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

Mystery Forest Art

Posted by Chris Hannigan, Friday, 27th November 2009

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It’s not uncommon to stumble across some interesting sights and shapes when you browse through Google Maps, but there’s something special about stumbling across forest clearings that surely must be man-made, but there’s no obvious reason for the recognisable shapes!

In southern Poland, outside the town of Bokowno, we find the shape of a north arrow carved out of the nearby woods. It measures close to a massive 525 metres from one end to the other, and appears to be lined-up perfectly in a north direction. There are two sand production facilities nearby, so perhaps the arrow is used by one of these companies?

Outside of Pensaukee, Wisconsin you will find the word FOWL grown into the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Is this perhaps a warning to passing planes that there may be geese and ducks around?

In Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest, there appear to be two dice cut into the trees. Could this be tied into a local environmental project? Or perhaps it’s something to whet the appetites of air travellers en-route to Las Vegas, which is almost exactly 1,000 km to the south east.

Can anyone shed any light on these bizarre forest formations?

Also see our previous forest art posts on sharks, fonts and very large writing!

Thanks to Gabor Doka, Kendall, Mastboy, Mark, local_gurl, Derek, Denny, Mr. P, and Max.

9 Responses to 'Mystery Forest Art'

  1. John says:

    I found place, Your can grow your own real-virtual forest and see how trees are growing. Excating:)

  2. RobK says:

    The Oregon one looks more like a domino to me…

  3. Chris Hannigan says:

    They might be dominos… but there’s another one a little bet west of the thumbnail that’s only one side. Whatever it is, it’s interesting!

  4. qka says:

    And north of the single die is just a single dot in an irregularly shaped clearing!

    South of the domino are a number of clear cut strips. i wonder if this land was opened for logging, but with a requirement that a certain percentage be left standing, and the loggers got creative in what they did and did not cut.

  5. dikko says:

    And there’s another two-sided further away to the NW, and a single-sided to the NE

  6. markus says:

    just sustainable forestry folks, helps it grow back much faster than clear cutting. Lots of it in the area, check also the square with random trees left to the east, and the striped lines to the southeast. Circles are pretty efficient patterns, and not as difficult to do as the random tree pattern.

  7. joe says:

    There are some similar “dice” just north of Mt. Adams in Washington.

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