Interesting...

[+Shuckymomo]

Thought this was interesting! I was looking for caches for me and my nephew to do when I'm down there and came across something weird/cool!

 

GC1QZNN

 

Then, go to the map (satellite) and zoom in until you are almost on top of it and look to the left of the cache. No, the plane is not on the ground! I thought that was pretty cool! Anyone else see weird things on the map?

[+Moonsouth]

haha thats hilarious, you see cars and boats all the time, rare to see a plane : )

[+bittsen]

Thought this was interesting! I was looking for caches for me and my nephew to do when I'm down there and came across something weird/cool!

 

GC1QZNN

 

Then, go to the map (satellite) and zoom in until you are almost on top of it and look to the left of the cache. No, the plane is not on the ground! I thought that was pretty cool! Anyone else see weird things on the map?

That IS pretty cool.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[+DragonFlyDreams]

Quite surprised when I thumbed thru the latest edition of "Family Circle" 1 April 2010. See page 73-75 - 'X Marks the Spot': Looking for something to do with the kids this weekend? Try geocaching, a scavenger hunt with a high-tech twist.

Pretty neat to see this in a women's magazine. Short and full of tidbits and a few pics. Just not the place one would think to find such a topic.

[knowschad]

Some of my favorite caches are those that are hidden in plane sight.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Some of my favorite caches are those that are hidden in plane sight.

HISSSS!!!!!

[GOF and Bacall]

Some of my favorite caches are those that are hidden in plane sight.

 

Bad dog! No cookie for you!

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Anyone else see weird things on the map?

 

Not too hard to find approaches or take-offs in Google Earth. Helps to look at larger airports like LAX, O'Hare or JFK. Can't remember what airport(s), some were just barely off the ground, still over the runway (shadows).

[knowschad]

Anyone else see weird things on the map?

Dead people. Is that weird?

[+Touchstone]

Cool

 

We have a similar satellite imagery oddity cache in my area as well:

 

Nightmare at 20,000 feet

 

There's even a couple of Waymark Categories dedicated to this sort of stuff:

 

Satellite Imagery Oddities

 

Readable From Above

[+leitko4]

Reminds me of this cache here in the Portland area, near a plane that IS on the ground in an unusual spot.. the backstory is at airplanehome.com

[+bittsen]

Reminds me of this cache here in the Portland area, near a plane that IS on the ground in an unusual spot.. the backstory is at airplanehome.com

I remember that plane.

I was there when it landed and watched the process...

It was going on when the Haunted Cave was being built.

[mddbkzr]

Heres another to view in Satellite mode of Google Maps:

 

44.276500, -103.425004 and 44.267054, -103.416266

 

Nearest caches GCDCE6 and GC1KZRF

 

I remember seeing another one within 30 miles of there but I cannot find it.

[+Castle Mischief]

I seem to recall when people were scanning google earth looking for what's his name's plane that there were tons of false hits for air-borne craft.

[daveindeal]

ok here is one near London Hethrow.

 

the only thing that strange with this one, is that i can only find one plane within mile's but there are 3 shadows on the ground!!

 

last time i looked we only had one sun, so one shadow!!

 

The plane: 51.476331337799664, -0.5196189880371094

 

shadow 1: 51.48060782560928, -0.5229663848876953

shadow 2: 51.47924473865486, -0.531463623046875

shadow 3: 51.47649171332882, -0.5382871627807617

[+KoosKoos]

Very cool. I still haven't solved this local cache that uses the plane:

 

Plane old micro

[+ArcherDragoon]

Some of my favorite caches are those that are hidden in plane sight.

{Groan}...that was just too ruff...

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Zoom in on and around this cache and you will see a collection of war birds, an aircraft museum to the east, a corporate jet landing at the south end of runway 36, a commercial jet taxiing to the terminal and a corporate jet taxiing to take off on the west end of runway 6.

 

Somewhere east of runway 6 there is a home made from the fuselage of a 727 that crashed on takeoff years ago but scrolling around I don't see it.

 

At 33.568987,-86.733813 there is the fuselage of an older crash that a homeowner has used as a barn for 35 years that I know of.

 

Neal's Fantasy - http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...b2-78ab902b6d2e

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=N+33%C2%B0+3...4+%28GCGRZQ%29+

Edited March 3, 2010 by TheAlabamaRambler

[+DeepButi]

Take a look at the second set of pictures of GC1DZ1F ... and try to find them .

