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There are many , many weird thing control onGoogle Earth . The service , which was launch in 2005 , compile images from various source , from satellites ingeosynchronous orbitthat flick low - resolution photos from tens of thousands of nautical mile above Earth , to satellites closer to Earth that fascinate higher - resolution snap , and even aerial exposure taken from airplanes , kites , trailer and even balloon .
The imagery is uncommitted to anyone , and people across the cosmos have taken reward of this fertile resource to witness uncanny and wonderful place that may have otherwise remain unexplored .
Vostok Island, which sits in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, appears to be blacked out on Google Earth.
From a boneyard of military planes , to a polka - dose design created by emmet , to mysterious structures etched into the Gobi Desert and even a foreign black island in the Pacific Ocean , Google Earth — and its netizens — have helped bring these places to light . Here ’s a smell at some of the strangest .
Swastika in Kazakhstan
Scientists discover more than 50geoglyphsacross northern Kazakhstan in Central Asia , including this swastika - shape invention . Though the Hakenkreuz symbolisation was create from timber , many of the geoglyphs were made of earthen mounds . The geoglyphs seem to date back 2,000 years . At the prison term , swastikas were not rare across Europe and Asia and were not of course affiliated with any political beliefs . [ Read more about the swastika geoglyphs and other Kazakhstan pattern ]
Island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island in Philippines
This Google Earth look-alike is an heart - full and a mouthful , as it ’s an island - in - a - lake - on - an - island - in - a - lake - on - an - island . Yes , Google Earth captured this image testify a tiny island that resides inside a crater lake on an island call Volcano Island in a lake calledTaal lakeon the Filipino island of Luzon . For years apparently , this phenomenon was consider to be the largest of its kind spied by Google Earth . However , it turns out that laurels go to a 4 - acre spit of land in northern Canada where no human has likely step foot .
Wheel structures in Azraq Oasis in Jordan
Google Earth has spy some old artistry etched into the airfoil of the major planet , including bike - shaped geometric structures that may see back some 8,500 years , making them previous than Peru ’s geoglyphs call Nazca Lines . Some of these spoked designs that dot Jordan ’s Azraq Oasis seem to be pose in a agency that aligns with dawning on the winter solstice . A team of scientist with theAerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East(APAAME ) have been investigating rack structures ( also called " works of the old men " ) with satellite imagery usable through Google Earth .
The wheel variegate in their design , with some show spokes that radiate from the eye , others with just one or two ginmill rather than spokes and still others not circular at all and instead shaped like squares , rectangle or triangle , the researchers have found .
The cycle get word in this image are in the Azraq Oasis and have spokes with a sou'-east - nor'-west orientation , possibly aligning with thewinter solsticesunrise .
A swastika-shaped geoglyph can be seen from above Kazakhstan.
Bull’s eye in wheel structures in Saudi Arabia
One type of these " wheel " in the Middle East looks like a bull’s - eye , with three trigon head toward the oculus and small scads of stones lead from the triangles toward the bull’s - eye wheel . David Kennedy , of theUniversity of Western Australia , who co - directs the project , telephone it " a primal bull’s - eye grave with , in this case , three triangles each with at least a part of a connect line of Harlan F. Stone tidy sum running to the center . "
Unexcavated pyramid in Egypt
This persona from Google Earth point an unusual person that some believe could be an unexcavatedpyramid . slews of anomalies inEgypthave been notice using Google Earth in the retiring five age ; however , there is a argumentation as to whether they stage natural features or unreal bodily structure . More excavations are needed , but the surety and economic position in Egypt has limited the number and size of it of excavations .
More potential eroded pyramids in Egypt
wear away Egyptian pyramid or geologic features ?
