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High above the Uvas Reservoir in Santa Clara County, it
looks like there’s hundreds of
colourful balloons floating up into the sky.

alt="">

The possible balloons are unfortunately on the overlap of two
images, but appear to be rising up from the beach on the
South-Eastern tip of the island.

alt="">

Helium balloons http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/860560701.Ph.r.html
can reach anywhere between 2000 and 6000 metres in height id="fnref:1">#fn:1″ rel=”footnote 1, but
whether or not that would be high enough to make them so visible on
a satellite photograph is unclear.

So it’s over to you readers: could this be a large balloon
release captured from space?

Thanks: Vaudesir

1. Eventually they will burst and the plastic will fall back to
   Earth, where it will probably http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/16/pollution.travelnews?gusrc=rss&feed=travel
   kill our wildlife #fnref:1″
   rev=”footnote ↩

Tags: , Balloons

This is
God’s Ark of Safety in Frostburg, Maryland. The brainchild of
Pastor Richard Greene, this is a church… that’s also a
full-size replica of Noah’s Ark. id="fnref:1">#fn:1″ rel=”footnote 1

src='http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/noahsark.jpg'
>

Well it would be… if Pastor Greene had ever gotten
round to finishing it. Construction began all the way back in 1976,
and even today it’s little more than a frame. Clearly the Pastor
isn’t expecting the next http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(mythology) Great
Flood to happen anytime soon.

More at the http://www.godsark.org/index.html official
site and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_Ark_of_Safety Wikipedia
page. Thanks to Aprillo and Eric Bennett.

1. Apparently being constructed “to the specifications” of Noah’s
   original, the new model will supposedly be “450 feet long, 75 feet
   wide, and 45 feet high”. #fnref:1″
   rev=”footnote ↩

Tags: , Ark, God, Safety

The
Sunset Lake Floating Bridge in Brookfield, Vermont is actually
a GSS first, as we’ve never
featured a floating bridge before.

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/sunset-lake-floatinge-bridge.jpg"
alt="">

Built on floating logs all the way back in 1820, upgraded to
tarred barrels in 1884, and plastic barrels in 1978, this is
actually the seventh version of the bridge, which despite long
periods of closure during its lifetime is today open for you to
drive your car over if you’re in the area.

Bear in mind that you’re more than likely to get a little wet
though, as the bridge was actually designed to be http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Brookfield_VT_bridge.jpg
permanently semi-submerged…

You can read more about the bridge at http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php?tip_AttractionNo==1375
Roadside America. Thanks to Jel.

Tags: , bridge, Floating, Lake, Sunset

The
Tupolev Tu-144 is a supersonic passenger jet built by the
Soviet Union as a competitor to the British/French Concorde.

The Tupolev was developed around the same time as Concorde and,
with a little help from a spy in France, its appearance http://www.metacafe.com/watch/385519/tu_144_konkordski/# is
very similar. Due to this, the Western papers of the day gave
it the inspired nickname of “Konkordski”^{#fn:1″ rel=”footnote 1}.

alt="">
Konkordski 77107 on display at Kazan Aviation Production
Complex

Like its namesake, Konkordski wasn’t the aviation success
everyone had hoped for, and only 17 were ever built. A disastrous
crash in 1973 at the Paris Air show sealed the Konkordski’s fate
and they served only 103 domestic flights before being withdrawn
from service.

alt="">
Konkordski 77108 stored at the Samara-Ouchebny Research
Institute

Although nowhere near as famous as Concorde, Konkordski did
achieve it’s share of records: it was the first supersonic
passenger jet to fly (just 2 months before Concorde) and to this
day is still the fastest commercial airliner
ever!

More info on the http://members.tripod.com/tu144/history.html History of
Konkordski, http://www.moninoaviation.com/tu144sn.html full aircraft
list and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144 Wikipedia
page.

Thanks to http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/556883/an//page//vc/1
Snoogans and http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/38433/ Virtual
Globetrotting.

