This is the bizarre Spiral Jetty, a huge piece of land art on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks and earth, it forms a 1500 foot long (~450 metre), 15-foot wide counterclockwise coil, which extends from the lake shore. It was actually entirely submerged by rising lake waters for many years, but due to lowering water levels, has since re-emerged.

Spiral Jetty was built all the way back in 1970 by the late American sculptor Robert Smithson, who also created some other pieces of land art which are still visible on Google Earth, including the 1971 piece Spiral Hill, Broken Circle in Emmen, Holland.

See other spirals on GSS, and read more about Spiral Jetty at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Dan Blue and Mike Shubeck.

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.

I awoke this morning to find my email inbox bursting with messages along the lines of “OMFG! On Digg there’s a Google Map showing a CRUISE MISSILE in flight!!!!!!!!!one”.

And it was true! While I was asleep over 2500 people Dugg what, at first glance, does look like a cruise missile over Utah. But look closer and you’ll see it’s nothing more than an aeroplane with black wings. Oh well…

Thanks: Rob Monroe, Jonathan Seidman, Trevor, Marco Olivo, Paul B (on fark.com), Zach Penland & Martyn Cox

Surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges, this is the eerie and desolate Dugway Proving Grounds, a large-scale biological and chemical agent testing grounds south of Salt Lake City, Utah. The US has tested all sorts of nasty things here over the last 65 years including flame throwers, chemical spray systems, biological warfare weapons and toxic agents.

Encompassing around 32 3200 km², there’s a large area of high-resolution imagery to the east which contains various empty structures including this spooky-looking thing.

Here’s some links for you: The Dugway Official Site, some ground level photos of the area and of course the obligatory Wikipedia page!

Thanks to Phillip Lockwood-Holmes and Matthew.

I was reading some old comments on the site and rediscovered this fabulous swirling water on Lake Powell. However this beautiful sight isn’t quite as innocent as it first seems.

On closer inspection you can identify the boat that’s causing this swirl, and taking a wander around the area turns up another one, followed by a whole flotilla. This initially deserted-looking landscape is in fact overrun with people – none of whom would be here if several environmental organisations had their way.

Lake Powell is actually a man-made reservoir, which was created by the flooding of Glen Canyon with the Colorado River – an engineering feat accomplished and maintained by the controversial Glen Canyon Dam. Despite the obvious possibilities for damage to the area’s ecosystem, Lake Powell is arguably one of the most beautiful lakes in the whole of America, and each year over 2 million people get to see sights like the Rainbow Bridge, which would otherwise be too remote for most of them to reach.

But reducing the amount of people who make it here might not be such a bad thing of course. Quite apart from the tourist presence upsetting the local Navajo (who consider the Rainbow Bridge an important religious site), it seems that the waters of Lake Powell are further eroding the foundations of the Rainbow Bridge.

Thanks to Jen, JDP and Goomerator.