April 2, 2009 @ 2:03 am by Khairul
5 interesting Google Earth finds
With the revoutionary Google Earth software, everyone can now see the entire earth as if he’s looking down from a satellite, all through a computer screen. Below are 5 interesting images that people have captured using Google Earth.

1. Firefox Logo. This Firefox crop circle sprouted up in a corn field in Oregon, but its origins are no mystery. In 2006, the Oregon State University Linux Users group created the giant logo — spanning more than 45,000 square feet — to celebrate the Web browser’s 50 millionth download.

2. Cruise Missile. Google Earth has plenty of examples of planes, helicopters, even hot air balloons, caught in flight, but this cruise missile, thought to be fired during military training exercises in the Utah USA mountains, might be the most unlikely capture yet. If it is, in fact, a cruise missile. Many dispute the image and say it’s merely an airplane. You be the judge, but if you look closely, the “missile” appears to have wings.

3. Blood River. This blood-red lake outside of Iraq’s Sadr City garnered a fair share of macabre speculation when it was discovered in 2007. One tipster told that he was “told by a friend” that slaughterhouses in Iraq sometimes dump blood in canals. No one has offered an official explanation, but it’s more likely the color comes from sewage, pollution or a water treatment process.

4. Music Guy. It looks disconcertingly like a face from above, but this formation in Alberta, Canada is entirely natural. Dubbed the Badlands Guardian, the “face” is actually a valley eroded into the clay. Some say the man looks like he’s wearing earphones; that’s merely a road and an oil well. Even the Badlands Guardian, it seems, isn’t immune to exploratory drilling.

5. Nazi Swastika. When builders of the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in San Diego planned this complex in 1967, satellite imagery was probably the furthest thing from their minds. But in 2007 Google Earth sleuths found that four unconnected buildings on the base formed an unfortunate shape when viewed from above: a swastika. The Navy says it’s spending more than $600,000 to mask the shape. “We don’t want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika,” a spokesman said.
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