There is always something to discover on the Google Maps platform: be it directly on the map, in the street view images, or in the satellite view that is available everywhere. Sunken planes appear on the satellite photos from time to time, apparently lying completely unnoticed in partially shallow waters and being reported by excited users and the media. The fact that these are optical illusions should not come as a surprise – but how does this happen in the first place?
There are irregular reports in the media about supposed discoveries on Google Maps, which, however, are only in the rarest of cases real discoveries or even sensations. It is often supposedly sunken aircraft that can be seen very clearly on the satellite images. At the latest, however, a look at the pictures reveals that it is probably not a crashed or missing plane. Because in most cases they are not completely intact on the outside and land perfectly below sea level.
In addition, an airplane on the seabed would probably not be visible from above – unless it crashed near the beach completely unnoticed and is not missed by anyone. That a gigantic passenger plane lies unnoticed in a shallow flight in the middle of a busy city can also be ruled out with a little common sense. But the planes don’t only appear in rivers, but sometimes in other places where they don’t really belong.
Because this phenomenon has been appearing for many years, Google took up the topic a long time ago and only recently took up it again with a new explanation. Of course, we don’t want to withhold them from you and also show where the planes with colorful outlines or other appearances come from.
In most cases, the planes are very blurry, which reinforces the effect that they are actually underwater. Sometimes airplanes can also be seen on the satellite images, which have a realistic size and are also reasonably sharp. It is quite clear that they simply flew over this area at the moment the picture was taken – which is supposed to be prevented by the image selection controlled by algorithms but does not always work reliably.
As you may have noticed, this is an optical illusion and the planes are not actually in the rivers and seas of this world. Instead, it’s a simple overlay of images, as a Google spokesman himself announced some time ago, putting an end to all the speculation.
It looks like the plane is underwater because the images on Google Maps are actually a composite of multiple images. You have to know how the map platform works, because Google doesn’t keep a huge image of the earth in its database, but puts the views together from many millions of small images, of which only the current section and a small safety tolerance around it can be seen. With a slow internet connection and quickly moving the map, this is even visible.
However, the virtual splices should not be visible, so Google works with the trick of superimposing several recordings and thus preventing strongly visible borders. And that explains how the effect comes about. There is the shot with the plane and the shot without the plane. These are superimposed with a certain degree of transparency, and the blurred airplane appears on the satellite images.
Since the satellite cameras take multiple pictures at the same time in different color spectra, a fast-moving object can look funny. With airplanes, for example, it sometimes looks as if several identical machines in different colors are flying one above the other.
Google’s algorithms are supposed to ensure that this doesn’t happen and that the pictures with the airplanes or many other disturbing things are hidden, but it still happens from time to time. Clouds and birds or other things in the sky also disturb the free view – but are calculated out extremely reliably and can therefore only be seen in the other views where this effect is desired. Google Earth even works with artificial clouds for greater realism.
However, this explanation does not mean that an airplane cannot appear in an unusual place. An airplane in the front yard is a tourist attraction and in the US and some other countries, there are entire airplane graveyards where the machines slowly decay and are left to the ravages of time. At the same time, the combination of the individual images explains the phenomenon of cut-off buildings, vehicles and other things…