Once upon a time, in the far, far away land of Techgeeks lived two university pals named Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They spent long hours dreaming of a company that one day would be the biggest search engine in the world, offering mere mortals the opportunity to traverse the great plains of the planet without moving their lazy asses.
Information would be available at the touch of a square key and people could search for the most bizarre, beautiful, weird and wonderful images relayed by satellites dotted around the globe. This would make for a very happy life.
This is Google Earth.
12 Faces of Google Earth
1. The Château de Versailles, although some 20 km from the capital of France, was once the centre of political power, making it a revered institution and highly-visited sight. The gardens of Versailles cover 800 hectares of land and have been carefully manicured for centuries in the traditional French style. Only since the advent of Google Earth have we been able to view the lawns so meticulously, revealing this smiley face hidden in the grounds.
2.The definite profile of a smiling, bearded man can be made out from the hedgerows around these fields. Actually, it could be Abe Lincoln without his hat. Anyone else agree?
3. A native American Indian, replete with feathered headdress, is hiding in the hills of Alberta, Canada, and by the looks of it he’s found a way to pass the time – dangling from his ear looks something suspiciously like an iPod ear piece. Wonder what he’s listening to.
4. The ghostly image of a lady appears in a field in Ohio. Zooming in closer to the image reveals the eyes may be trees that the farmer has cut around and the mouth is just a naturally darker patch of grass. Ah, the wonders of nature.
5. And in total contrast to the aforementioned image, the hand of man etches a number of similar images in a clearing in Denmark. The original mask design was created by none other than Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Titled ‘The Sun as a Face’, this face-shaped forest was planted in Odense in 2005 as part of the bicentennial celebrations of Hans Christian Andersen’s birth.
Odense town planners seem to have liked Ugly Duckling author’s design so much they decorated half the town in the design. This smaller version is a nature playground to the north of the larger forest face.
6. We’ve found Jesus! He was hiding in the Peruvian sand dunes the whole time.
7. This uncanny image of a sniffing, capped chef is found on the corner of the island of Sicily, home to some of the world’s finest cooking.
8. Not the most obvious of Google’s findings but atop these rocks on a tiny island off the West Coast of Ireland, it looks as if there’s a face with a pronounced Romanesque nose looking out to sea. It never ceases to amaze what the mind's eye can see with very little persuasion.
9. Often referred to as one of the most influential women in the world, chat show host Oprah Winfrey certainly knows how to draw an audience. No wonder she’s also the richest women on TV. *Must get snipping.
10. A cheeky little imp in a field in Germany looks as if it was created by crop circle artists who got bored trying to do the real thing. Just to the side of the face are a number of tiny failed crop circles.
11. Not the clearest of images, as the original design is becoming overgrown, but the outline of a burst pumpkin is still visible. It looks as if it would have required a serious amount of planning and effort to pull it off.
12. Scary but true. As if the fast food giants don't bombard us with enough advertising, they've decided to conquer clients from via Google, too. In 2006, KFC took The Colonel to the Nevada desert in the hope of making the first visible logo from space.
It was revealed, not long after the stunt, to be a PR exercise in viral marketing. Needless to say, it worked.
Bodies and Body Parts
13. We're not sure what the lake is called but the image is amazing. It looks just like a man with top hat and cane taking a walk across the countryside, quite literally.
14. A lake in Borborema, Brazil was designed in the shape of a man but we doubt whether the idea was to be seen from space as the regrowth within the lake looks quite old. Still, great idea.
15. Created as part of her Media Arts degree, student Melanie Coles created huge paintings of children’s book character Waldo, or Wally as he’s known outside America, to be placed on various rooftops in Vancouver, Canada, so everyone can play the Where’s Waldo game.
Surely, Melanie must have gained a first for her efforts because the images of her ‘Where on Earth Is Waldo?’ project are dotted all over the internet.
16. Another swanky house with inbuilt smiling face, this time with a body. It looks entirely intentional.
17. Casper the friendly ghost trying to make friends and influence people via Google Earth.
18. Likened to the face of Mother Earth, these kilometre-wide pair of Angelina Jolie-style lips can be found in the Sudanese region of West Darfur. The sides of the rocky canyon are about 40 meters high giving it the pout look.
19. Calm down boys! Yes, it’s real, and not only can you touch it, if you book a trip to Sicily (which seems to have a few strange sights for a little island) you can walk and lie all over this babe, too. That should keep some people happy. They’d be desperate, but happy.
20. This fabulous peacock shape was created by the wake of a speed boat, and captured forever on Google Earth.
21. A monkey is on the loose somewhere in Mexico. The design resembles ancient Mesoamerican art, giving a clue to its age, though we're not entirely sure. UPDATE: Okay, okay, the monkey's in Peru. Take a chill pill guys.
Symbols and Shapes
22. Finally, proof that giants did exist, and that they’re none too clever by leaving fingerprints behind. This tell-tale sign can be found in Hove Park, near Brighton and Hove in the UK. It measures 38 metres around. Imagine the size of the hand!
23. Don’t worry ladies; we’ve got something for you too. And although you can touch it and walk all over these half-mile long hill-top sperm, they’re not much use. Much like… no, that would be wrong.
24. You wouldn’t normally find New Zealand’s national symbol in the English countryside but in 1919, after World War I, New Zealand soldiers staying at camp in Beacon Hill in Wiltshire etched the bird into the grounds. A riot had broken out among the troops while they were waiting for their boats home so officers put them to work creating a giant kiwi along with the letters ‘NZ’ to keep the rowdy bunch out of trouble. The kiwi’s body is 6,100 sq m and the beak alone is 46 m long. That’s a big bird.
25. In the early days of Firefox, a few devoted fans wanted to generate more PR for their beloved site and so gathered a team of people in Amity, Oregon to recreate the Firefox logo in a field; their very own crop fox. It has long since grown out but this overlaid image is a recreation of the original design within Google Earth.
26. This swastika-shaped building on a US Navy base in California was never designed to entice as much speculation as it has. Some people think the architect designed the building purely to maximize light in the space given as well as to allow for greenspaces around the site. Others think the building should be amended so that it no longer looks like a symbol associated with so much bad history.
27. This celestial-looking triangle was spotted in the desert north of Vegas. We're not sure what it is or why it was created, so if anyone has any clues, please enlighten us.
28. The effects of logging are all too visible when viewed from Google Earth, but, here, some of the loggers seem to have a conscience as well as an aesthetic eye, producing a chessboard-like landscape.
29. The farmer of this land has obviously gone all creative on his days off producing a great image of a tractor in one of the fields.
30. Few people will have not seen this image of one many sea-based hotels built in Dubai. The Palm Jumeirah is a unique man-made island built in the shape of a date palm tree. It consists of a trunk, 17 fronds and a surrounding crescent island, which forms a water-breaker. And don't get us started on the damage caused to the environment during the build, and since.


