You’re bored at 2:00 AM. You open the app. Suddenly, you’re looking at a giant chrome-plated spider in a backyard in Italy or a "blood lake" in Iraq that looks like a crime scene from orbit. It’s a rabbit hole. We’ve all been there, scrolling through the digital twin of our planet, hunting for something that doesn't belong. Honestly, finding a weird thing on Google Earth has become a sort of modern-day archaeology, except instead of shovels, we’re using high-res satellite imagery and a lot of patience.
It’s weird.
The sheer scale of the data is what makes it possible. Google doesn't just take one photo; they stitch together billions of images from Maxar and Airbus satellites. Sometimes, the stitching breaks. That’s where the "ghost planes" come from—those translucent jets sitting at the bottom of the ocean. They aren't crashes. They're just a result of how the moving object was captured across multiple frames. But even knowing the tech behind it doesn't stop the initial "what the heck is that?" reaction.
The Most Famous Weird Thing on Google Earth Locations
Take the Badlands Guardian in Alberta, Canada. If you zoom into coordinates 50.010083, -110.113003, you’ll see a massive human head wearing an indigenous headdress. It’s not a carving. It's not a message from aliens. It is a completely natural geomorphological feature caused by the erosion of soft, clay-rich soil. But the precision is uncanny. It even looks like the figure is wearing earphones, which are actually just a road and an oil well.
Then there’s the "Giant" in Chile. Known as the Atacama Giant, this one is actually man-made. It’s an ancient geoglyph. While it looks like a goofy robot from a 1950s sci-fi flick, it was likely a lunar calendar for the people who lived there between AD 1000 and 1400. It’s the largest prehistoric anthropomorphic figure in the world. Seeing it from a satellite perspective gives it a weight that standing on the ground just can't match.
The Mystery of the Pentagram in Kazakhstan
For years, people freaked out over a massive pentagram inscribed into the earth near the Upper Tobol Reservoir. Conspiracy theorists had a field day. Was it a secret cult? A portal?
Nope.
Emma Usmanova, an archaeologist who knows the Lisakovsk area well, eventually cleared it up. It’s the outline of a park. In the Soviet era, parks were often laid out in the shape of a star—a popular symbol of the USSR. The "pentagram" is just the overgrown remains of a star-shaped roadway system that looks much more sinister from 30,000 feet up than it does from the sidewalk.
Sandy Island: The Island That Wasn't There
This is probably the peak of weird thing on Google Earth lore. For years, a landmass called Sandy Island appeared in the Coral Sea, near New Caledonia. It was on Google Maps. It was in reputable maritime charts.
In 2012, an Australian research ship sailed there to check it out. They found... nothing. Just deep blue water.
How does a whole island vanish? It didn't. It never existed. It was likely a "pumice raft"—a giant floating mass of volcanic rock from an underwater eruption that a ship captain spotted in the 1800s and recorded as land. The error was copied from map to map for over a century until satellite imagery finally proved the ocean was empty.
Why Our Brains See Things That Aren't There
A lot of this comes down to pareidolia. That's the human tendency to see familiar patterns—especially faces—in random data. When you look at a weird thing on Google Earth, your brain is working overtime to make it make sense. You see a "face" on Mars or a "kraken" off the coast of Deception Island (which turned out to be a rock formation called Sail Rock).
The technology itself adds to the strangeness. Google Earth uses a technique called "texture mapping." It drapes 2D satellite photos over 3D terrain models. When the 3D data is a bit messy, buildings look like they’ve melted, or bridges look like they’re dipping into the river. It creates a digital surrealism that feels like a glitch in the Matrix.
Military Secrets and Pixelated Patches
Not everything "weird" is a glitch. Sometimes the weirdness is intentional.
If you look at certain spots in North Korea or sensitive sites in Israel, the imagery is intentionally low-resolution or blurred. This is often due to the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment in the U.S., which historically restricted the resolution of satellite imagery over certain areas. While those rules have relaxed, many countries still request that Google (or the satellite providers) censor specific coordinates.
Take Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands. For a long time, it was covered by a clumsy, pixelated "camouflage" that looked like a bad Minecraft mod. It’s widely rumored to house tactical nuclear weapons, so the government wasn't exactly keen on showing high-def shots of the bunkers.
How to Find Your Own Anomalies
If you want to go hunting for a weird thing on Google Earth yourself, you have to look for high-contrast areas. Deserts are the best. Because there’s very little vegetation to hide things, ancient ruins, weird geoglyphs, and abandoned military strips stand out.
- Switch to 3D View: A lot of the coolest "glitches" appear when you toggle between 2D and 3D.
- Use the Historical Imagery Tool: This is huge. On the desktop version of Google Earth Pro, you can slide back through time. Sometimes a "weird" object only appears in one specific year, which usually means it was a temporary structure, a cloud shadow, or a sensor error.
- Check the Coordinates: If you find something, Google the coordinates. There’s a massive community of "Google Earth hunters" on Reddit and old-school forums who have likely already debunked or identified the object.
The Reality of the Digital Eye
Most "unexplained" sightings end up being pretty mundane. That "underwater pyramid" is usually just a sonar artifact from a ship mapping the sea floor. The "bloody lake" in Sadr City, Iraq? It was likely caused by runoff from a nearby slaughterhouse or sewage treatment issues, though it has since cleared up in more recent imagery.
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We want the world to be more mysterious than it is. That's the truth. We want there to be secret bases and monsters hiding in the pixels because the alternative—that we’ve mapped almost every inch of the planet and it’s mostly just dirt and infrastructure—is a bit boring.
Actionable Steps for Exploring Safely
- Download Google Earth Pro: The desktop version is free and gives you much better tools, including the ability to measure the exact size of objects you find.
- Verify with Multiple Sources: If you see something "weird," check Bing Maps or Apple Maps. They use different satellite providers (like TomTom or OpenStreetMap). If the "anomaly" isn't on the other platforms, it’s a processing glitch in Google’s software, not a real object.
- Look for "Ground Truth": Always search for local photos or "Street View" nearby. A massive "alien structure" often turns out to be a strangely shaped water tower or a piece of farm equipment when seen from the road.
Finding a weird thing on Google Earth is really about the thrill of the hunt. It reminds us that even though we have satellites circling the globe 24/7, there are still corners of the map that look totally alien when viewed from the right angle.