Last week, disturbing messages saying 'HELP' spelled out on the ground in Los Angeles sparked fears among Google Earth users. But it's far from the first alarming and intriguing mystery unearthed by Google's satellites and camera-toting cars. Google's camera-toting cars have taken more than 220 billion images while driving 100 million miles since 'Street View' launched in 2007, while Google Maps and Google Earth have evolved over 21 years to offer hi-res imagery of areas, including images shot from aircraft.

Images on Google Maps and Google Street View have helped to solve missing persons cases and even murders - and a growing number of fans use the apps to find strange and disturbing cases around the world. Visuals captured by Google's big brother system have also sparked investigations into alien markings. We list the most shocking below:. The image was captured by the first Street View car to visit the town of Tajueco in 15 years (Street View).

In December 2024, a disturbing Google Street View image helped to unravel a murder case in Northern Spain. The image, captured by the first Street View car to visit the town of Tajueco in 15 years, showed a man loading a large white plastic bag into the trunk of a car. Police said that another image showed a blurry silhouette of someone transporting a white bundle in a wheelbarrow. Police said the images were 'not decisive', but police found severely decomposed remains in a nearby cemetery of a man who disappeared in October.

Two people were arrested over the disappearance. Google Earth helped solve the mystery of a man who disappeared in 1997 more than two decades later. The car had been visible on satellite imagery since 2007, but went unnoticed for 12 years (Google Earth). William Moldt had left a nightclub in Lantana Florida in 1997, and was never seen again. But the missing persons case went unsolved until a local resident spotted a submerged car in a pond using Google Earth.

The car had been visible on satellite imagery since 2007, but went unnoticed for 12 years. When police investigated the car, they found Moldt's skeletal remains inside. Strange patterns were spotted in China's Gobi Desert in 2011, sparking a frenzy of speculation that they could be a message from, or to, aliens. What made the strange patterns in the Chinese desert? (Google Earth). Some Google users suggested the patterns were street maps of major American cities.

But analysis by Jonathan Hill of the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona University found that the weird patterns were most likely used to 'calibrate' spy satellites. The half-mile-wide grid is probably painted on the ground, Hill says, and is used by satellite cameras to orient themselves in space. A mysterious 'floating island' in South America sparked was first seen in 2018. A KickStarter campaign was then started to raise money to find out what the strange feature on Google Earth was.

UFO fans thought that the circular 'lid' might conceal a base from which alien spacecraft would enter and exit. The KickStarter never reached its goal, and more level-headed observers suggested that 'El Ojo' was in fact a naturally rounded piece of vegetation. Engineer Richard Petroni said in 2018: 'We have discovered a mysterious island near the Parana river, which, intriguingly, moves and rotates on its own axis.

'Besides, it features a neat circular structure bordered by another perfectly circular streak of water.'. 'It's something real and accounts for several supernatural stories bearing connections to UFOs and other paranormal aspects.'. The KickStarter never reached its goal, and more level-headed observers suggested that 'El Ojo' was in fact a naturally rounded piece of vegetation. German daily Der Spiegel published a truly mystifying image shortly after the launch of Google Street View in the country in 2010.

German daily Der Spiegel published a truly mystifying image shortly after the launch of Google Street View in the country in 2010. The image, captured in Mannheim, showed what appeared to be a naked man either getting into, or out of, the trunk of a car. To add to the mystery, a sleeping or possibly deceased dog laid in the foreground. After Der Spiegel published the image it rapidly disappeared from Google Street View.

The identity of the man and what was happening remain a mystery. A strange equilateral triangle seen near the city of Surprise in Arizona prompted some to speculate about extraterrestrial involvement. A strange equilateral triangle seen near the city of Surprise in Arizona prompted some to speculate about extraterrestrial involvement. But the mysterious shape actually has a much more earthbound explanation.