23 strange places

Slate recently did a story on the censorship of Google Earth. Does the service really obscure our view of Dick Cheney's home? Yes, it does.

That article led me to wonder about other places we are not supposed to see. What else can Google satellite maps uncover? What is covered up?

As you no doubt know, a number of researchers have tracked down some odd things using Google. I've cribbed from the work of others, but I've also added a few findings of my own.

(Note: Some of these links will take you "higher up" than you will want to be. Zoom in, poke around, have fun.)

1. The obvious first stop: Area 51. No saucers visible, alas. Some folks say that the imagery has been changed. Here is an explanation of what you're looking at.

2. Weird massive black triangle near Prince Frederick, Maryland. Does anyone have any idea what this thing is? I'm thinking a water storage facility -- except, you know, it's a triangle. And why do no roads link it to town? (Update: It is indeed a water treatment plant, although even the locals think it is kind of freaky. Here's a ground-level photo.)

3. China Lake Naval Weapons Center. Many locals in the Mojave desert will tell you all sorts of strange tales about the secret experiments that go on out here. You'll see some odd stuff if you zoom in close and explore. This place is bigger than Rhode Island.

4. Rennes-le-Chateau. According to certain Rennes-le-ChaToadies, all of the surrounding landscape features line up with unnerving precision. Perhaps the overhead clues will direct you to the burial place of the lost treasure of Solomon's temple?

5. Helendale, California: Back in the paranoid '90s, buffs would circulate clandestine photographs of very strange, very large objects being tested on a giant platform erected at this facility. Word had it that the tests were to designed to determine radar signatures. The strangest rumors held that the "triangular UFO" craft were tested and/or created here.

6. Inexplicable concentric circles in Nevada -- within the Nellis bombing range, to be exact. If you zoom in and explore, you'll find all sorts of other strange things in the desert here, including lots of odd triangles and more circles, not to mention some "land sculpture" created by the boom-boom.

7. Pine Gap. The NSA's super-secret facility in Australia.

8. Giant Spiderweb in Colorado. This one may take you a while to find. Find County Rd 226 and Harvey Gap Road, then head east down CR 226.

9. Bridge to Nowhere, Lake Baikal (Russia). Actually, I think this is an accidental artifact created by the satellite or aircraft which took the picture. But it sure looks like the money ran out during a massive building project, doesn't it?

10. World's largest Nazi graffiti: If you type in "Nazca, Peru" you won't find the famous ancient pictographs, at least not at first. But you will find some new pictographs on the outskirts of town, which were obviously placed there as a shout out to the Google Earth visitors. Some of these symbols are, um, rather disturbing.

11. Disneylands: Paris, Orange County, Tokyo, Florida (Disney World). The American versions are situated north/south. The French version leans left. (Sweartagod.) The Japanese version goes south-east.

12. Strange gouges in the desert. You'll find other oddities in the vicinity, as well -- including what appears to be a very small, very isolated (military?) complex. You're in Algeria, about a hundred miles away from the Tunisian border. You know: Tatooine.

13. The famous red lake of Iraq.

14. BAR: Why did someone carve these giant letters into the landscape in the middle of Spain?

15. Weird green concentric circles. Not far from the Great Salt Lake in Utah. (Update: This is likely an example of center pivot irrigation.)

16. The spiral. Does anyone know why this was created? It's in New Zealand, near Warkworth.

17. Big red asterisk in a field not too far from Bradford, in England.

18. The meteor crater in Arizona is all fuzzed out, just like Dick Cheney's home. Why?

19. The world's largest ad. Made out of Coke bottles. In Peru.

20. Chalice Well, Glastonbury, England. Supposedly, the Holy Grail is hidden somewhere in these environs. I must confess that the overhead view doesn't seem to offer many clues as to its exact location.

21. An aircraft carrier is docked in a tiny man-made lake outside Shanghai, China. How did they get it in there? It's the ultimate ship-in-a-bottle puzzle! (Update: It only looks like an aircraft carrier. It's actually a school.)

22. The Playboy Mansion -- mysteriously estrogen-free in this view.

23. Finally: California-based aficionados of the odd have long heard and spread rumors about an area roughly 20 miles west of Edwards Air Force Base, in the California desert. A few of you may know about a certain dirt road intersection located in the (and I mean the) middle of nowhere, an intersection marked by an absurd "school bus" sign. This, supposedly, is where the MIBs kidnap interlopers. Local freaks like to tell tales of strange lights, strange noises, underground bases and worse.

I found no indication of these mysteries via Google satellite maps -- although I did discover these circles. (Zoom out for more.) These appear to be crop circles, insofar as something is growing in an area marked out by concentric circles. The right-most circle, or partial circle, seems the most bizarre. Still, I am sure that there is a sensible explanation. There must be. (Update: See #15, above. But the other oddities people have seen here cannot be explained by the wonders of center pivot irrigation.)