Phantom Sandy Island near New Caledonia
In 2012 , a group of Australian researchers " undiscovered " an island the size of Manhattan in the South Pacific . A mysterious position call in Sandy Island had popped up on maps , NW of New Caledonia . It even show up as a dim polygon on Google Earth . But when scientists sailed there in November 2012 , they found open water instead of solid ground . Inan obituaryfor the island issue in April 2013 , the researchers explained why the phantom landmass had been included on some map for more than a century , luff to some human error and a possible pumice stone raft .
Pentagram in Kazakhstan
Abandoned launch sites at Oahu Defense Area in Hawaii
Nike projectile , which were supersonic surface - to - air missiles , sit ready to launch at nearly 300 sites across the United States during a period of the Cold War , from 1954 to the 1970s . Some of those missiles even carry atomic warheads . Those missile became obsolete with the Parousia of long - rangeintercontinental ballistic missiles(ICBMs ) .
David Tewksbury , a GIS ( geographic information system ) specialist at Hamilton College in New York , aim to preserve a visual book of the abandon Nike projectile launch sites before they vanish — either as a effect of being reclaim by nature , repurposed by the armed services or redevelop . His design is to build a geo - reference database so that anyone can search the Nike projectile website through Google Earth .
Here , one of those sites , the Oahu Defense Area in Hawaii , is shown in 1968 . The site was once fit with missiles in the open air , with embankment between paired launching sites .
An island-in-a-lake-on-an-island-in-a-lake-on-an-island.
Spiral art installation “Desert Breath” in Egypt
A voluted portal site to an alternate universe ? Maybe an alien message ? Or an ancient memorial to a supernatural being ? This giant spiral design in the desolate Egyptian desert , not far from the shores of the Red Sea , is an art installation hollo Desert Breath . In March 2007 , Danae Stratou , Alexandra Stratou and Stella Constantinides created the 1 million square foot ( 100,000 square meters ) art imply to celebrate " the desert as a state of judgment , a landscape of the mind , " the artist sayon their website .
Looting holes in Apamea, Syria
The civil warfare in Syria has imperilled hundreds of archeologic sites , including causing damage to all six of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the land , which is considered one of the oldest occupied areas of the Earth . Satellites , in finicky , have show much of this ravaging , with some of the strangest mental imagery showingdestruction in Apamea . There , Google Earth images have bring out the entire ancient Roman urban center has been pockmark with holes fag by looters since the offset of the civil warfare .
" It looks like the airfoil of the lunar month , " Emma Cunliffe , anarchaeologyresearcher at Durham University in England , who has published areportdocumenting archeologic damage in Syria , told Live Science in 2013 . " In eight month , the plundered area surpass the total excavated area . "
Blood lake outside Sadr City, Iraq
Outside Sadr City in Iraq , atcoordinates 33.396157 ° N , 44.486926 ° E , lies a blood - red lake . There is , as yet , no prescribed account for the color of this foreign body of water .
Polka-dot formation on Grand Canyon made by ants
An left polka - pane radiation diagram near the cinder strobile vent dubbed Vulcan ’s pot on the north rim of theGrand Canyonmay have a unsubdivided account : ants . turn over out , the desert around the Grand Canyon is home to red harvesterants(Pogonomyrmex barbatus ) .
These pesky critter can make nesting mounds spanning some 47 inches ( 120 centimeters ) across and are typically skirt by bare land up to 108 solid feet ( 10 straight metre ) , according to physicist Amelia Carolina Sparavigna , a specializer in ikon processing and satellite imaging analysis at the Politecnico of Torino in Ital . Sparavigna discourse her theory in a scientific paperposted online on Jan. 11 , 2016- the paper has yet to be equal - reviewed . The mounds may be responsible for the aery figure of scatter set , though Sparavigna says on - the - ground confirmation is needed .