1. These days the “-ski” postfix is most common in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_common_surnames#Poland
   Poland as the masculine form of a name. The feminine form would
   be “Konkordcki”. #fnref:1″ rev=”footnote ↩

Tags: , Konkordski

Avast Ye! Today, it be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day
Talk Like a Pirate Day an’ we’ve got a barrel-load of
piratey-themed sights fer ye landlubbers!

Las Vegas’
Treasure Island be havin’ a daily pirate battle, ‘ere the
swashbucklers by defeated by th’ booty-shaking o’ “the sirens o’
ti”. Not yer usual kind o’ booty neither!

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/pirateday07-1.jpg"
alt="">

Them “
Pirates of the Caribbean” movie-films wi’ buccaneer Johnny
Depp, they be based on a children’s ride! Those children orta be
workin’ the sail and swabbin’ the decks! Arrr!

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/pirateday07-2.jpg"
alt="">

There be a swashbuckling ship maze on the Isle of Wight! Shiver
Me Timbers!

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/pirateday07-4.jpg"
alt="">

This even be a plane in middle o’ Santa Cruz, ‘ere they be
callin’ it ‘Th’ Pirate Plane’! Flyin’ Pirates? Whaterenext!

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/pirateday07-3.jpg"
alt="">

Be seein’ you also The
Pirate Skull of Vegas.

Thanks to these scurvy dogs: Juan Manuel Gil, bruv, http://virtualglobetrotting.com/ Virtual Globetrotting
and http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php?Number=280233 Munden.

Tags: , Day, Like, Pirate, talk

This is the absolutely fantastic
Rainbow Bridge that crosses Tokyo bay, Tokyo. A 570 metre-long
suspension bridge, it has two decks that carry three transportation
lines - the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuto_Expressway Shuto
Expressway on the top, and on the bottom, Route 357 and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurikamome New Transit
Yurikamome.

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/ggssalex171xx.jpg"
alt="">
src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/ggssalex171xxx.jpg"
alt="">

The Yurikamome is actually an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_guideway_transit automated
guideway transit service, which looks like a monorail, but the
carriages run on rubber wheels instead. It’s a fully automated
system with no drivers, which carries 100,000 passengers a day to
the artificial island of Odaiba. The system has become a tourist
attraction in its own right, thanks mainly to the
spectacular 270-degree loop which the Rainbow bridge has to
make to get the Yurikamome up from ground level. Here’s a http://flickr.com/photos/thingsinjars/1328096695/ recent
ground level shot of the loop.

alt="">
src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/ggssalex171xxxx.jpg"
alt="">

See also our related posts on The
Lotus Bridge, a
Curly Bridge Over the Seto Inland Sea, Odaiba’s
Ferris Wheels, and Utah’s
Rainbow Bridge (which actually features in our book too!).

As always, you can read more about Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Bridge_(Tokyo) at
Wikipedia. Thanks to http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/ Bill Kendrick,
Terry Foster, Christian Willman, and anyone else who submitted this
since I earmarked it for posting… 14 months ago!

Tags: , Bay, bridge, Rainbow, The, Tokyo

I think no-one can doubt that aliens have definitely
landed!

alt="">

Both of these spacecraft are located in farmland outside the
Romanian city of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timişoara Timisoara.
Romania is not known as a major UFO hotspot, but to our alien
overlords Roswell is probably passé^{#fn:1″ rel=”footnote 1}.

alt="">

That said, this isn’t the first sighting of our visitors to
Romania: the http://www.rufon.org/ Romanian UFO
Network^{#fn:2″
rel=”footnote 2} have hundreds of blurry pictures of
similar looking craft (or clouds).

So, UFO sceptics, do you have another
explanation of what we’re seeing here?

Thanks to tomhet4ever, http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/39227/ DocMartini
& http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/31474/ kjfitz.

