The Strange Side of Digital Maps
Google Maps is one of the most useful apps a person can use. From navigating one’s way between two points, to identifying the geography of a conflict’s landscape, the system is an incredible tool to have in your back pocket. Google Earth is even more powerful - with a greater level of tools and details available to people who know how to use them - and yet, it remains a free programme that only requires a ten-minute download.
In some ways, it’s a little too powerful - and its satellites have uncovered some downright odd things before. Coordinates for all of the sites can be copy/pasted into Google Maps or Google Earth if you’re curious to see them yourself!
Jordan’s Wheels (Coordinates: 31.029° N, 37.641° E)
Located on the Saudi-Jordanian border, observers on the ground have described these wheel-and-spoke structures (of which there number as many as one thousand) as looking no different from a pile of stones - so much so, that they weren’t considered anomalous until pilots in the 1920s remarked that they look like wheels from the air. Bedouin tribes have referred to them simply as “the works of old men”, indicating a lack of knowledge by both locals and foreign archaeologists. What has been determined is that some - but not all - of the wheels seem to be aligned with the sun, particularly on the summer and winter solstices, signifying a possible calendar system akin to that of Stonehenge. Much like Stonehenge, however, the Wheels’ exact purpose is likely to remain shrouded in mystery for quite some time.
Nagoro, Japan (Coordinates: 33.8444° N, 134.1559° E)
Nagoro isn’t that different from any other town. Google Street View doesn’t show anything odd - the buildings, streets, and signs are all real. You can see people performing the same tasks you’d see anywhere else in rural Japan: riding bikes, doing farm work, and sitting in classrooms. The only issue is that none of them are real - the Scarecrow Village is famous for having ten times more mannequins than people. Even more unusual is that the mannequins are so realistic, Google Street View automatically blurs their faces out - meaning the people in the thumbnail for the this story on the Featured Articles page are fake. The scarecrows were initially created by an artist who wanted to memorialise the village’s past, now fading as the local population dwindles due to declining birth rates and young people heading to the cities for jobs. 37 people remain in Nagoro, an especially small figure when you realise the area receives over 5000 tourists annually.
The Outback Triangle (-30.0457° N, 115.3463° E)
Out in the Australian desert, about 3 hours’ drive north of Perth, is a triangle of trees that looks to be almost intentionally planted that way. The curious thing is, it doesn’t appear to have been - though that may be the most normal thing about this area. Rumors have spread that the area has caused problems for aircraft computers and occasionally has lights at each end of the shape. If this sounds awfully familiar to the Bermuda Triangle, that may be because the Outback Triangle is located almost perfectly on the other end of the Earth, and matches closely to the Southern Triangle constellation that looks exactly like it.
TAI Score: Degree 0. Of the three stories listed above, none of them cause any threat to international security, politics, or society - even minor. At most, they do however remind us that despite all of our technology and capabilities, there are still some mysteries we can’t solve - even if we observe them using machinery launched into orbit.