hugo (not verified) says:
Hey...you erased my comment about how the monkey is in Peru (Nazca Lines) and not in Mexico...sneaky.

Alberto (not verified) says:
what !!!! --->A monkey is on the loose somewhere in Mexico. The design resembles ancient Mesoamerican art, giving a clue to its age, though we’re not entirely sure.<----
this is a false , beacuse , this lines , (the monkey ) is in Peru - Lineas de Nazca

manuel (not verified) says:
A monkey is on the loose somewhere in Mexico. The design resembles ancient Mesoamerican art, giving a clue to its age, though we’re not entirely sure.
LOL
NAZCAAAAA!!!!!

Yas (not verified) says:
La figura del mono es parte de una serie de dibujos llamados "Las líneas de Nazca" echo por pre-incas en PERU.

David (not verified) says:
The monkey is from the Nazca Lines in Peru.
Not a great valid source of mine but gives a roundabout picture.

Marko (not verified) says:
The image in the 6th picture, the triangle with the concentric lines is found in Nevada, US and represents an aerial view of a target for bomber planes practice. There are some 4-5 others simillar to it, in a radius of some 100 km.

x.tammie.x (not verified) says:
okay...that was slightly wierd and fake , well , some of it actually was.

Charles (not verified) says:
The one of the palm is an entire almost suburb, not just a hotel.

Tips Photo (not verified) says:
This is cool and not something I would usually use Google Earth for.

David Rivers (not verified) says:
Would have been nice if you actually linked to the relevant shots on Google Maps.


Gabriel (not verified) says:
I see an elephants head in number 8, in the dark black mass, saw it, before the face.

