Unusual places on Google maps. Creepy secrets revealed by Google Maps

Twenty-five-year-old Briton Rachel Young (Rachel Young) got into a car accident and was forced to comply with bed rest. After reading about an Australian designer's alphabet, she decided to make her own using UK maps. It took her much less time than the Australian to search for suitable places on the maps - only 15 hours. It is interesting that, according to the British, during this time she discovered about a hundred variants of the letter B, but the letters K, N and Q did not want to be.

But the story with the alphabet did not end there either. After Rachel showed her alphabet to the news agency she works for, she was asked to look for letters on a map of New York City. Despite the fact that the British woman had never been to this city, in just five days she completed the task and compiled another English alphabet, this time from aerial photographs of New York.

Dutch designer Thomas de Bruin went even further. Exploring the map of the Netherlands, he found on it all the capital and lowercase letters of the alphabet. In addition, he supplemented his alphabet with numbers from one to ten and punctuation marks.

You can see the results of Thomas' work on his Flickr page.

⇡ Area-51

In the search bar "Google Earth" you can enter not only the coordinates of geographical objects or their names. If you try to find a secret military facility, code-named "Area 51" (Area 51), the program will "give out a military secret" and show the legendary American base in Nevada.

Many sincerely believe that it is in this place that the US government carefully hides secrets from civilians - either UFOs will be noticed there, or rumors will spread that the landing of astronauts on the moon was actually filmed at this base.

⇡ Conclusion

Hundreds of years have passed since the time of Columbus and Bering. There are no white spots left on the map of the Earth, and it is almost impossible to find a place where a human foot has not set foot. However, geographical discoveries are still ongoing. It is much easier to make them now, because today's Magellans and Bellingshausen do not need to equip bales and go on dangerous expeditions on ships and sledges. Thanks to Google Earth, you can explore our planet from the comfort of your home.

If you carefully look at Google maps, you can notice several hidden places, they are prohibited from showing.

Let's find out more about them.

1. Baker Lake, Inuit territory in northern Canada

The man, who identified himself as "Dr. Boylan", believes that the darkened area in this picture and in several other locations hides extraterrestrial beacons of aliens.

2. Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany

This NATO air base is the starting point for Operation Iraqi Freedom forces, and for this reason, it can certainly be a target for terrorist attacks. This may explain why this feature is partially cut from Google Maps.

3. Pacific Northwest, USA

What exactly are we not seeing in this photo? This place is located near the border of the states of Washington and Oregon. Enthusiasts personally examined this place and found nothing remarkable, except for the sinister appearance of the fence and the unmarked entrance.

4. Shazalombatta Oil Refinery, Hungary

This is one of the strangest examples of censorship in Google Maps - this place is simply painted over in green. The factory area has been removed, the buildings have been erased, and all you can see is regular grass.

5. Huis Ten Palace, Holland

It's hard to imagine that the Dutch royal family could be a prime target for a crazed terrorist, but the royal palace of Huis Ten is heavily blurred on Google Maps from any angle. (However, the surrounding area and trees can be seen with crystal clarity at close magnification.)

6. Unknown zone, Russia

No one knows what is hidden in this region. One of the opinions is that there is a "radar station or missile interception system" there, and some argue that the image of the surrounding area is pasted from another region of Russia.

7. Mobil Oil Corporation, Buffalo, New York, USA

Some criticize Buffalo-based Mobil for blurring images of its operations, saying that oil corporations are not of much interest to terrorists. On the other hand, we do not know what the terrorists themselves think.

8. North Korea

Everyone has heard of this country, which is part of the supposed "Axis of Evil", but very few have ever visited it. You won't see it on Google Maps either, as the entire country exists in the imagery, but without road markers, street names, or any other identifying details.

9. Reims Air Base, France

The reasons why this air force base is blocked from Google Maps are unknown.

10. Indian Point Power Plant, New York, USA

Many members of the United States government called for a shutdown of the Indian Point power plant. Environmental considerations aside, according to energy experts, the power plant is not strong enough to withstand an earthquake like the one that recently devastated Japan.

11. Volkel Air Base, Holland

It is rather amusing to see how this air base is grossly blurred on satellite images, but WikiLeaks has published diplomatic correspondence that confirms the presence of nuclear warheads on the territory of this base.

12. HAARP, Gakona, Alaska, USA

HAARP (High Frequency Northern Lights Research Program) is one of the most controversial operations currently underway in the United States. Gakona, the site of research, and the ionosphere experiments being conducted there, are revered by some conspiracy theorists as the cause of everything from floods to earthquakes, but there is very little evidence of this.

13. Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway, Salinas, California, USA

This is one of the strangest examples of censorship on Google Maps: the Laguna Seca race track in Salinas, California. The strangest thing about this is the fact itself: this is an apparently harmless race track.

14. Babylon, Iraq

While the surrounding area is perfectly visible, the city of Babylon itself is blurred in the pictures. One can argue that this has something to do with the rebels there ...

15. Tantauco National Park, Chile

Why is this endangered species sanctuary completely cut out of Google Maps? Nobody knows.

16. The Hill, Elmira Correctional Facility, USA

This is the highest security prison in New York State. Perhaps, after the riots in the Attica prison and several incidents of uprisings and mass escapes around the world, the authorities may indeed be worried about the possibility of escapes using helicopters.

17. House of Alexey Miller, Russia

According to Wikipedia, this place is the "private palace of the executive director of JSC Gazprom Alexei Miller." But why is he given preference over all other people? Maybe we're just not powerful enough to convince Google to cut out our homes from satellite imagery.

18. Colonel Sanders

This is the strangest fact from Google: Colonel Sanders, the face of the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain, does not appear in any of the Google Street View images. This is because, according to Google representatives, Sanders was a real person, and images of real people should be blurred in any pictures.

19. Faro Islands, Denmark

It is believed that in this zone there are some non-advertised military installations.

20. NATO Headquarters, Portugal

This shot would be the funniest if it didn't have such an ominous context. Whoever edited the image of NATO's Portuguese headquarters simply copied another area of ​​the earth's surface over the image of the building. Very strange.

21. Seabrook Nuclear Station, New Hampshire

Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant is believed to be located in this northeastern United States.

22. Missile mine, Spain

According to one researcher, “At this site is a small building with what looks like a missile silo in the middle. What is strange is that this area is not blocked in Yahoo! Maps, but its image is not Google Maps.

23. Nuclear zone, France

We're not entirely sure what "The Marcoule site of the Commissariat l'Energie Atomique" means, but we think "atomique" is the key here.

Mysterious Island

In 2012, a team of Australian explorers discovered an "undiscovered" island the size of Manhattan (58.8 square kilometers) in the South Pacific. The mysterious place was named Sandy Island and took place on the maps northwest of New Caledonia. It also appeared on Google maps, resembling a black angular sausage. However, when scientists arrived at the site of the proposed island in November 2012, they found only endless ocean expanses. In their explanation, released in April 2013, the scientists declared the island a "mistake", explaining that, most likely, some kind of accumulation or formation, possibly made of pumice, was taken for the island.

lake of blood

Outside the city of Sadr in Iraq, at 33.396157°N, 44.486926°E, Google Maps indicates a blood-red lake. There is no official explanation about the origin of this object. Among the unofficial versions: the discharge into the lake of industrial waste or local slaughterhouses, and possibly (and most likely), special bacteria that give the water a red tint.

©livescience.com

Ant peas

A strange polka-dot pattern near a volcano on the north side of the Grand Canyon in the United States has a fairly simple explanation from scientists. The authors of the pattern turned out to be red reaper ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) that live in this desert. They create nesting mounds up to 120 cm in diameter, around which about 10 square meters. m stretches bare land. Meanwhile, this explanation, put forward by the physicist Amelia Carolina Sparavilla from the Institute in Turin, is still only a hypothesis and has not received official confirmation.

©livescience.com

Island-"matryoshka"

And this is the world's largest island on a lake, which is located on an island in a lake located on an island. A narrow strip of land is located in Canada on a small lake located on another island. He, in turn, is located on a lake 90 km from the coast inside Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. According to the assumptions of journalists, a human foot has never set foot on the “matryoshka” island.

©livescience.com

Cemetery of retired planes

Davis-Monten Air Force Base is where military planes come to die. "Burial" with coordinates 32 08 "59.96 ° north latitude, 110 50" 09.03 ° east longitude and an area of ​​​​more than 10 square meters. km is officially closed to the public, but you can still look at it using Google Earth. It contains the remains of many legendary aircraft, from the B-52 StratoFortress to the F-14 Tomcat. Among the several thousand units of aircraft, there are also spaceships that have served their time. According to some estimates, the total value of the scrap metal located here exceeds $35 billion.

©livescience.com

name in the sand

Sheikh, billionaire and member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan instructed to carve his name on the sand of his Al Futaisi island (8 km from Abu Dhabi) in the Persian Gulf. Apparently, this is the largest sand inscription in the world. The letters are so large that they interact with the tide, filling with water instead of being swept away by it.