 

I love this one ...

 

[daveindeal]

here is a http://googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=1274&a...018178&z=17]giant asprin[/url] in the desert??

plane doing loop to loop

dog sled team

firefox crop circlecreated by university

narturly formed face in the field

[+Beleman]

Near Frankfurt Airport.

Zoom in!

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Near Frankfurt Airport.

Zoom in!

 

If we could zoom in any further on that one we could probably see the pilot playing Tetris on a laptop.

[+DazeDnFamily]

ok here is one near London Hethrow.

 

the only thing that strange with this one, is that i can only find one plane within mile's but there are 3 shadows on the ground!!

 

last time i looked we only had one sun, so one shadow!!

 

The plane: 51.476331337799664, -0.5196189880371094

 

shadow 1: 51.48060782560928, -0.5229663848876953

shadow 2: 51.47924473865486, -0.531463623046875

shadow 3: 51.47649171332882, -0.5382871627807617

 

OK. This is about to get all geeky about imagery. If you know this stuff, awesome. I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence. Just trying to be informative.

 

Heya. I think what you are seeing is 3 shadows for the same aircraft. The image is a pan-sharpend multispectral image (msi). While it looks like 1 image, it is most likely a composite of 4, and maybe 5 images. You have at least 4 "bands" present. (Think of each band as an image, for the purpose of this discussion.) On the image, there is a red, blue, green and panchromatic (pan - black and white) band. Those all shoot separately, but within a few seconds of each other. To make the image we see on that page, they coregister (merge/blend) the color bands into a multispectral image. They then use the pan image to "pan-sharpen" it to the resolution we see there. As a general rule, the pan : msi resolution ratio is 1 : 4. Meaning, (in this example) the pan shot is ~1 meter, and the msi shot is ~4 meters. (The image at that point is from DigitalGlobe, which tells me it is prolly from Quickbird. The actual resolution is most likely .61 meters for the pan, and 2.4 meters for the msi. I'm pretty sure Google reduces it to 1 meter for the web page. The new Geoeye sat is about .25 meters in the pan, and about 1 meter in the msi.) The "so what" of that is: the stuff on the ground, that doesn't move during the process, tends to register fairly well. (Buildings, etc.) The stuff on the ground that does move, (shadows, cars, etc.) tends not to register well. So, what I think you are seeing is the "ghosting" where the shadow was moving. The one thing that I don't get is why the plane isn't ghosting as well. They may have corrected it, I can't say for sure. Also, the shadows appear to be turning toward the south as they progress, so the angle of the plane may have been easier to deal with, if that makes sense. Earlier I said maybe 5 bands. The 5th band is a near infared (nir) band. It isn't hot enough to discern temperatures, but it is very handy for telling health of vegetation (chlorophyll is reflective in the nir). That's why the color DOQQ's have red trees and grass, for those that have seen them.

 

In case anyone is wondering, I do this for a living. I'm an advanced geospatial intelligence analyst by trade. Fear not. As I've assured others, nothing I'm discussing here is classified. This has been done in the commercial world for years.

 

Hope this was informative, as I intended it to be.

 

Later!

[Rocketsteve]

Thought this was interesting! I was looking for caches for me and my nephew to do when I'm down there and came across something weird/cool!

 

GC1QZNN

 

Then, go to the map (satellite) and zoom in until you are almost on top of it and look to the left of the cache. No, the plane is not on the ground! I thought that was pretty cool! Anyone else see weird things on the map?

 

I found another in-flight plane near GC18V38 and GCPFR5. Based on it's flight direction, I would assume it took off from John Wayne Airport.

[+Too Tall John]

Near Frankfurt Airport. Zoom in!

If we could zoom in any further on that one we could probably see the pilot playing Tetris on a laptop.

Woah! Zoom out! There's 3 planes on the map, looks like they are playing follow the leader. They're all Lufthansa, and they all appear to be the same type of plane, is it another trick of a pan-sharpend multispectral image, as described by DazDnFamily?

[+DazeDnFamily]

Wow! That's a sweet image. I like how you can see the individual rails on the train tracks. I actually think the planes are separate aircraft. I'd like to know the date and time of that shot, and see if I could find out what was up. Kinda odd for a 747 variant to be that close, I'd think. The really interesting thing is that there are 4 shadows on the ground, and only 3 aircraft that I can see. (The shadow on the runway doesn't have an airplane.) Normally, when it's ghosting, you'll see things in different colors (because you see the individual color bands), and it won't be in very sharp focus. Those aircraft are all in true color, and in sharp focus. Like I said, it makes me wonder what's up. Unless that airport is really that busy, those aircraft being that close is odd.

