Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
It’s a little difficult to describe this thing which has been plopped into the middle of Bodensee (Lake Constance), Germany, as anything but a gigantic water pancake.
Has a meteorite crashed into the lake? Or has someone been crying over the images again? Over to you guys! 
Thanks to T. Maschler.
This form will auto-link URLs or you can use simple HTML, <a href="http://googlesightseeing.com">Like this</a>.
Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.
If you've found an unrelated sight that you think should be posted in its own entry then use the suggestion form!
The secret underwater lair of an evil genius bent on world domination perhaps?
Underwater ketchup farming outgassing point.
Maybe its a crashed UFB (unidentified fly breakfast)?
Yep: You guys have allowed me to waste quite some productive time. Thanks!
Don’t know if I misunderstood you but the lake actually is called Bodensee…Konstanz is the city south of this sight. (Stadt=city)
Oops, thanks Monasterium! Post updated.
The shadows on this “pancake” don’t match those of watercraft in the area - wrong place and much darker. Also, if the pancake is raised above the water, then the feature on the left side are depressions. Anyhow, it’s 150 meters wide according to Google Earth measurement.
Perhaps it’s a fire training area?
Those bumps look kind of like rocks/depressions just below the surface. If it was the case that it was an underwater “island” that would certainly affect current flow around it, so this could well be the case.
c’mere fishy fishy fishy….big fishy….
The correct answer to the question “what this thing is?” is: a giant amoeba!
This is the plug of the lake. They need that to drain the lake in case they want to clean it.
Short of looking for more aerial photos of this lake or trying to find out if there is a known gas source under the lake… here’s a guess or two…
The pancake is probably a depression judging from shadows cast off houses just off to the left, the sun is shining in from the bottom-right. (SE?)
My first thought was trapped gas released from the bottom of the lake, either kept down with water pressure usually or trapped in ‘earth’…
Then I looked at the boats closer and noticed there is a fast boat travelling down-left (SW?) and noticed a faint trail leading directly to the pancake. I also noticed whirlpool/eddy looking things… Is it possible that the boat just ran in circles for a while and created this effect?
Now I have to look into this…
After a profound investigation (ahem), I can’t come up with more than “artefact in the photo”. I don’t believe this thing is real.
PS: is the “has been has been plopped” in the post just there to add to the mystery?
Another notice about the lake’s name:
“Lake Constance” is actually the international name for Bodensee, as it is named only in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Compare this to the “Nord-Ostsee-Kanal”, which is internationally known as “Kiel Canal”, named after the town at its eastern end.
Philipp
I’m glad to see more Swiss (or, almost-Swiss in this case) posts. Continuing with the Bodensee vs. Lake Constance theme:
Did you know that Switzerland’s other famous lake, Lake Geneva (or, Genfersee in German), is also known by a different name locally than it is internationally? Locally it is called Lac Léman. That is, except in the region around Geneva itself, where I’m told that they do call it Lac de Genève, but I live in Lausanne where it is always Lac Léman.
So, I’ve been wondering: Is Bodensee known as Konstanzsee to the people who live in Konstanz? (yes, I know, I should spend my time worrying about slightly more important things, but this is just the way my brain works).
I’m inclined to say that this something that cropped up during scanning. Most liekly, it’s a droplet of water on the glass.
Regarding the Bodensee/Lake of Constance Issue: the lake is called “Bodensee” by the locals - even in Constance (Konstanz).
The lake is about 150m deep where the pancake is located. No boat can generate such a thing, and if it was there in reality, it would be damned scary for any boat around (including the car ferries)…
So: this is a digital thing, not a real one.
Regards from a guy that grew up at the Bodensee and frequently sails in that very area…
What would helicopter downdraft look like?
Like this:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
One thing is a little irritating to me: Are the images on Google Earth scanned by hand? I can not believe that !! This sounds so unbelieveably old-school to me … shouldnt be these pictures available in digital formats ?? I was also wondering about this giant bug some days ago …. strange thing.
The images in google earth aren’t scanned by hand, no.
No, not all images are scanned by hand, but the images over germany are not satellite images, but hand scanned airal photos.
This is really puzzling. I thought at first it looked like a giant bubble of some kind, but bubbles don’t have artifacts like that in them. And besides, what on Earth would make a bubble that massive?
If you turn your head to the left and look at it, it sort of looks like a face-on Klingon, but to be honest, that’s probably the wine I’m drinking talking…!
Can someone please take a boat out and take alook to clear this one up - thanks.
When you compare the shadow of the pancake with the ones of the houses you’ll see that the pancake actually is a hole in the ground of the lake. I mean it’s not raised, but depressed.
I’m pretty sure now that it is an ancient crater created by a meteorite.
it could be a small sandbar,etc, just under the water’s surface, so that, since it was made artifically, would have edges, and the sun would hit it ,producing shadows, making it look like it was on the water instead of under (You know, how you look at an optical illusion and it seems to flip pointing towards and away from you)
Only now do i realize i JUST read that the lake is 150 m deep in that area, so sorry…
Nah, I agree with Kevin, it’s a drop of water. It’s like the thrips, as brazi said.
I cannot download the file, Is there something wrong?
Old american bomb from WWII, recently found, and defusing was too dangerous. The german government decided to detonate it instead.
Some lakes artificially aerate the water to keep botulism-type bugs down - those tend to be rings about this size.
Most likely a spot of msoiture from developing the film. You see this sort of artifact all the time. If I see them I photoshop them out. South if this there are coloured rings - evidence of moisture in the scanner where the film and glass come in contact.
It has to be moisture from the development / scanning process. If you look a bit south of this “drop,” you’d see several scraggly lines that look just like lint or dog hair. Somebody has got to clean his or her scanner, or run a lint-roller on him/herself before working on this!
Im from Lake Constance, Bodensee or however you like to call it. The “pancake” you see on this picture is a underwater rock called “Teufels Tisch” (in German) and well in English it means something like “Devils Table”.