©livescience.com

Mysterious Gobi Pattern

In China's Gobi desert, images have captured quite a few structures that are hard to explain. One of them is a mysterious mesh of regular shape. Discussing the pictures, Internet users were mainly inclined to the military-strategic origin of the object. The area of ​​the pattern was embarrassing - about 33 km. However, most likely, this is the Yagi-Uda antenna, it is also a “wave channel”. This antenna consists of active and several passive vibrators located parallel to each other along the radiation line and is used in radio communication and radar systems.

©livescience.com

Trolling Google maps has a long history - people can not deny themselves the pleasure of diversifying their landscapes with man-made symbols. Even a special term appeared - mapvertising. As a result, the largest Coca-Cola logo in the world can be seen on a hillside in Chile. At the same time, it is alleged that it is made from 70,000 empty soda bottles. Another advertising creative that has settled in Nevada is a giant image of the KFC symbol, Colonel Sanders.

©livescience.com

"Kiss of the Earth"

One of the funniest objects on Google Earth is definitely the "Kiss of the Earth". These unusual lip-like hills are located in Sudan's Darfur and are traditionally the source of witty comments on the Web.

©livescience.com

The man, who identified himself as "Dr. Boylan", believes that the darkened area in this picture and in several other locations hides extraterrestrial beacons of aliens.

2. Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany

This NATO air base is the starting point for Operation Iraqi Freedom forces, and for this reason, it can certainly be a target for terrorist attacks. This may explain why this feature is partially cut from Google Maps.

3. Pacific Northwest, USA

What exactly are we not seeing in this photo? This place is located near the border of the states of Washington and Oregon. Enthusiasts personally examined this place and found nothing remarkable, except for the sinister appearance of the fence and the unmarked entrance.

4. Shazalombatta Oil Refinery, Hungary

This is one of the strangest examples of censorship in Google Maps - this place is simply painted over in green. The factory area has been removed, the buildings have been erased, and all you can see is regular grass.

5. Huis Ten Palace, Holland

It's hard to imagine that the Dutch royal family could be a prime target for a crazed terrorist, but the royal palace of Huis Ten is heavily blurred on Google Maps from any angle. (However, the surrounding area and trees can be seen with crystal clarity at close magnification.)

6. Unknown zone, Russia

No one knows what is hidden in this region. One of the opinions is that there is a "radar station or missile interception system" there, and some argue that the image of the surrounding area is pasted from another region of Russia.

7. Mobil Oil Corporation, Buffalo, New York, USA

Some criticize Buffalo-based Mobil for blurring images of its operations, saying that oil corporations are not of much interest to terrorists. On the other hand, we do not know what the terrorists themselves think.

8. North Korea

Everyone has heard of this country, which is part of the supposed "Axis of Evil", but very few have ever visited it. You won't see it on Google Maps either, as the entire country exists in the imagery, but without road markers, street names, or any other identifying details.

9. Reims Air Base, France

The reasons why this air force base is blocked from Google Maps are unknown.

10. Indian Point Power Plant, New York, USA

Many members of the United States government called for a shutdown of the Indian Point power plant. Environmental considerations aside, according to energy experts, the power plant is not strong enough to withstand an earthquake like the one that recently devastated Japan.

11. Volkel Air Base, Holland

It is rather amusing to see how this air base is grossly blurred on satellite images, but WikiLeaks has published diplomatic correspondence that confirms the presence of nuclear warheads on the territory of this base.

12. HAARP, Gakona, Alaska, USA

HAARP (High Frequency Northern Lights Research Program) is one of the most controversial operations currently underway in the United States. Gakona, the site of research, and the ionosphere experiments being conducted there, are revered by some conspiracy theorists as the cause of everything from floods to earthquakes, but there is very little evidence of this.

13. Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway, Salinas, California, USA

This is one of the strangest examples of censorship on Google Maps: the Laguna Seca race track in Salinas, California. The strangest thing about this is the fact itself: this is an apparently harmless race track.

14. Babylon, Iraq

While the surrounding area is perfectly visible, the city of Babylon itself is blurred in the pictures. One can argue that this has something to do with the rebels there ...

15. Tantauco National Park, Chile

Why is this endangered species sanctuary completely cut out of Google Maps? Nobody knows.

16. The Hill, Elmira Correctional Facility, USA

This is the highest security prison in New York State. Perhaps, after the riots in the Attica prison and several incidents of uprisings and mass escapes around the world, the authorities may indeed be worried about the possibility of escapes using helicopters.

17. House of Alexey Miller, Russia

According to Wikipedia, this place is the "private palace of the executive director of JSC Gazprom Alexei Miller." But why is he given preference over all other people? Maybe we're just not powerful enough to convince Google to cut out our homes from satellite imagery.

