« House in the Clouds
Strategically Positioned Crop Circles »

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.

The editors: James & Alex

Another Whale! Or is it a Rock?

Friday, 3rd August 2007 by Alex

I’m going with Whale. No wait, rock! What do you think?

See our previous whale posts for more dubious whale sightings!

Thanks: Joshk.

Rate This Sight! 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars
(21 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
Locations: California / Categories:

12 Responses to 'Another Whale! Or is it a Rock?'

  1. 1. Thomas says: August 4th, 2007 at 12:24 am

    I go for rock. Its longer than 100ft. If it is a sperm whale (the largets whale) it “only” reaches up to 18 m (60 ft). The fin whale (longest whale) up to 24 metres (79 ft).
    Fin whales exist in California it appears.
    So it looks more like “ground” to me.

    References:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_whale

  2. 2. Donovan says: August 4th, 2007 at 5:40 am

    I’m definitly voting rock on this one.

  3. 3. /mel/ says: August 4th, 2007 at 6:11 am

    You can see it at http://www.live.com where the image source is obviously different, so it’s a fixed feature.

  4. 4. Mrb says: August 4th, 2007 at 7:11 am

    Rock

  5. 5. Phillip says: August 4th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    Yeah, definitely a rock. Relatively ancient terraserver imagery shows the same thing.
    http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=10&X=2801&Y=20538&W=3
    It’s probably the most whale-shaped rock I’ve ever seen though.

  6. 6. Phillip says: August 4th, 2007 at 7:57 am

    Okay, I got bored and tried my luck looking for more potential whale candidates off the coast of Oregon where humpbacks have been spotted. Can anyone tell me what this is?
    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
    It reminds me of a torpedo wake, but I can’t think of anything that would leave such a long wake that would stay that narrow. So it’s not a wake, and it’s not a whale… Two down…

  7. 7. /mel/ says: August 4th, 2007 at 11:03 am

    And not far from the torpedo trail…. a seaplane at a brown splodge: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  8. 8. Mrb says: August 4th, 2007 at 11:14 am

    The brown blobette is ghosting isn’t it as per the recent Trail in the Dessert

  9. 9. Jack says: August 4th, 2007 at 11:15 am

    Have a look at this topographic map - it marks the ‘whale’ as a rock.

  10. 10. Patrick says: August 6th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

    I think that “torpedo trail” is just a part of the surface feature of the waves…if you scroll south you can see a large rock with tiny trials streaming off of it to the south that look very similar to the trail.

  11. 11. nova72 says: August 6th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    clearly a rock. the weird straight line thing appears to be something on the sea bed. maybe a pipe or something?

  12. 12. coexist says: August 6th, 2007 at 4:57 pm

    Another option: shipwreck?

Leave a Reply

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!