DescentBB

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/05/18/ufo-update/

this is really interesting. there is a strange and rather obvious outof focus "sphere" shape that has shown up on a significant number of googlemaps pictures - see it for yourself. ppl are hypothisising on what it could possibly be.

at first glance, it looks like a UFO

personally i'm leaning towards the "something on the lense" hypothesis.

this one though has me confused - because it's not a full circle.

Probably clipped by the stiching software.

Hoax? Google has proved time and again that they like to have a little fun every now and then.

nah just a weather balloon

It looks like a drop of water with the sun's reflection has gotten stuck on the camera lens.

Since the anomalies line up into a grid, I'd vote that Grendel's correct that it's just a stitching glitch (glitching stitch? ).

ITS A NUKE DETONATING!!!

Roid. Yeah. They ARE out to get you!

Quick! Hide!

Think Roidy's been watching too many "War of the Worlds" trailers.

Hoax. Looks like a photoshop job to me. A bad one at that...

First thing I thought was that it was a water droplet of some sort. Then I thought it'd be rather annoying if you were trying to find your house and one of those was blocking it

Firefox keeps trying to save this page to file every time I try to view this thread. Must be part of the government coverup.

mobi, deadmeat, i don't think it's a UFO, i think it's something on the lense (eg: a water droplet) as i said in the OP.

tyranny you can see the original images yourself on googlemaps - try the links yourself. it's no "after the fact" photoshop unless googlemaps did it themselves.

roid wrote:tyranny you can see the original images yourself on googlemaps - try the links yourself. it's no "after the fact" photoshop unless googlemaps did it themselves.

Jon the Great wrote:Hoax? Google has proved time and again that they like to have a little fun every now and then.

I tend to agree with Jon on this one. Not because of his claim that google is prone to pulling stunts such as these, but based on what I see with my own eyes. I mean, it seriously looks like a circle filled in with blue thats been slightly embossed. Has a white stroke or glow and has been abused with a gaussian blur.

It's just an opinion though. Nice avatar btw...

oh, do you know where my avatar is from? i don't know and i'd like to find out.

yeah.. google employees have the time to go into a massive database of satellite photos and put some goofy thing in...

It doesn't look like anyone was trying to create a UFO-lookin' thing. If they did, they certainly wouldn't make them on a regular grid like that.

Most of these photos are aerial. A plane flies over, the camera takes a shot every few seconds, and they develop gazillions of rolls of film, scan them, and line up all the edges with nifty software. If there happens to be some crap on the lens, they're going to get a dot of crap on each picture the plane took on that particular flight. When a plane does this sort of photography, it usually flies back and forth in straight parallel lines, which would give a nice regular pattern like the one seen there.

EDIT: see this post for more detail.