18. Colonel Sanders

This is the strangest fact from Google: Colonel Sanders, the face of the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain, does not appear in any of the Google Street View images. This is because, according to Google representatives, Sanders was a real person, and images of real people should be blurred in any pictures.

19. Faro Islands, Denmark

It is believed that in this zone there are some non-advertised military installations.

20. NATO Headquarters, Portugal

This shot would be the funniest if it didn't have such an ominous context. Whoever edited the image of NATO's Portuguese headquarters simply copied another area of ​​the earth's surface over the image of the building. Very strange.

21. Seabrook Nuclear Station, New Hampshire

Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant is believed to be located in this northeastern United States.

22. Missile mine, Spain

According to one researcher, “At this site is a small building with what looks like a missile silo in the middle. What is strange is that this area is not blocked in Yahoo! Maps, but its image is not Google Maps.

23. Nuclear zone, France

We're not entirely sure what "The Marcoule site of the Commissariat l'Energie Atomique" means, but we think "atomique" is the key here.

Looking at photographs of our planet taken from space, you can find a lot of intriguing and sometimes inexplicable things, especially if you connect your imagination while viewing.

Bright Side collected mysterious objects and places that users found on Google maps.

Wasteland Guardian

In November 2006, Lynn Hickox discovered on Google Maps a geological formation located in the Canadian province of Alberta, resembling an Indian head with an earpiece in his ear. Such an image appeared as a result of prolonged soil erosion, and the wire from the earphone and the ear - the road leading to the oil rig, and the rig itself.

Blood lake in Iraq

In 2007, near the Iraqi city of Sadr, a blood red lake. Versions of the origin of the anomaly were very different - from sewage to waste from a nearby slaughterhouse. But the reason for this color of water has not been established. Today the lake looks just like the others.

Heart shaped island

Galeshnyak Island , belonging to Croatia, was discovered on satellite maps in 2009. The island quickly became popular, not only on the Internet, but also among travelers - before that, an uninhabited part of the land turned into a place of pilgrimage for lovers from all over the world.

Fingerprint labyrinth

A labyrinth in the shape of a human fingerprint, made of limestone tiles, is located in Hove Park in Brighton, UK. It was created in 2006 from a sketch by artist Chris Drury.

"Murder scene" on the lake in Almere, the Netherlands

A satellite image taken in 2009 in the Netherlands was discovered by one of the users of the Reddit website. The scene seemed like a murder, and there was a heated discussion on the site about what it really was.

However, no bloody crime was recorded in this picture. Almere resident Jacqueline Kenen identified the brutal "killer" as her golden retriever, who she says loves to swim. And what was taken for traces of blood is actually just water that has been glassed from the dog's fur.

Building in the shape of a swastika

The swastika-shaped building belongs to the US Navy and was spotted by Google users in 2006. The command of the Navy said that the similarity with this figure was discovered only at the construction stage, when nothing could be changed.

In 2007 $600,000 was allocated to change the landscape and install solar panels so that they hide the shape of the building. As of 2017, thanks to solar panels, the building no longer resembles a Nazi symbol.

People in dove masks

This street shot was taken in the Japanese town of Musashino in March 2013. This "composition" was built on purpose - the users and the site team Daily Portal Z having learned that the streets will be photographed for Google decided to immortalize itself on the map.

A ship overgrown with trees

This derelict and tree-covered ship was captured by satellite on the Parramatta River near Sydney, Australia. The ship named SS Ayrfield was launched in 1911. In 1972, she was decommissioned, and since then the ship has been moored at the mouth of the river.

UFO in Romania

An object that looks like a UFO from science fiction films has been found on an abandoned farm near the Romanian city of Timisoara. The discovery gave rise to a lot of rumors about the visit of an alien ship to Earth. In fact, a flying saucer is abandoned water tower, which used to supply Timisoara with water.

Desert breath

Strange circles in the Sahara Desert were created in 1997 by the hands of people who are members of the creative association D.A.S.T. The sculpture was made of two spirals emanating from the center, one of which was created from cones expanding as they moved away from the beginning, and the second from recesses built according to the same principle.

According to the creators, the spiral should disappear over time under the influence of erosion. However, even now, 20 years later, it is perfectly visible even from space.

Military Aircraft Cemetery

Davis-Monten Air Baseis located near the city of Tucson in the United States and is perhaps the world's largest place for the conservation of aircraft - about 4,400 aircraft and 40 spacecraft are laid up here. Every year, about 400 pieces of equipment come here and the same number is sold or destroyed.

Strange Creature from Loch Ness

Jason Cook, 25, was looking at satellite images of Loch Ness when he spotted a creature swimming in its waters. And although there is no reliable evidence of the existence of the famous monster, many believed that it was the Google satellite that captured it.