Update: Thanks to cowens and others who informed us that this is actually an absolutely massive piece of land art called desert breath. Click through for some images and a way better description than I gave it!

What on earth is the purpose of this massive spiral in the Egyptian desert?

It appears to be made from near-perfect circles scooped from the sand, which decrease in size toward the centre of the spiral - where there is a much larger circular trench.

Whatever the spiral’s purpose actually is, it must have taken a serious amount of effort to put here.

Thanks to BZoltan

Free UK daily paper The Metro published an article last week about a YouTube video¹ in which someone claimed to have found the shape of Jesus in a cloud, floating over Mount Sinai in Egypt.

We thought this was such a blatant (and totally lame) rip-off of our own Face of Jesus Found in Sand Dune that we’d better up the ante!²

First in Utah, we find a terrifying looking skull face…

Then in Nevada, we’ve got a Blues Brothers style one-eyed alien…

And finally in Kenya we’ve got… the Rock Eater Biter from the NeverEnding Story!

How long before the Metro steals this story I wonder?

See our other related posts for even more Google Earth Pareidolia:

• Irish Rock Face
• Face of Santa Claus
• Native American Listening to an iPod
• The Face of Mother Earth
• The Simian Messiah
• Face of Jesus Found in Sand Dune

Thanks to Jayden Brown, Vaughn Nelson and cruzito.

It seems that more than one person has had the idea of theming their swimming pool around aeroplanes…

Here’s a small private plane-shaped pool in Miami.

This is the Flying W Airport in New Jersey, where they have a cool plane-shaped pool with “W”s on the wings. Flying W is described as a “flying airport resort“, and whilst I’m not sure exactly what that is, there’s definitely real planes parked right next to the pool. Very odd.

Over in Cairo, Egypt, they’ve taken a quite different approach and illustrated a fighter jet on the bottom of this circular pool, which also features a very large bird of prey. Do these insignia hold some sort of significance I wonder?

Finally, in China, they’ve dispensed with swimming pools, a built an entire lake in the shape of a plane! This is right next to a decent sized airport, so maybe this is a hotel.

Whilst swimming here might not be very pleasant, if you look closely you’ll see that instead, you might be able to take a boat trip in this plane!

Thanks to 93f2, Felippo, Majoska and kjfitz.

Is this a mysterious floating disc in Egypt? It certainly shares characteristics with the Australian Flying Car, but this time the ’shadow’ looks too… dense? And maybe too sharp around the edges as well I think.

Maybe this is actually the world’s largest manhole cover!

Thanks to Hide Kuwa

Yep, it’s time for another Monday Megapost and this week we’re focusing on those gentle giants of the sea: Oil Platforms.

The problem with finding oil platforms on Google Maps is that most of the open sea isn’t available on the higher zoom levels. Probably because there isn’t really much out there to see, and it saves Google storing multiple images of lots of boring water. Thankfully near the coast or in the smaller in-land seas and channels some oil platforms have been captured.

Our first platform is in the Gulf Of Mexico about a hundred klicks east of New Orleans. A bit closer to the coast is another and just north is what looks to be a tug pushing a line of barges.

Another one in the Gulf of Mexico, but this one is off the coast of Texas and has a very obvious helipad.

Around the other side of the US off the west coast, south of Santa Barbara is another oil field full of activity. There are two platforms that look to be in the process of being supplied by ships. There are actually four platforms all in a line here, you can see the other two off to the east.

South down the coast and out to sea from Los Angeles harbour are these two big beasties with a walkway linking them.

Way over in the Gulf of Suez which divides Africa and Asia is the Gemsa oil field which is absolutely chock full of platforms. These ones seem to be a lot bigger than the ones in the US, this one is made up of multiple platforms and landing pads, all linked together by walkways. If you zoom out a few clicks there are about five other platforms just as big.

In a bay on the west coast of South Africa is a particularly chunky looking platform that just sneaks into the high resolution coverage.

In our ongoing quest for the largest, tallest, biggest stuff in the world I couldn’t have mentioned oil platforms without including the mighty 43,000 ton Petronis Platform, the tallest free-standing structure in the world (when including underwater structures). Unfortunately I couldn’t find it on Google Maps and I suspect it falls outside the high resolution coverages areas. If anyone can track it down though, leave a comment.

Currently doing the rounds in the mainstream press, this is the recently discovered Kebira meteorite crater in the western desert of Egypt.

At 31 kilometers across Kebira utterly dwarfs Arizona’s famous Barringer meteor crater (which is only 1.2 kilometres in diameter), and was only discovered now due to its sheer size - it’s too big to recognise from the ground, and the scientists responsible for identifying it only did so using satellite imagery.

For more information see this BBC news article.

Thanks to jher, Paul Drye, david, Keith T. Peter Grabowsky and lookabootye.

The Richat Structure in central Mauritania is a stunning geological structure 50 kilometers across (Wikipedia entry). Once thought to be an impact crater, it is actually a sedimentary formation that has eroded flat over many eons. Apparently there’s a hotel smack-bang in the middle of it.

There are also several other similar structures in the Sahara, such as the Jebel Uwaynat (thumbnail #2) which was used to define the borders of Sudan, Egypt and Libya, and also the Brandberg Intrusion in Namibia.

Even though none of these features are in high-resolution, it’s well worth zooming in a bit, as they’re perhaps even more fascinating to look at closer up.

Thanks to Pat Scaramuzza, Peter Nordstrom, GeMatt and Kai Huebner.

Of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the Pyramids at Giza are the only ones remaining, they are over 6000 years old and are constructed from over 25 million tonnes of limestone. The pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre & Menkaure, who as teenagers formed a popular hip-hop trio (possibly not true).

The largest Pyramid was built for Khufu (aka DJ Cheops), Pharaoh of the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty, and was constructed by nearly 20,000 workers who worked year round for decades. It was originally 481 feet high, but has since lost 30 feet due to erosion.

Following to the southwest is the Pyramid of Khafre (aka MC Chephren). Although it is smaller, a steeper angle results in the illusion that the two structures are the same size. In fact, Khafre’s pyramid appears taller since it is on higher ground.

The final, smallest pyramid is that of Menkaure (aka MC Mycerinus). There are also various other smaller pyramids for the pharaohs’ Queens which can be identified using this map.

To the east of the pyramids is the Great Sphinx, the largest single-stone statue in the world. The Sphinx has the face of a man (possibly the aforementioned Khafre, but sans nose) and the body of a lion.

Thanks: Over 80 people, just too many to list! You know who you are, thanks guys