  • wassim2k, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Buried for innacurate title - this is a download, not pictures.
  • skunkworker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Star of David Patterns Arent Crop circles
    They are SAMs ( Surface to Air ) Missles
  •  

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