Fun With Google Maps

In a series of articles over the past week, the Register has pointed out some strange things that can be found with Google Maps. First, check out the map of the moon that Google added to its service today in honor of the moon landing anniversary. Zoom in as close as possible and you'll discover an unusual revelation.

image Second, Google maps reveals that there's a building on a military base here in San Diego that's built in the shape of a swastika. Strange, but true. It's not clear why this design was chosen. Probably the architects didn't bother to think about how it would look from the air.

image Finally, Google sleuths have discovered an image of a face that can be seen in some Peruvian sand dunes. Of course, it's already been declared to be the face of Jesus.

Places

Posted on Wed Jul 20, 2005


Comments

First... I would've thought you would have had to take an X-ray in order to see the cheese???

Second... That's 4 seperate L-shaped buildings. When you zoom in you can see the shadows of the buildings being cast where they should be connected if they were in a swastika. From a distance it resembles one but definately isn't one.

Third... That's not Jesus you see in those sand dunes. It's Alex!!!
Posted by Mark-N-Isa  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  12:33 AM
if you look really closely, you will see that it's ki-adi-mundi
Posted by tapnclick1940  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  05:32 AM
Yeah...those buildings aren't actually connected - so I guess it can't really be gagued as a swastika - but still, it LOOKS like one, right? If it looks like a swastika, and it quacks like a swastika...

I couldn't see the dune one, and LaMa beat you to the moon one - he showed us that yesterday? The day before, maybe?? I dunno.
Posted by Maegan  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  06:28 AM
Looks more like Dumbledore to me. Let's worship it.
Posted by cvirtue  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  07:11 AM
I love how the people at google can keep a sense of humour in what they do. What ever happenned to the "weapons of mass destruction" thing they linked too ?
Posted by Jockamo  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  07:12 AM
Cheese??? ❓
Posted by sss222  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  07:26 AM
haha the cheese i very cute. i looked at first and thought "what the hell is that", but then i figured it out...
very nice
Posted by RAMONESxMANIA  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  07:27 AM
Was Jesus in a fight? His nose looks broken.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  08:51 AM
he looks like some old guy, like a gnome
Posted by RAMONESxMANIA  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  12:06 PM
I couldn't see anything on the moon map- only flat grey. It didn't look like the moon at all. sooo confused...

:grrr:
Posted by Snowy  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  12:39 PM
i could not see anything in the yahoo picture of the moon except for falt gray. it is not fair--i want to be let in on the joke too!
Posted by Raquelly  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  12:42 PM
There's a lot more of this sort of thing at http://www.googlesightseeing.com 😊
Posted by Kat  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  12:51 PM
Raquelly, if you zoom right in, it turns into a picture of cheese.
Posted by Boo  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  12:59 PM
Ah, Boo spoilt it.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu Jul 21, 2005  at  05:29 PM
Check out the Weirdness section at Google Sightseeing (Link above) or the Event -> Satellite Problems link at Google Globetrotting (http://www.googleglobetrotting.com) for lots of other fun things.

I moderate at the archival "Globetrotting" site, but I must admit that much more in depth discussions on weirdness tends to occurr over at the "Sightseeing" showcase site.

Items of particular amusement (at both sites) are the "UFOs" found over Florida and LA, the "Alien Civilization", and what appears to be packing tape across the maps of Canada, Russia, Austrailia, and Africa.
Posted by TexasAndroid  on  Fri Jul 22, 2005  at  08:01 AM
My Boy Scout troop once got a chance to stay at that base overnight. We noticed the swastika to. Someone asked around and heard that the guy who designed the base was a nazi and felt it would be ironic for a US Naval Base to have a nazi logo. They didn't figure it out until after the building was completed. So instead of tearing it down and rebuilding, they built the 2 barracks to the southwest in the shape of bombers flying toward the swastika. Of course, this is probably all a bunch of bull, but it's an entertaining story to tell a Boy Scout troop right?
Posted by biznacho  on  Mon Jul 25, 2005  at  01:11 AM
RAMONESxMANIA wrote:
"he looks like some old guy, like a gnome"

Jesus is a gnome?
Posted by Ed  on  Mon Jul 25, 2005  at  03:42 AM
That moon picture's a fake, everyone knows the moon is made of green cheese!
Posted by Bill  on  Mon Jul 25, 2005  at  08:26 PM
Try the new service that Microsoft is offering...
Have a go at finding Apple
Posted by Beasjt  on  Tue Jul 26, 2005  at  10:16 AM
If you find the site of were the buildings of Apple are supposed to be you
Posted by Beasjt  on  Tue Jul 26, 2005  at  10:20 AM
I don't know why people have picked up on the "Apple HQ" thing. It's an old photo. Of course the HQ hadn't been built by that point.
Posted by Rob  on  Fri Jul 29, 2005  at  09:08 AM
"I don't know why people have picked up on the "Apple HQ" thing. It's an old photo."

I think that's the point - Microsoft's 'new
service' is using very old photos. You'd think
that they could afford the latest, and would
realize that people may lose interest if they
aren't going to supply useful information.
Posted by Irv  on  Sat Jul 30, 2005  at  04:42 PM
Yeah!! I heard that in future, we can even watch live videos of locations through Google earth
Posted by Sreejesh  on  Tue Apr 20, 2010  at  10:02 AM
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