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Mindaugas Balčiauskas

61 ‘Google Maps Shenanigans’ That Caught People Completely Off Guard (New Pics)

Google Maps Google Im (Person) SC (Geopolitical Entity) United States

Google Maps has been around since 2005 and since then, the platform has expanded to the point where it offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, even real-time traffic conditions and route planning.

However, as a byproduct of all these cameras constantly documenting the world, we also get countless weird, awkward, and hilarious moments preserved online forever. The subreddit ‘Google Maps Shenanigans’ is full of screenshots capturing exactly that, from strange street encounters to perfectly timed coincidences, funny technological glitches, and much, much more.

#1 Google Maps Approved My Photo For The Vet

#2 University Of Edinburgh

#3 This Route Is Only Legally Possible Like This

Dense_Govt1506:

This is not even possibile because Moroccan-Algerian border is closed since 1984. You have o cross the Gibraltar Strait and get a ship back to Algeria.

#4 Found A Plane Flying Over Cape Town Airport

awtizme:

Wow it's literally a 3D object lol
Altitude is 1.09km

No idea what the thing attached underneath is

#5 I'm Glad Google Is Taking Cow Privacy Seriously

#6 Maps Suggested I Rent A Scooter To Cross A River (There's No Bridge)

Jesus Christ on an electric scooter.

#7 The English Tradition Of Showing Two Fingers

Note the beverage and attire. Sunderland, North East England.

#8 Saw This While I Was Just Looking At My Area On Google Earth

wiseguy4519:

This is probably a seam between two different data sources for elevation.

#9 Deformed Horse Glitch

Uh-oh, looks like a new breed of horse! This was in State Of Bahia, Brazil.

#10 Found An Accident In Japan And Also Completed An Investigation

#11 Someone’s Dog Chasing The Street View Car

#12 Why?

#13 Weird City In The Middle Of The Desert

asunyra1:

I’ve helped build that city and take it back down again about a dozen times over the last 25 years : )
It’s “Black Rock City”, aka Burning Man

#14 Rip The Invisible Stone (Hannover, Germany)

At a gas station driveway in Groß-Buchholz (Hannover, Germany) there once was an unassuming stone that was invisible to any motorist coming along … the little rock turned out to be one of the best-rated sites in Hannover, with 167 Google reviews averaging 4.9 stars, most of which are absolutely savage (search for Der unsichtbare Stein). Unfortunately, his outstanding camouflage abilities lead to him being removed by the city - as can be seen from a recent Google Maps picture - but his memory lives on.

#15 Half Of Brest Is Censored Out

NSFW

#16 Paratroopers During An Exercise

Spotted in Argentina.

#17 Looky The Little Adorable Lambs!

Now get away from the street. Drivers do not care about the lives of others.
[52°32'04.4"N 3°42'06.7"W]

#18 Abandoned Real-Estate Development In Dubai; The Streets Are Covered In Sand

#19 Can Anyone Tell Me What Is This Or What Is Happening Here?

TIMPA9678:

It's an artificial pond used for weapons testing. They put boats in and shoot them as well as testing underwater explosives.

#20 This Is Slightly Pissing Me Off

#21 Street View Facial Recognition Blurs Out The King Of NY Biggie Memorial In Brooklyn

#22 Dentist Appointment

DowntownClassic1738:

Looks more like the piercing, there’s no tattoo machine seen, no barrier covers, the package from steriliser laying on the table - not the tattoo setup definitely.

#23 16 Years Ago, £1 For A Pizza And £8 For A Family Meal. Crazy Times

#24 Airplane Rat King

Surely all these planes can’t be stored like this? Can anyone explain what I’m seeing? I assume this is multiple pictures overlaid.

#25 Same Guy, Same Place, Same Jacket, But 3 Years Appart

This guy waited 3 years at the same spot for the streetview car to come back.

#26 A Floating Head At The Georgia Guide Stones

#27 Shout Out To The Google Streetview Guy In 2016 Who Did His Job At Night

#28 Elon Musk Naming A Street At The Spacex Facility In Texas "Memes Street"

25°59'30.1"N 97°11'00.0"W

#29 Weird Flying Skull And Monk?

So I found this by wanting to see how much snow was in Alaska weirdly enough. My husband was considering taking a job there so I checked Google Maps. How did I end up looking at this specific point? I remembered the old story I was told in grade school about the person naming Iceland and Greenland the opposite of each other and pulled the map over there. Then I saw weird strand like images and zoomed in to try to figure out what they were. I believe they are ice but this little dot was the closest point to the ice strand things. Any thoughts on if this is a real... statue? It is so strange and to me looks edited in. If it is edited in, how do they end up doing it? This is my first post so sorry if the editing question has been answered before in a different post. Thank you!

magicmike87:

This is a user upload opposed to a street view image. This person has contributed a few hundred times and often contains wacky pixel art.

#30 I Was Browsing On Google Maps And Saw A Completely Censored Area. I Think It Might Be Someone’s House, But I’ve Never Seen Anyone Have Their Private Property Censored Before

While browsing Google Maps, I found a symmetrically censored area. There isn’t even the smallest settlement around it, and the surroundings are completely rocky with no structure that looks like a pier. Do you think it’s an error, or could it be a military area? Link

Opposite_Bus1878:

It's basically just some rock outcrop.

#31 What Does This Node Represent?

I saw this when looking at JFK airport and it looks common around different parts of airports. I'm sure its obvious but any info would be interesting.

Longjumping_Gap_9325:

Ticketed Turnstiles from what I can tell? This is at SFO in the BART area.
That or paper shredder locations to take care of any paperwork before security or Customs & Border?

