The world’s largest weather vane can be found in Yukon, alongside the runway at Whitehorse airport, in the unusual form of a DC-3 plane.

After 28 years of service, mostly among Canada’s northern communities, the plane was retired in 1970 and lay idle for a while. Volunteer effort led to its restoration and it was mounted on a carefully designed pedestal in 1981. The plane is so well balanced that a wind of only 5 knots will cause it to turn. According to Wikipedia, the DC-3 is almost 20m long, 5m high and weighs over 8000kg.

I should mention that, from what I can tell, the plane has not been officially recognised, with the Guinness World Record currently being held by a weather vane atop the Tio Pepe facility in Jerez, Spain. However, as it’s somewhat smaller than a plane, and the Google images are not great, it’s hard to spot. Live Maps has a clearer view.

It’s difficult to find much information about the Tio Pepe weather vane – this site describes it as standing almost 40m tall (but judging from the pictures that height must includes the building it is atop) and weighing 2700kg.

In addition, there is a weather vane in Montague, MI staking a claim to be the largest, though again – at 14m tall and 8m long – it may be taller than a DC-3, but is not quite as big! The Google imagery of the town is very low resolution, but Live Maps has a pretty good bird’s eye view.

Finally! We have proof that Google is hiding things from us in Alaska, Mexico and er… New Jersey. Hmmm. Anyway, it’s a conspiracy I tell you!

Firstly stretching over a large part of Alaska, all the way into the Yukon territory, is this gargantuan hole in the landscape. Interesting shape too…

Next we leap to the other side of the country for a very strangely-shaped hole West of El Paso. See the odd in-road of detail at the bottom-left corner of the rectangle? Weird.

While we’re down in Mexico, look at this super-cool hole which appears to be eating the surrounding landscape. Good lord!

Another country-wide leap and we’re somewhere off the coast of New Jersey, where this unsuspecting little boat is about to steer itself straight into the next episode of Lost!

However, could this incredibly exciting conspiracy theory simply be something much mre mundane..?

Muchos gracias to Eder Chiunti, Dan Karran, Lurlock, JoakimE and Ian.