 

As I've said in the DeLorme forums, I've prolly looked at 15,000 images over the last 12 years, and all of them had something interesting on them. Thanks for this one. Those aircraft are definitely interesting.

 

Thanks!

 

Later!

[+Jeep4two]

Near Frankfurt Airport. Zoom in!

If we could zoom in any further on that one we could probably see the pilot playing Tetris on a laptop.

Woah! Zoom out! There's 3 planes on the map, looks like they are playing follow the leader. They're all Lufthansa, and they all appear to be the same type of plane, is it another trick of a pan-sharpend multispectral image, as described by DazDnFamily?

 

I would imagine it's an anomaly as described above. 3 commercial airliners this close together would most likely a) create a huge problem for controllers and likely trigger all sorts of alarms (on the ground and in the cockpit) and probably create real flying problems as they appear to be on the same flight line and surely the turbulence from the leading plane would create at the very least havoc (if not flight ending havoc) for the three planes bringing up the rear.

 

These are still interesting captures. But it does make you think. There are some 3000-4000 commercial aircraft in the sky at almost any moment in the US alone, so you can imagine that statistically this gets to be pretty common with aerial photography.

[7rxc]

Wow! That's a sweet image. I like how you can see the individual rails on the train tracks. I actually think the planes are separate aircraft. I'd like to know the date and time of that shot, and see if I could find out what was up. Kinda odd for a 747 variant to be that close, I'd think. The really interesting thing is that there are 4 shadows on the ground, and only 3 aircraft that I can see. (The shadow on the runway doesn't have an airplane.) Normally, when it's ghosting, you'll see things in different colors (because you see the individual color bands), and it won't be in very sharp focus. Those aircraft are all in true color, and in sharp focus. Like I said, it makes me wonder what's up. Unless that airport is really that busy, those aircraft being that close is odd.

 

 

I noticed the 4th shadow right away as well, for me, the one in the trees took a second.

I was under the impression that Google used mostly non satellite photos, but could be wrong.

If it was aircraft borne camera, and the CP was going in the same direction, something like this might happen with one aircraft... or a satellite for that matter if the timing was right! Who knows? It's still fun to look around at this stuff.

 

edit: more fun... the right most plane has no shadow, I can see, and the left side shadows, no plane!

Doug

Edited March 6, 2010 by 7rxc

[+hofy67]

Look just north of cache GC1JX7T

Same plane twice taking off from O'Hare

[7rxc]

Look just north of cache GC1JX7T

Same plane twice taking off from O'Hare

That was cool... did you notice the other cache...

 

Mexicana GC1V16A behind the tail of the left plane (Mexicana Airlines)

 

Think someone else spotted those planes as well...

 

Doug

[+Isonzo Karst]

 

There was a puzzle cache based on this image in Google earth. Unfortunately, not long after the puzzle was published, Google earth updated their imagery in the area, and no plane! The cache owner had to attach a saved image to the cache page, rendering the puzzle much much easier. Still pretty cool.

[7rxc]

There was a puzzle cache based on this image in Google earth. Unfortunately, not long after the puzzle was published, Google earth updated their imagery in the area, and no plane! The cache owner had to attach a saved image to the cache page, rendering the puzzle much much easier. Still pretty cool.

 

That can be a problem... thanks for pointing out the changing nature of Google use for puzzles...

And about saving any critical pictures just in case. I don't know what cache that was (I'll see if I can figure it out... no hints now... from the pic). I was also just looking at a few places I was considering for a backcountry cache... new GE pics there for 2005 source, replacing older ones... large hunk of mountain now sitting on my chosen site... probably worse now, or better since nothing new would likely fall down on it... but it does make me wonder about going there period... Who knows what's happened recently ( or will happen with this years thaw, which is ongoing now, or soon).

 

edit: Didn't take to long to find WIP... confirmed it as D after from your profile... My eyes are now crossed permanently! They sure have done some work there... still not sure of how much I can pinpoint thru the new growth and extra piles... Not important though. Good enough, since it's Archived... Thanks.

 

Doug

Edited March 8, 2010 by 7rxc