#32 Streetview Car Drives Up Driveways?

42.504387721572456, -83.45006802754308.

Organic_Award5534:

The driver is told to drive all roads in the prescribed area, but there are a few reasons driveways or private roads could be captured:

Some of the roads in the area might be very narrow and the driver mistook the driveways for narrow roads.

The driver is very new to the job and want to do the job thoroughly - Google marks many driveways and road on maps and this may have thrown off the driver.

These small roads might actually be classed public roads, despite looking like driveways. Can happen in rural areas where people have long driveways.

Another reason is that the driver was told to be more thorough this time as the area is lacking in street view coverage. Sometimes local areas ask Google to be more thorough because they benefit from Streetview in some way.

#33 Breaking The Law Is A Serious Crime In Oyo State, Nigeria

Found this message from the government of Oyo State in Eruwa (7°32'20.5"N 3°25'28.7"E)

#34 The"Volvo Island" Now Has A Second Volvo

#35 Two Women In Japan Waving At Google Earth Car!

#36 Circleville

#37 Home Extension

#38 Baldwin Street, New Zealand. The Steepest Street In The World. You Bet I Would've Sent It Down Here On My Bike When I Was Younger

#39 There’s A Few Streets Around Eccles, Manchester, UK Where The Street View Camera Is Of Inside The Car Rather Than The Street

Link

#40 Weird Part Of France Where Everything Is Purple

n108bg:

Looks like le infrared camera?

Anon:

Yep, the part of the camera that filters out infrared is broken or missing. Fun fact: every digital camera can capture infrared light, it just gets filtered out.

#41 This Tunnel Progressively Turns Pink

#42 How Are Kids Supposed To Play On This Installation?

astrocrat:

"Sit in the short tube" was my favorite game as a child.

#43 I Found A Lightning Mcqueen In Belgium

This is actually a Mazda MX5 Miata from 2016 and up.

#44 Uhhh (Saint-Aubin, France)

#45 For Anyone Wondering Why America Drives So Many Cars, This Is Why

I spent 7 years living in Germany and traveled much of Europe. It opened my eyes to how efficient and convenient public transportation is when networked across a whole continent. I grew up in rural Georgia (US) and never gave public transit a second thought. Now that I'm back, America feels really behind.

#46 What Is This Weird Jet On Cvn 77 In Google Maps. It Was At Naval Station Norfolk

It looks like a mini b1 lancer because of its (probably) swept wings.

cyanide_sunrise2002:

Looks like a hornet. Perhaps an image artifact making the wings look weird.

#47 Aye Aye, Cap’n! I’ll Just Take A Curved Detour Through A Bunch Of Buildings Then

#48 There's A Permanently Parked Plane In Costa Rica That Has Pics All Around It

#49 Found This Structure With A Moat Around It In Cottageville, SC. Can’t Find Any Info On It

junipertwist:

It's a house, 12146 Round O Rd, Round O, SC 29474

#50 A Giant Cruise Liner Emerged In The Tilted 45° View

While exploring Helsinki on Google Maps, I came across something interesting in the 45° tilted view, something that wasn’t visible at all in the standard 2D imagery.
In the regular map tiles, nothing noteworthy. But switch to the 45° view (pseudo 3D), and suddenly, a massive cruise ship appears docked at the harbor. After a bit of searching, I found out it might be the Carnival Splendor.
You can still see it here on the map (as of now): https://h2h.run/CTILW9WAC/IO6/ (60.152992°, 24.914309°)
What’s especially disappointing is that Google Maps’ 45° view API is scheduled to be discontinued soon, something I only found out yesterday.
While the high-res 3D tiles have their strengths, they often suffer from severe distortion at close range. In contrast, the 45° imagery offers a more photorealistic and grounded view, and occasionally captures interesting scenes, like this cruise ship.

#51 Ah Yes, The Good 'Ol Days When Maps Would Tell You To Swim 3,000 Miles Across An Ocean

#52 Why Are These Businesses On The Moon?

#53 Quick Detour Through The Hotel Lobby?

#54 Random Field In Ohio Labeled "Kjbkn", Complete With A Designated Entrance

#55 The Elusive 6x2 Camaro

42.278477° -88.150577°

#56 Ryan Dunn's Skid Marks From His Crash :(

#57 This Sports Bar Used To Be A Hollywood Video Store. They Reused Parts Of The Original Sign

#58 Excellent Suggestion Google Maps 👏

#59 Thanks Google, I Like Doing Completely Useless Loops For No Reason At All

I've seen Google give some pretty whack directions before, but this one makes absolutely no sense to me.
When travelling from the top left to the bottom right, if transportation mode is set to biking or walking, this is the directions it give for either of the 2.
Instead of just simply crossing the bridge, which has a shared pathway from biking and walking, it's suggesting I get off the road, take a trailway down the hill, then cross under the bridge, then come back up the hill on the other side of the road, then onto the shared pathway on the left side of the road, and then cross the bridge over the river.
No, let's not use the crosswalk to get to the left side of the road and then just simply cross the bridge on the shared pathway on the left side of the bridge. That would be too difficult.
Also, on a bike, I'm not even obligated to use the shared pathway, I could also just stay on the right side of the road and cross the bridge on the road with the cars. But even if it wants me to stay on the shared pathway, there's still absolutely no reason for this loop de loop down and under the bridge and back up 🤣

#60 It Looks Like Google Maps Has Already Started Documenting The Demolition Of The East Wing Of The White House

#61 Blued Out Cars?

BeachProducer:

Those are plastic wrapped boats for long term storage. The business is Boulder Marine Center & many ship yards use basically a shrink wrap for storage protection.

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