Occasionally, I fall down a Google Maps rabbit hole. It always starts innocently enough—checking directions, maybe zooming in on a landmark—and somehow ends with me wandering across deserts, oceans, and random parking lots on the other side of the world.
Sometimes I’m up in the clouds using satellite view, other times I’m dropped right there on the ground using Google Maps’ Street View, peering around corners like a tourist. And just when I think I’ve seen it all, Google Maps throws me something so strange I can’t look away. I’ve seen a number of odd discoveries that are still hiding in plain sight.
Uffington White Horse, England
A horse that’s been running for more than a thousand years
Cut into the rolling chalk hills of Oxfordshire, the Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure dating to the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, making it roughly 3,000 years old. It measures about 110 meters from tail to ear and was made by carving deep trenches into the hillside and packing them with crushed white chalk, which is why the shape reads so clearly from above against the green landscape.
Archaeologists still debate why someone made it. Suggested ideas include a territorial or tribal emblem, a ritual or religious symbol, or an image tied to seasonal or celestial markers, but no single explanation has convincing proof. What is certain is that generations of people have kept the figure visible through a practice called scouring, and today the National Trust and local volunteers continue that maintenance. The Horse still pops up on drone and satellite images as a bright, enigmatic mark on the landscape, proof that some prehistoric gestures survive into the age of mapping and pixels.
Nagoro “Scarecrow” Village, Japan
The quietest crowd in Japan
Hidden deep in Japan’s Iya Valley is Nagoro, a place where people are overwhelmingly outnumbered by their replacements. In 2003, Tsukimi Ayano returned to her native village after retiring and was surprised to find it had become so lifeless. She began creating life-sized dolls to represent the neighbors she’d lost, including farmers, people taking smoke breaks, figures waiting at bus stops, and people tending gardens.
She has since made more than 400 dolls, including replacements, with about 350 currently displayed in the village. One of the most touching spots is the abandoned school, where Ayano has filled the desks with dolls of children. Seen on Google Maps’ historical street view function, many of Ayano’s dolls are visible and appear hauntingly lifelike.
Cerne Abbas Giant, England
The world’s oldest open-air scandal
A few hours south of Uffington sits another chalk figure, and this one doesn’t exactly blend in. Etched across a Dorset hillside, the Cerne Abbas Giant stands about 55 meters tall, showing off a bald, naked man with a very noticeable erection and a hefty club in hand. You can spot it clearly on Google Maps, and even from a distance, it’s one of those things that makes you pause and think, someone actually carved that into a hill. Today, the National Trust looks after it, and it still holds the title of Britain’s largest chalk hill figure.
For a long time, nobody really knew where the giant came from. Some thought it dated back to prehistoric times, but modern testing told a different story. Using a method called optically stimulated luminescence, researchers discovered it couldn’t have been created before the year 700. That means it probably appeared sometime between 700 and 1100 AD. One theory even suggests the figure might represent an Anglo-Saxon god named Heil or Helith.
The Silent People (Hiljainen kansa), Finland
They’re not moving, but you might
Along Highway 5, just outside Suomussalmi in the Finnish countryside, there’s a field that’ll stop you mid-scroll on Street View. Out of nowhere, you’ll see an eerie crowd of several hundred life-sized figures frozen in place, like a rural version of a zombie apocalypse. The installation, created by artist Reijo Kela in 1988 and moved to its current spot in 1994, consists of scarecrow-like forms with peat heads, straw hair, and simple wooden frames, dressed in bright, mismatched clothes. Locals even change their outfits twice a year, so the whole scene shifts with the seasons.
Many believe the figures were meant to honor the people who died nearby during the brutal Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1940.
Gulliver Park (Parc Gulliver), Valencia, Spain
A monument you’re supposed to climb
In Valencia’s Turia Gardens, there’s a massive figure of Gulliver stretched out on the ground, about seventy meters long and nine meters high. From above, it looks like some strange, oversized body frozen mid-scene, but zoom in on Google Maps, and you’ll realize it’s actually one of Spain’s most adored playgrounds. The design captures the moment when Gulliver was tied down by the tiny Lilliputians, and here, everyone who visits gets to play the part of one.
The giant’s body is a maze of stairs, slides, ramps, and ropes. His clothes and hair have been cleverly turned into different play areas, so kids can scramble up his sleeve, slide down his arm, or disappear into the folds of his coat.
Airplane Home, Oregon, USA
One man’s retirement plan took flight
If you zoom in on a wooded hillside in Oregon’s wine country, you might think you’ve stumbled upon a plane crash. But look closer, and you’ll see the aircraft is perfectly intact, sitting right where someone meant it to be. Hidden among the trees on a quiet slope is a full-sized Boeing 727, bought by Bruce Campbell for around $100,000. Back in 1999, this former engineer and pilot had the entire jet shipped all the way from Greece to Oregon—and turned it into his home.
Campbell says he has no plans to ever live in a normal house again, so this retired jetliner has become a permanent resident of the forest, blending aviation with a touch of eccentric genius.
Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Muñecas), Mexico
Where every tree has eyes
If you drop into Street View and wander through the canals of Xochimilco, just south of Mexico City, you’ll eventually come across something straight out of a horror movie. All around you, hundreds of dolls hang from trees—some missing heads, others missing limbs, all of them staring blankly into the air.
The story goes that Don Julian Santana Barrera, who once lived on the island, began hanging the dolls to calm the spirit of a young girl who had drowned nearby. Over time, he claimed to feel her presence and started collecting more dolls to keep her spirit at peace.
He didn’t care what shape they were in, whether they were broken, dirty, or decapitated; it didn’t matter. He hung every single one, and together they’ve become one of the most unsettling, yet oddly fascinating, tourist attractions in the world.
Estancia La Guitarra, Córdoba, Argentina
A love story written in trees
In Argentina’s Córdoba province, there’s a massive guitar-shaped forest carved into the pampas, stretching almost a kilometer across. You can spot it easily on satellite view, a green instrument laid out in perfect detail with over 7,000 cypress and blue eucalyptus trees. There’s even a star-shaped sound hole in the middle.
The idea came from farmer Pedro Martín Ureta’s late wife, Graciela, who once saw a farm from the air and dreamed of creating something beautiful like that on their own land. After she passed away, Ureta and his children spent years planting and shaping this living tribute to her. Now, their guitar of trees stands as a quiet, breathtaking symbol of love that’s visible from space.
The Lion Point, England
A cat too big to ignore
Just outside Whipsnade village in Bedfordshire, a huge white lion sprawls across the chalky slope of Dunstable Downs. It’s so large you can spot it clearly from satellite view on Google Maps, even on your Windows PC, standing out like a bold signature against the green landscape. The Zoological Society of London created the lion near Whipsnade Zoo—the biggest in the UK—to help warn pilots not to fly too low and disturb the animals.
For nearly a century, the Whipsnade White Lion has watched over the downs, becoming a proud local symbol. From above, its bright white outline pops against the hillside, making it one of England’s most recognizable and enduring landmarks.
You don’t need to physically find weird things when you have Google Maps
The strangest thing about these places isn’t how bizarre they look, but the fact that they’re still here, still cared for, still loved by someone. Google Maps has become an accidental gallery for all of it, quietly proving that somewhere out there—in a field, a forest, or on a hillside—someone’s imagination left a mark strong enough to outlive them.