1. http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/news_roundup_ufo_sightings_free_uk.html
   Google Earth Blog has a time-lapse placemark of UFO sightings
   across the globe since 1944, and they’re almost all in the
   US. #fnref:1″ rev=”footnote ↩

2. Unfortunately, the http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?type=url&url=http://www.rufon.org/&text=&from=rom&to=eng
   automatic translation of the site makes less sense to me than
   the Romanian. #fnref:2″ rev=”footnote ↩

Tags: , Aliens, Invade, Romania

Thanks to the power of Google Earth and the internet the US Navy
have decided to spend as much as $600,000 on major
alterations to a perfectly good barracks. The reason for the spend
is that, when viewed on Google Earth, the building complex
resembles a swastika.

src='http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/swastika.jpg'
width='160' height='120'>

The four unconnected buildings are part of the Coronado Naval
Amphibious Base and were built in 1967. The Navy have stated that
they did notice the shape during construction, but decided that
no-one would ever see it from above so there was no point in
wasting the money starting again with a new design.

Of course in the 60s no-one ever thought that Google Earth would
ever exist. After the shape was http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/19558/page/0/fpart/1/vc/1
initially spotted back in 2005, all the crazy internet
theorists have created elaborate stories of how the barracks were
in fact designed by evil Nazis.

According to these stories, the Nazis managed to infiltrate the
US Navy to execute their cunning plan for a Swastika building
layout, with other aeroplane-shaped buildings “pointing at it”.
This design would then deliver their message of hate across the
globe, just as soon as someone bothered to invent the internet,
Google and then Google Earth…

Of course, that’s all nonsense; in reality it’s just some
buildings with an unfortunate layout. The US Navy probably have
better things to be spending their money on, but the internet
hordes have spoken so the barracks must be changed, whatever the
cost.

Thanks to the http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-swastika26sep26,0,2973328.story?coll=la-home-center
LA Times via js and many others.

Update: Apparently the link to LA Times is demanding a login
from most people, which is very annoying. Try http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Coronado swastika
Google News instead.

Tags: , Building, Swastika, The

Germany has an extensive canal system, made up in part by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittellandkanal Mittellandkanal
(Midland Canal), which helps form an important industrial
shipping route from the west of the country, all the way to
Poland.

In Minden the Mittellandkanal engages in this
verging-on-the-ridiculously-complex
aquatic interchange where the canal crosses the Weser River.
There’s usually a 13 metre height difference between the river and
the canal, so locks like
this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Minden_Weser-Mittleland_Kanal_Lock_01.jpg
ground level photo) are needed to get vessels up and down.

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/complicatedcanals-alex4.jpg"
alt="">

To the east, the Mittellandkanal
crosses a small river and
a road in Hanover, primarily to pass right by this
Volkswagen factory to the north.

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/complicatedcanals-alex2.jpg"
alt="">

Further east at Magdeburg the
Rothensee boat lift (http://www.oldradioworld.de/locks/rothen.jpg ground level
photo) was originally intended as a minor connection between
the Mittellandkanal and the River Elbe, with an aquaduct and
another boat lift forming a connection with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe-Havel_Canal Elbe-Havel
Canal.

Due to WWII however, the rest of the project was never
completed, and for 60 years the Rothensee lift instead lowered all
the aquatic traffic from the West German industrial centres onto
the Elbe on their way to West Berlin.

src="http://googlesightseeing.com/wp-content/complicatedcanals-alex1.jpg"
alt="">

In 2003, a proper connection to the Elbe-Havel Canal was finally
completed, putting an end to the traditional 12 km detour. The 918
metre long
Magdeburg Water Bridge is the longest aqueduct in
Europe, and as you can see http://homepage.mac.com/doug_arrington/home/images/waterbridge2_sm.jpg
in this photo, it’s absolutely enormous! 690 metres of the
bridge are over land, and the waterway it carries is 34 metres wide
and 4.25 metres deep.

alt="">

You can read more about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittellandkanal Mittellandkanal,
the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothensee_boat_lift Rothensee
boat lift and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_Water_Bridge Magdeburg
Water Bridge at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Nick and Glenn.

Tags: , Across, Canal, Germany

Woohoo! It’s Friday! A fact which doesn’t appear to have escaped

this guy etched onto a mountainside in Mongolia - he’s clearly
doing a Friday dance of joy!

Thanks to Kerry and http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php?Number=973441 anarster

Tags: , Dance, Friday