Here are the strangest things you’ll find on Google Earth!
9 - Cerne Abbas Giant
Have you guys ever heard of the Cerne Abbas Giant?!
It’s a huuuuge figure in Dorset England that’s cut into the earth and filled with
chalk.
This incredibly interesting and incredibly naked mysterious giant that can be seen from
satellites has been known to exist since around the end of the 17th century.
No one really knows why it was created, but theories range from it being a Celtic British
figure of Hercules to it being a Saxon deity.
Some folk stories indicate that the image is an outline of the corpse of a real giant,
while others associates the figure with fertility from the Victorian Era.
Basically, it’s a large naked dude who’s naked and let’s just say, very happy.
Locals associate it with fertility, and it’s sorta easy to see why.
Oh yeah, I forgot, he’s also wielding a giant club!
The grass around the Giant is trimmed regularly and the giant is fully re-chalked every 25
years.
During World War II the giant was camouflaged with brushwood in order to prevent it from
being used as a landmark for enemy aircraft.
In modern times the giant has been used for several publicity stunts and advertisements.
For example, it’s been used to promote condoms, jeans, and bicycles.
The latest stunt was in 2017 for Wimbledon, when the giant was outfitted with a giant
tennis racket instead of his usual club.
However, this little stunt apparently wasn’t exactly done with permission!
8 - The S.S. Jassim
What exactly are the best things to explore on Google Earth?
It probably has to be shipwrecks.
There’s an estimated 1 million shipwrecks throughout the world right now, according
to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
While that number probably isn’t so good for marine insurance rates, it’s great for
treasure hunters: The same administration estimates that these shipwrecks contain $60
billion worth of treasure!
Really?
How’d they come up with that number anyways?!
One of the most easily visible shipwrecks on Google Earth is the S.S. Jassim, a Bolivian
ferry that hit a reef and sank right on the coast of Sudan back in 2003.
Apparently they never bothered to move the wreck and it’s still there today.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say there aren’t any treasures on the ship since it’s
one of the most famous shipwrecks in the world, and the fact that it’s in shallow waters.
7 - Davis-Monthan Air Force Base
The Davis-Monthan Air Force Base outside Tucson, Arizona is a place where old planes go to
die.
This a four square mile site in Arizona that became THE place of storage for decommissioned
military aircraft after World War II and continues to be where the US military stores its planes
to this today.
There’s at least one of almost every US military plane used since World War 2.
It’s pretty much evolved into "the largest aircraft graveyard in the world".
More than 4,000 military aircraft are parked on the base, from B-52s to stealth bombers,
where they’re salvaged for parts and broken down for scrap.
It's one of the most popular satellite pictures online, which helps to make guided tours of
the area a hot ticket.
The arizona desert was specially chosen because of its dry climate that slows down the degradation
of the planes.
The base is home to a huge variety of different nuclear-capable planes that are retired as
a result of arms reduction treaties throughout the years.
6 - Guitar Forest in Argentina
Located in the fertile agricultural region of Argentina’s ‘Pampas’ is a guitar
shaped forest made up of over 7,000 cypress and eucalyptus trees.
Mmmmm, I bet it smells nice over there!
At 2/3 of a mile in length, the guitar shaped forest is quite visible to passing planes
and satellites above, and obviously that’s how it showed up on Google Earth.
While its sheer size and scale is impressive as a piece of art, the story of how it came
to be is pretty interesting and touching.
The guitar forest was planted by a farmer named Pedro Martin Ureta.
It was him and his four kids that planted every individual tree decades ago.
The inspiration came from Pedro’s wife, who was flying in a plane over the Pampas
one day and noticed a farm that looked a bit like a milk pail.
Graciela suggested they should embed a design into their own fields.
Unfortunately one day in 1977 she suddenly collapsed.
Crushed by the loss of his wife, Ureta decided to do a design in her honor a few years later.
Ureta began working on the guitar design in his field that could be seen from above today
by airplane.
He settled on the design because his late wife loved the instrument.
However, interestingly enough, Mr. Ureta has actually never seen the full design because
he’s afraid of flying!
5 - A strange scene
This interesting satellite shot from Google Earth sparked online speculation that a vicious
crime may have taken place and gone undetected in the Dutch city of Almere.
Back in April 2013, a Reddit user posted a link to a supposed crime scene near where
he lived.
The google Earth image shows what looks like a trail of blood apparently leading to a dock
jutting into a lake in Beatrix Park, which is right in the heart of the city.
At the end of the trail, it looked as if two people are standing over a body, preparing
to throw it into the water.
