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

Weird Waterways

Posted by Ian Brown, Tuesday, 24th February 2009

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars

Today we have a trio of mysterious water-based sightings. First up, these strange pools in Arizona.

With all the other weirdness in Arizona, these symbols could only be alien communications, right? The reality is that they were created by Forest Service employees. While they were indeed thinking of how they looked from the air (do I see a face with a Picasso influence?), the intent was to improve water collection in this mostly dry pond known as Duck Lake.

Secondly, in central New Brunswick we find this network of varying zigzag lines:

I cannot come up with any explanation for this one. Aliens again? Some kind of scientific research?

Lastly, a triangular network of ponds in Maryland:

Occult practices? Yet more aliens?

If you have explanations for the last two, do let us know. And of course if you know of weird waterways in your part of the world, we’d love to see them!

Thanks to Sean McCabe, Bully, Bob and Troy Stanley.

12 Responses to 'Weird Waterways'

  1. The second one looks like some sort of irrigation system, although the surrounding area doesn’t look much like farmland.

  2. john says:

    According to Wikimapia, the triangles were dug by a local farmer to clear the area for hunting, but he underestimated the water table and they became little ponds.

    http://wikimapia.org/7955423/Dorchester-Triangles

  3. Isaac says:

    That first image looks a lot more like Paul Klee than Picasso to me.

  4. Stephan says:

    Little ponds? Those triangles have sides of over 100m!

  5. Glenn says:

    Dug by a local farmer? Why so precise? I don’t buy it.

  6. Billbad says:

    The first one seems to be art or silliness. Maybe someone wanted some ponds and got creative. Any 14-year-old can operate a backhoe.

    The second one seems to simply be drainage like I’ve seen many times in swampy areas The zig-zag might be to slow down the water and minimize erosion and/or to break up the line-of-site for hunting waterfowl.

    The third one is obviously aliens.

  7. dr.R. says:

    …they were created by Forest Service employees.

    …says the Forest Service. So it could still be alien communications, which the government is trying to cover up!

    Aah, it must be so nice to believe in conspiracies…

  8. Jel says:

    Cummon’ use your imagination! Just off Chesapeake Bay, must be the storage silos for the missles off Red October…;@>

  9. Paul says:

    Googling the area – Decoursey Bridge Road – brings up a company in the area that does “game propagation” – raising game probably for hunting there are elsewhere. The triangles may be fenced areas to raise various game birds, a wild square in the didle for shelter and the cleared area around to see and eventually trap them for later release. There are also some scientific papers about “pen-raised” birds associated with the company. A complex area to the left, by the river, looks like some kind of rearing pens too. Up and right of the triangles, across the main road – Decoursey – is an interesting sort of runway with short winding roads alongside. I’ve no idea what that is.

  10. Lance Allen says:

    The New Brunswick photo is an image of cranberry bogs. They grow the berries and flood the region to harvest the berries.

Leave a Reply

This form supports simple HTML, but URLs will be automatically linked.

Link to specific places with a Google Maps link, or with a latitude and longitude written like this:
lat/lng:55.9494,-3.2000

If you've found something that you think should be posted in its own entry then use the suggestion form!

Want your own icon? Get a Gravatar.