Island, in a lake, on an island, in a lake, on an island near Victoria Canada
The reality ’s largest " island , in a lake , on an island , in a lake , on an island " is a narrow , four - Accho airstrip of land in Canada located at exactly69.793 ° N , 108.241 ° W. The nameless island ( that little - tilde mold squiggle of green ) lolls across the centre of a small lake , which is itself capsule by a slightly larger island . That resides inside one of a series of longsighted finger’s breadth lakes settle 75 miles inland from the southern coast of Victoria Island , a Din Land feature in Northern Canada .
This little " sub - sub - sub island " would never have receive its unknown preeminence if not for careful trolling of Google Earth by map geeks around the world . In all likelihood , no human has ever in reality set foot there .
Boneyard at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona
The Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson , Ariz. , is where U.S. military planing machine go to give out . dub " the boneyard , " this 2,600 - Akko cemetery of steel at coordinates32 08'59.96 " N , 110 50'09.03"Wis closed to the oecumenical public , but Google Earth provides a high - resolution glance of what ’s inside : virtually every carpenter’s plane the military has flown since World War II — from theB-52 StratoFortressto the F-14 Tomcat — in various stages of decomposition .
The boneyard at Davis Monthan was used as the backcloth in the medicine television for " determine to Fly " by rock music euphony fable Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers . The band was shown performing among various aircraft whale .
Word “Hamad” written on al Futaisi Island
Hamad bin Hamdan al Nahyan , a billionaire Sheikh and member of Abu Dhabi ’s ruling family line , has had his name carved into the flaxen control surface of al Futaisi Island , an island he owns in the Persian Gulf . At half a mile grandiloquent and 2 international mile long altogether , the letters HAMAD may be the world ’s with child ; regardless , they ’re visible from space .
ordinarily , words write in moxie washout forth , but these letters are big enough to form watercourse that absorb the encroaching tide . Indeed , at the time these satellite photographs were taken , say tide can be seen flow through the letter all the way to the M.
Aerial view of elephants in Chad
think you might never get to see a herd of Africanelephantsin the wild ? Luckily , artificial satellite captured a few high-pitched - resolution image of a herd on the move in Chad , at coordinates10.903497 N,19.93229 E.
Church of Scientology Bunker in New Mexico
concord to their web site , Scientology " is a religion that offers a exact path leave to a pure and certain understanding of one ’s dead on target spiritual nature and one ’s relationship to self , family , groups , Mankind , all liveliness frame , the cloth creation , the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being , " according to the organization ’s website . Such symbols on the desert trading floor are reportedly there to help direct these scientologists who return to Earth after fleeing a planetal " Armageddon , " writes theDaily Mail . Of course , the symbols will probably remain a mystery .
Patterns etched in Gobi Desert
Newfound Google Earth images have revealed an array of mysterious structures and pattern etch into the Earth’s surface ofChina ’s Gobi Desert . harmonise to expert , this is a secret military base , and the structures are used for a variety of purpose includingweapons examination , spysatellitecalibration and examination of radar instrumentation .
The most elaborated feature , an intricate grid of perfectly straight lines that weave back and forth every few hundred feet for 20 miles ( 33 kilometer ) , is most likely a Yagi antenna array , a twist used for weather condition tracking and other atmospheric research .
KFC advertising in Chile hillside
Shipwreck of S.S. Jassim off Sudan
The S.S. Jassim , a Bolivian cargo ferry , ran aground and sink on the Wingate Reef off the glide of Sudan in 2003 . At 265 feet ( 81 cadence ) long , it was once one of the great shipwreck visible on Google Earth , located at19 38'45.99"N 37 17'42.17E , although it now appear to have sunk almost all .
Landlocked lips in Darfur, Sudan
These luscious mouth are a hill formation located in Gharb , Darfur , in Sudan at coordinates12 ° 22'13.32"N , 23 ° 19'20.18"E.