But investigations carried out by Reddit detectives revealed that the supposed 'crime scene' was,
in fact, nothing disturbing at all.
What really happened was that a wet dog was in the lake, and walked on to the dock.
The water that he shook off while walking towards the dock looked like a trail of blood
because the dock got wet which changed the color.
If you zoomed out enough you could see that there were people walking and biking right
by the dock.
It’d definitely be another level of not caring if people didn’t even have a reaction
to seeing a crime scene.
4 - Giant Rabbit
If you love stuffed animals, then you’re gonna love the fact that there’s a giant
knitted rabbit in Italy that’s visible on Google Earth!
Or rather, the key word is was, but I’ll get to that later.
Is this giant rabbit some sort of toy for a spoiled kid?
Not quite.
The 200-foot-long rabbit lies on the side of Colletto Fava, a 5,200-foot high mountain
in northern Italy's Piedmont region.
The pink rabbit was knitted by Gelitin, a Viennese art group, as an outdoor sculpture
for people to climb on and generally play with.
A group member said that the rabbit is supposed to make people feel small, like Gulliver,
and that they wanted to feel joy and smile when people walked around it.
Visitors are encouraged to climb all over the 200 foot long rabbit exhibit and even
encouraged to sleep on it.
It’s made of soft, waterproof, materials and is stuffed with straw.
The group says that it was basically quote "knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink
wool".
Not sure how much I believe that one but sure, why not.
Group members were actually amazed when they found out that the rabbit could be seen from
space.
Well, as I had mentioned earlier, the key word now is was.
The rabbit was first open to the public in 2005 and was expected to last until 2025,
but it’s pretty much completely decomposed as of today.
3 - Potash Ponds
If you’re looking for the most colorful things in the middle of the Utah desert, look
no further than the Potash Ponds.
These are a series of evaporation ponds for potash, or salts that contain potassium used
for fertilizer.
But potash is actually found deep under the surface.
These evaporations ponds are only the most visible tip of a long, elaborate mining operation.
The series of man-made ponds stick out of Utah’s reddish-brown desert landscape, adding
a touch of color as well as bizarre to an otherwise barren region.
A briny solution of salt and water is pumped into deep injection wells.
Brine is used instead of water to preferentially dissolve the potash, leaving other minerals
in the rock 2,400 to 4,000 feet underground undisturbed.
The pools themselves are actually dyed dark blue to absorb and retain heat from the sun.
In the hot, dry desert climate, it takes about 300 days for the brine to dry into salt and
potash crystals.
Machines scrape up these crystals from the bottom of these rubber-lined ponds, and they're
sent off for processing.
If you go to its location on Google Earth, you’ll be able to see the ponds as a surprising
series of stripes on an otherwise prrrrretty boring landscape.
2 - Swastika buildings
Do architects REALLY know what they’re doing?
Thanks to Google Earth, we now know that there’re swastika shaped buildings all over!
Can you believe that one of the swastika buildings was actually built by the US Navy?
These buildings are barracks that were built in the late 1960's and located at the Naval
Amphibious Base Coronado, just South of San Diego, California.
When this design went under review before it was built, you really have to wonder how
they missed seeing a giant swastika on the blueprints.
World War 2 really wasn’t that many years prior, so it’s almost as if they really
did do the shape on purpose.
It’s actually a bit of a controversy.
Ever since the building was spotted on Google Earth, top military officials supposedly wanted
to change the shape of the building.
This was back in 2006.
Fast forward to now…..the buildings are still the same.
While Navy officials claim it was just an error, Israeli-American researcher Avrahaum
Segol, suspects that it wasn’t.
He said that the buildings were in tribute to former Nazi scientists who built the V1
and V2 rockets.
Who really knows what the motivation was, all that we know is, the building still resembles
a swastika despite promises made by the Navy to change the design.
1 - The Badlands Guardian
The Badlands Guardian, also known as Indian Head is a crazy looking landscape that completely
looks like someone's face.
It’s located in the Southeast corner of Alberta, Canada.
Viewed from the air, it completely looks like a person wearing a full Aboriginal Canadian
headdress, facing directly westward.
Amazingly, these human-like details on the rock are much more amazing when you realize
that the formation is completely natural, and no one took part in shaping the rocks.
The profile was formed by the erosion of rainwater on layers of clay-rich soil.
The face was originally discovered by a guy named Lynn Hickox while he was examining images
on Google Earth back in November 2006.
In the only man-made portion of the rock, a road leading to an oil well on the rock
makes the dude appear as if he’s wearing earbuds!
Here’s what’s next!