Another Whale! Or is it a Rock?
I’m going with Whale. No wait, rock! What do you think?
See our previous whale posts for more dubious whale sightings!
Thanks: Joshk.
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.

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Friday, 3rd August 2007





I’m going with Whale. No wait, rock! What do you think?
See our previous whale posts for more dubious whale sightings!
Thanks: Joshk.
Countries: California
Posted in: Animals
Related Posts: Glastonbury, Desert Dome (Desert Week 2), Just when you thought it was safe…, Dairy Farming, Flocking
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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
I’m definitly voting rock on this one.
You can see it at http://www.live.com where the image source is obviously different, so it’s a fixed feature.
Rock
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.
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…
And not far from the torpedo trail…. a seaplane at a brown splodge: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
The brown blobette is ghosting isn’t it as per the recent Trail in the Dessert
Have a look at this topographic map – it marks the ‘whale’ as a rock.
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.
clearly a rock. the weird straight line thing appears to be something on the sea bed. maybe a pipe or something?
Another option: shipwreck?