SLIDESHOW: The strangest sights in Google Earth

Mapping software Google Earth turns the planet into a massive scavenger hunt for weird, wacky, and the unexplained. Here are a few of the things that keep us scratching our heads.

Since Google Earth debuted in 2005, the satellite images accessible through the mapping software have gotten sharper. Sometimes you can be caught off guard by stunningly crisp images of random things. Here is an image of a park in Sebastopol, California, where people are lounging on the grass and others are lining up for lunch (38°24'40.50"N, 122°50'25.42"W) (see it on Google Maps; to see this image on the resulting map, move the slider bar all the way to the highest magnification, next to the + label). What gives? According to unconfirmed reports, this is a meeting of Foo Camp, an annual hacker conference sponsored by O'Reilly Media. Another seemingly random high-resolution image captures a lonely Land Rover driving through a Moroccan desert (27°56'25.44"N, 12°17'28.15"W). Other spectacular high-resolution images, like these pyramids located outside of Cairo, Egypt (29°58'44.64"N, 31° 7'54.60"E) (See it on Google Maps), don't leave you wondering, "What's the story behind this image?"

15 of 17
VIEW ALL THUMBNAILS

Best Deals on PCWorld

TabletsView all »
NotebooksView all »
Mobile PhonesView all »
Printers & ScannersView all »
Networking, Wireless & VoIPView all »

rhs_login_lockSign up to PC World Today for the latest news, reviews and galleries from PC World Australia.