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October 27, 2005
Google Earth Sleuthing - Burning Ship?
It's amazing what the combination of Google Earth's huge resource of satellite and aerial photos and the Internet can do. A few months ago someone noticed a very small satellite photo of a remote area of ocean near Iceland where a boat or ship appeared to be burning with some other boats nearby. 'earthling_andre' posted a placemark 
and his thoughts at the Google Earth Community.
A bunch of people speculated, and then a few weeks later someone named 'solskin' posted that the satellite photo was indeed showing a burning boat, and the one occupant was rescued by the two boats in the scene. He posted a link to a news story in icelandic, which was followed a few days later by an English translation found here. Apparently two helicopters also came out to help as well.
What I find interesting is that a scene of drama is captured in a random satellite photo, discovered by someone browsing, and the mystery is solved by people all over the world. Amazing!
This blog is dedicated to Google Earth news, tips, technology, applications, and more. Here are some other interesting stories from this blog:
- Dinosaurs Walk the Google Earth
- Huge New Saharan Crater
- China's Secret Underground Nuclear Sub Base
- 3D Model of Cheney Shooting
- Emotion Map in Google Earth
- Giant Frog Attacks Chicago
Posted by FrankTaylor at October 27, 2005 09:45 AM
Comments
Posted by: Kiltak at March 10, 2006 04:09 PM
This is amazing. This truely shows what an internet community is capable of.
Posted by: Luke at March 10, 2006 05:23 PM
Does Google Earth have a schedule that they stick to, that would let us know when and where they will take and post there next picture. I have a few marketing campaigns that would pay big bucks to see there logo on Google Earth.
Posted by: Steve at March 10, 2006 07:12 PM
Wow, this is certainly a wonderful coincidence.
Posted by: Mike at March 10, 2006 08:28 PM
That IS amazing. Such a big world, yet so small. The way the 'net brings people closer never ceases to amaze me.
Posted by: Ara Pehlivanian at March 10, 2006 09:36 PM
That's cool, but it is true???
Posted by: Mig at March 11, 2006 07:07 AM
That is incredible. Truley a mad coincidence.
Imagine a 'Live' google earth
Posted by: Rallentando at March 11, 2006 09:28 AM
@Steve: AFAIK, Google doesn't have their own satellites (at the moment, anyway), but rather they make use of public domain data made available by the US government. This means it may be somewhat difficult to predict when a given area is going to be next updated.
Posted by: Arto at March 11, 2006 10:55 AM
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Almost unbeleivable....
There was alot of cool discoveries on google earth, some guy even spotted a 2nd world war bomber flying over a major british city (don't remember the name), but I've read that on "the register".
Kiltak