Google Maps is a prodigious application that has allowed us to plan trips and routes, but also to discover the world and learn geography. But it is also an inexhaustible source of curious details. That's what we're talking about in this post: those weird things you find on Google Maps.
A good part of the strange, striking or simply incredible things that Google Maps hides we owe to Street View, the function that allows us to "enter" the maps and go through the streets and places that have already been visited before by the Google car and its photographers. Let's see some examples:
Fake street names
A Google Maps mistake? Well, the application is not infallible, but that is not the explanation so that in its maps we find some fake street names, intentionally written like that. One of the weird things about Google Maps that leave us confused.
There's a reason this is so: fake street names are "traps" placed by Google to discover the apps that are dedicated to copying your maps. The most famous example is a street in the UK that was long known by the name Doctor Who on Maps, but whose real name was Close Street.
Obviously, Google does not make these false street names public, since revealing them would mean that they lose all their raison d'être. But they certainly exist.
Hidden locations
While it is true that Google Maps opens a window to the world, it is also true that it hides some secrets from us. There are many areas that are not shown openly and, at best, appear pixelated without explanation.
There are some islands in the world inhabited by ethnic groups that hardly maintain contact with civilization. Pixelating the part of the map where they appear is Google's way of protecting them from prying eyes. It is the case of San Blas Archipelago, in Panama, home of the tribe of To use, or the Northern Sentinel Islands, in the Indian Ocean.
It is not so clear why the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea, are hidden in the app. The fact that this is an archipelago over which seven different countries have a dispute, including China, may have something to do with it.
More or less secret military bases that appear discreetly hidden by Google Maps. This makes more sense. There are large areas of the map that Google does not allow snooping. However, it is more striking that, for example, the Area 51, in Nevada, a restricted zone of more than 1,2 million hectares, or the facilities of the HAARP in Alaska. Fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
Pegman transformations
Almost everyone knows it: Pegman is the name of the doll that is in the lower right corner of the screen and that we can drag to the map to obtain the vision of Google Street View.
What many don't know is that Mr. Pegman is a master of disguise. For example, when we set it over Buckingham Palace in London, she transforms into a queen; in Florida and Hawaii, she takes on the appearance of a mermaid; if we go to Loch Ness, she turns into the mysterious water monster; and if we take it to the aforementioned Area 51, she shows up as a flying saucer.
The surprises of Street View images
Google cars circulate tirelessly taking images of our streets and highways. Inevitably, on some occasions they capture amazing images, some of them funny, others inexplicable and some that are almost terrifying. All real.
Inside the catalog of visual "jewels" that one can find browsing in Google Street View there is everything: scenes of traffic accidents, street fights, people who relieve themselves in the middle of the street, couples having sex in the most varied positions, people committing crimes and scenes impossible to understand or understand. to interpret… A precious mosaic of the human condition.