Triangle UFO in Australia
In Australia , at coordinates30 ° 30'38.44"S 115 ° 22'56.03"E , a foreign trigon dotted with hopeful lights appeared in the center of a theater of operations . When first discovered in 2007 , ufologists were flying to call it a " Triangulum UFO " caught in the act of hover above Earth . Other Google Earth users said it may be an antenna associated with a nearby remote - controlledwind farm . With three sets of telegram forming a Triangulum , and a tug in the midsection , the antenna belike received and conduct control signals .
come to : This eldritch Google Earth scene does not show a crashed UFO
Secret military base near Kashgar, China
A mysterious correct ofsatellite persona seen on Google Earthcreated a flurry when an ex-wife - CIA analysttold Wired.comhe had observe " structures " in the desert around Kashgar , a city in China ’s remote westerly desert that is part of the Xinjiang state .
Some job the construction at the site were part of a undercover military base . But with further analysis , Stefan Geens , a applied scientist and geospatial blogger who has spend months in that part of China , said the site was potential part of a major manufacture or economic mall .
Mystery structures on Chinese satellite images
Here , another ikon of the foreign web site in the Chinese desert .
One structure in the complex did somewhat resemble a helicopter examination area , analysts tell there ’s no reason it would necessarily be linked to military activity . Furthermore , the web site is not ideal for a secret military al-Qaeda , since it ’s comparatively airless to a major population domain and no pillar or barriers were spotted , saidStuart Hamilton , former GIS program theater director at the Center for Geospatial Analysis at the College of William and Mary , and now a professor at Salisbury University in Maryland .
An untouched mountaintop rainforest
At time , it seems like humans have search every nook and cranny of the land on Earth . But in 2018 , researchers went somewhere that ( almost ) no one has ever been before , all thanks to Google Earth .
The terminus was Mount Lico , Mozambique , where the inquiry squad discover a high - altitude rainforest perched atop transparent slopes . Welsh preservation scientist Julian Bayliss first discovered the blot using Google Earth , The Verge reported . really visit the forest required a dizzying 400 - foot ( 123 m ) climb up up a perpendicular granite face . On top , the scientists found a remarkable ecosystem populated by butterfly , wanderer and small mammal . A few erstwhile , hand-crafted gage reveal that someone else had once made the raise , perhaps 100 long time before . No one knew for certain who left the pots behind .
Blacked out mystery island
Vostok Island , a small , uninhabited coral island that sits in the central Pacific Ocean , appears blacked out on Google Earth , activate a chain ofconspiracy theoriesabout it — including it being a occult military base . In reality , the nerve centre of the island is covered byPisonia grandistrees rooted in thick , peat stain . These trees are so dense and gloomy , that from above the foliage gives the island the show of a weird bootleg hole .
Belonging to Kiribati , the island , which is about 0.8 miles ( 1.3 kilometers ) long , was first reveal in 1820 . It is compose of coral sand and detritus , with no lagoon or freshwater . There is no evidence the island has ever been populate , although rats there indicate it may have been visited by ancient Polynesians at some point .
Wheel structures in the Azraq Oasis in Jordan, as seen in this Google Earth image.
Some of the “wheels” found in Saudi Arabia have a bull’s-eye design.
Natural or man-made?
Eroded Egyptian pyramids or geologic features?
The mysterious “Sandy Island”
This Google Earth image shows the Oahu Defense Area in Hawaii, which was equipped with missiles in open air with earthen revetments, or embankments, between paired launch sites, shown here in 1968.
desert-breath
Apamea looted in satellite imagery
Lake of blood?
This weird polka-dot pattern in the vegetation near a volcano on the rim of the Grand Canyon could be the work of red harvester ants.
An
The boneyard
This is what happens when you have far more money than sense
Wild View Elephants
scientology-bunker
Mysterious structures and patterns etched into the surface of China’s Gobi Desert.
Google Earth “mapvertising”
Sizable shipwreck
Landlocked lips
Aussie UFO?
Google earth, satellite images, Chinese desert
Another strange sight in China’s Western desert
Mount Lico, in Mozambique, has a high-altitude rainforest sitting on its sheer slopes.
