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.

The 2nd largest clock in the world is supposedly the Colgate clock, atop the Colgate-Palmolive factory in Indiana. The clock was built way back in 1906 when it originally sat on Colgate’s New Jersey facility, before being moved here in 1924.

The 1st largest clock in the world is also the Colgate clock. This one replaced the above clock at the now defunct New Jersey offices, but after Colgate left the area in the 1980s it sits alone on the waterfront.

The claims of “largest in the world” for each is disputable, and both clocks are facing an uncertain future as developers move into each area.

The similarities don’t end there - after the Indiana clock starred in the 1999 film The Insider, the New Jersey clock starred in the 2006 flick Inside Man. Spooky.

Thanks: Ironguts & James

Wikipedia: Indiana Clock & New Jersey Clock

Christopher Wallace sent in this fantastic submisison which has brightened my day considerably:

I was following the roads I take to get to college, and found what looks like an image of a barn and silos etched into a field a short distance northwest of Flemington, NJ

Anyone know the story behind this one?

Thanks: Christopher Wallace

G J Oliver’s Industrial Steel factory has a collection of unusual pets in the back garden; giant Steel Dinosaurs. Under the order of Mr Oliver himself the prehistoric creatures are created in spare moments by company employee Woody Hauser, who bases the design on rubber dinosaurs provided by his boss.

So far the collection is made up of a T-Rex to the East, a Apatosaurus (the correct name for what we like to call Brontosauruses) to the West and between them, just a little to the North, a caveman. (These ground level photos also show a Triceratops somewhere in the area, but I can’t spot it in the satellite pic).

The models take about 6-9 months each to design and build yet Mr. Hauser is expecting to continue production for as long as there’s slow days at work.

Thanks: Alex

The last battleships ever built by the United States are known as “Iowa class” and were named after the states of Missouri, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Iowa. The four ships were built in the 1940s and between them have served in almost every major U.S. battle between then and the 1990s when they were decommissioned. There’s loads more detail about the ships on the Wikipedia page.

The USS Wisconsin is currently berthed in Norfolk, VA. It is in an Inactive Reserve status, meaning that it is still a commissioned warship of the U.S. Navy, but not in active service.

The USS New Jersey is now a museum at Camden, New Jersey.

The USS Missouri is berthed in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.

The USS Iowa is part of the previously posted Suisun Bay reserve fleet in California (it’s the big one on the end). The Iowa is the only ship of the four which is currently not open to the public but has recently been acquired by Stockton, California where it will be a museum.

Thanks: Robert Amos for compiling links to all four ships and many other people for submitting at least one of the ships.

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.

The 131 foot tall Edison Memorial Tower marks the original site of Thomas Alva Edison’s original labs in the Menlo Park section of what is now Edison Township in New Jersey, USA. The tower is topped by the world’s largest working lightbulb (ground level photos & more info).

Thanks: Peter & Elliott C. Evans

The World’s Tallest Water Sphere in Union, New Jersey. Apparently a tower in Edmond, Oklahoma is taller and holds more water, but technically that design is a water spheroid. Union’s Water Sphere is still the tallest true water sphere. More facts about the tower at Dan Becker’s fan site.

Update: I know you were all dying to see the world’s largest water spheroid, so here it is!

Thanks: Jay Soffian & B.Dalton