Gabriel (not verified) says:
I saw the elephants head in, number 8 West Coast of Ireland pic.

simone lamok (not verified) says:
ying yang in chinese landscape
http://lamok.punt.nl/index.php?r=1&id=411441


Moon (not verified) says:
The Palm is EPIC! It's three miles long and 3 1/3 miles wide. I can only imagine what relocating all that sand has done to the environment.


Felipe (not verified) says:
Fools, the NAZCA monkey form its the oldest and antique.
Perhaps its the well worked ovr the others,Nazca culture did the best job over the ground for be seen in the air.
As a peruvian im not clapping, juts consider the less resources they had and culture age, miles and miles of years. Pionners!!!!!
some students think thta was Alien intelligence cooperation as signalpad for any ship.
If you investigate and check the lines. you can see have strange animal forms and strange human forms, like aliens and its pets.

ixboat (not verified) says:
Number 6, the triangle with concentric circles in it, is a bombing range target in the Nevada desert. If you zoom into the scene down to about 1000 feet altitude or less, you can clearly see the bomb craters.
triangle 3990 feet per face
circle 1 radius 1000 feet
circle 2 radius 800 feet
circle 3 radius 600 feet
circle 4 radius 400 feet
circle 5 radius 200 feet

Max (not verified) says:
I actually heard that the water break in the dubai palms has actually created new organism because it is all rocks

Kiel (not verified) says:
The first picture of the Man in hat with cane looks just like the Blythefield Reservoir in Staffordshire, England. I have driven over that bridge many a time!

Mr. Squidward (not verified) says:
after all these years we have FINALLY found Waldo!

Tim (not verified) says:
The checker-board "forest" is more than likely a private tree plantation.


Josh (not verified) says:
I'm not sure what that triangle is but it's curious that it is exact north.Interestingly enough there is another tringle at 33 44 39 80 N 112 37 57 14 W just NW of Surprise Arizona and is the same size measured with my googleearth ruler.

Gary (not verified) says:
Picture 6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonopah_Test_Range

Pippitypup (not verified) says:
The smiley face at Versailles is clearly seen in the 17th C maps of the place. Unfortunately the old menagerie is no longer there; it had a rather "masculine" look.


Alan (not verified) says:
Very cool; would have been even more cool if the pictures linked to the location on google maps (satellite), or at least listed the global coordinates so we could look at them ourselves.

Tim W (not verified) says:
You missed a very old and famous one from England -- The Cerne Abbas Giant,,,, One for the ladies I think,,,,,

Carolita (not verified) says:
Several of these images are corn mazes -- Arizona Oprah, the Exploding Pumpkin, and the Choo Choo Train, for sure. Corn mazes are a form of agri-tourism wherein a farmer generates revenue by planting a special kind of corn on from one to ten acres of farmland. Mazes are usually planted off-season, so they will be lush and green in the late fall and stand through winter, but are barely recognizable in the summer. They are carefully diagrammed and planted on a grid to make the picture/maze (rather than being cut to shape after they are grown) and the image is usually changed each year. You can find out more -- and see lots of aerial photos -- at http://www.cornmazesamerica.com/
BTW, they are very successful businesses, too. I know a farmer who makes in excess of $75,000 per year just from tourists visiting his maze, which is only open during the month of October.

c (not verified) says:
in pic 3 there are 2 heads, and in the forehead of the main head with the ipod headphones is a devil like face too.

mark (not verified) says:
super cool.
fyi Google Earth was not a Google creation. It was called 'Keyhole' before Google bought it.
-M

RoDRigo (not verified) says:
Hey the monkey you say that's on Mexico, actually is in Peru, its call nasca or something like that, they where made by the incas, for their gods

NTSE Sample papers (not verified) says:
The figures are amazing and the face of native american is really excellent.

rajab (not verified) says:
On close inspection, Google Earthimagery shows fascinating features, and this site offers a great service to the casual surfer. However, it would be of greater benefit to augemnt the description of each image with citing coordinates of the feature described (especially when small) or, better yet, a kmz file. Some of the smaller features in this page could not be located, and when features shown are not easily found by some viewers they would think the site is publishing phtoshopped images!
paula blankenship says:
I thought this article was well thought out and executed.
paula blankenship says:
I thought it was great. A little long but interesting.




Gary W (not verified) says:
The man in a top hat taking a stroll across the countryside must be Mr. Peanut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Peanut