For once no-one can try to cover up the truth – this is no water tower, no dirt on the lens, and no weather anomaly! Nope, this time we’ve found a real, actual, honest-to-goodness UFO landing on a building in Utrecht, Netherlands! We even managed to find a picture that was taken during the invasion.

Well, it’s a real sculpture of a UFO. That counts, right?

Thanks to P wouterse, Bor Smulders and Ronald.

Although the Soviet Buran space program only ever achieved in a single orbital flight, we’ve found a surprising number of space shuttles on Google Earth.

We started with images of a structural test shuttle and then the abandoned follow-up model and today we present the OK-GLI, an aero test model which completed 25 aero test flights and 9 taxi tests.

According to Wikipedia the OK-GLI’s post-Soviet life began with a stint as a museum in Sydney before being offered up for auction in Los Angeles and then finally ending up here in Bahrain, wasting away. A German company purchased the shuttle in 2005 but the legal wranglings mean it has yet to be transported away from this scrapyard.

Full list of Buran space vehicles on Wikipedia (Can you find any others?).

Thanks: Chilla

The cliquey Foo Camp was born out of a joke at O’Reilly that they should create a literal “Foo Bar”. The event is held each year at O’Reilly’s headquarters and during the 2006 event (held during August 25-27, 2006) Google organised a flyover photograph for inclusion in Google Earth.

The very high-resolution image shows the “tech superstar” attendees lying around the grass with a simple “Welcome to Foo Camp” sign, but surely it was a missed opportunity for writing messages with human bodies? Of course, if the Google Sightseeing team are invited to next year’s Foo Camp, then we’ll definitely organise everyone to spell out a rude message.

Updated: It turns out that the Foo Campers did draw exciting things in the Orchard, it’s just that only a small part of the image was uploaded to the default Google Earth layer. I’ve created a Google Earth image overlay of the full-sized image (2.28MB).

The Wirefly X Prize Cup was a space exposition held during October 20-21, 2006, that featured all sorts of space related fun including “Live rocket launches, prize competitions, rocket plane flights, jet pack flights, astronaut talks, an entire space theme park on the ground, and much more.”

As part of the event the organisers released lots of Google Earth content, including 3D models and the Google Earth Space Atlas, all of which can be downloaded from the Google’s mini site.

More info: FooCamp wiki on the overflight and Google Earth Blog post on the Wirefly X Prize photograph.

Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world’s oldest and largest operational space launch facility where you can clearly see the Energia, Soyuz and Proton launch platforms. Located in what is now Kazakhstan, the facility was named Baikonur to confuse the West of its exact location, as the town of Baikonur is some 320km away (although anyone who has flown on the bright orange budget airline would have expected this).

On the base we can also see a full-scale model of the Ptichka – the second of Russia’s Space Shuttle designs. The Ptichka construction began in 1988 and followed the Buran, which we’ve previously spotted. The name means ‘little bird’ in Russian, but was only a nickname as the shuttle was cancelled just before it was completed and formally named.

The real Ptichka is kept indoors at Baikonur Cosmodrome, as was the original Buran shuttle. However the only Soviet craft to enter space was destroyed in 2002 when the roof above it collapsed, crushing the Buran and its mockup of the Energia booster rocket. I could be wrong but it was probably this big building with no roof. Can you spot a bit of Buran?

Thanks: Georgi Petrov (x3), dimuskin, Tesla_HV, & Hamish CJ (Get me pictures?)

Near Paris, Le Bourget Airport features the “French Museum of Air and Space” and the Paris Air Show every second year. The airport is most famous as the landing point of Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo transatlantic crossing in 1927 but these days in only used by business jets.

The museum features numerous air and spacecraft, including real-sized copies of Ariane I (shortest) and Ariane V (tallest) space rockets and the first Boeing 747 that Air France had in service. If you look to the entrance of the museum you can see three “Fuga Magister” planes of the French national aerobatics team mounted at funny angles (ground level photos).

Thanks: Julien, Daniel, Daniel, David Bober, Fabien Cornu, Wizou & blouet.