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Google Maps shows sunken car where missing man’s body was found
- justinlink 7y ago[desktop link] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Moon+Bay+Cir,+Wellington,+FL+33414/@26.6250045,-80.2276265,36m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x88d92598b56f512d:0x1674a1e0c3779780!8m2!3d26.6262507!4d-80.2265756 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Moon+Bay+Cir,+Wellington,+... [mobile] https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6249928,-80.227623,23m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6249928,-80.227623,23m/data=... -- thanks to comment below for mobile link.
- graffitici 7y agoI still don't see it! Which part of the pond is it?
- kevinvdburgt 7y agoLooks like at the bottom left.
- herbstein 7y agohttps://imgur.com/KqVaz3M https://imgur.com/KqVaz3M
- autokad 7y agoI think its top left corner of the pond, it seems to be parallel with the edge of the pond
- kevinvdburgt 7y agohttps://goo.gl/maps/hjbE4zw2omNMKn7h9 https://goo.gl/maps/hjbE4zw2omNMKn7h9
- eco 7y agoIt was centered and zoomed in on desktop for me (are you on mobile perhaps?). Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/ZQJMz4c.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ZQJMz4c.jpg
- jandrese 7y agoTop left. For some reason the current image on Google Maps seems to be lower resolution than the screenshot posted to the BBC.
- mongol 7y agoI think different people actually get different images om Google maps..
- twistiti 7y agoI can confirm. They might use your origin account country?
- freedrock87 7y agoI can getting 2 images taken at different times when I am using Firefox or Chrome. The Chrome one seems to be much higher quality.
- thrwawyy48394 7y agoHey Google, is serving a lower-resolution image to Firefox part of leveraging a monopoly against Firefox? Is your legal team fine with that? Is there any legitimate reason anyone could possibly identify for why you would purposefully worsen the experience for a fully compliant browser like Firefox, by lowering the resolution? What does your legal team have to say about this?
- GrayShade 7y agoYou can get the better version in Firefox if you click Globe in the menu on the left.
- thrwawyy48394 7y agothanks. do you work for Google?
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- orblivion 7y agoImpressive that you could identify that as a car, among all the pipes and things.
- giarc 7y agoInteresting that Google doesn't have Streetview available there. I figured most of the populated areas like this would be covered.
- lostmyoldone 7y agoClearly visible in Google Earth: https://earth.app.goo.gl/aiquVv https://earth.app.goo.gl/aiquVv
- dorukane 7y agoMuch better than google maps
- squarefoot 7y agoThe single thread WASM beta version appears to work perfectly on Waterfox (the multithread version loads data then sits there doing nothing). Not the fastest thing around but useable and noticeably better than maps.
- jraph 7y ago"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." Ah ah! Quite incredibly and sadly spot on.
- gefh 7y agoAre you complaining that Google maps uses JavaScript?
- jraph 7y agoNo, Google Maps is actually a case where JavaScript makes sense. But this message reminded me of many seemingly static pages that are actually blank if you don't enable JavaScript, without even any hint that you should enable JavaScript. Reader mode often works perfectly on these pages. Sometimes, blocking the white element hiding the content of the page works well too. I don't hate JavaScript, I have actually developed several web applications using it, and like it.
- jlarocco 7y agoI'll complain that Firefox isn't supported. Google is the worst.
- tejtm 7y agowe must be using different blockers, I see: Aw snap! Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet. Try this link in Chrome instead. If you don't have Chrome installed, download it here. Or if you're feeling adventurous, you can preview a cross-browser beta of Earth built on WebAssembly.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zaroth 7y agoThe 3D view looks so comically dystopian. The distorted effect makes everything look mangled. On the other side of the pond, about 4 houses down... the backyard looks burned out and the pool is drained and bloodstained. This is like /r/writingprompt/
- Benjammer 7y agoWhat is up with that red spot in that empty pool for real though? There's a truck parked out front with the door open, obviously people are working on the back yard in general, but what in the world would that red spot even be? Bing maps shows the backyard done and the pooled filled and normal-blue-looking.
- dwighttk 7y agoyeah, weird. Apple 2D shows completed pool, 3D shows backyard before the pool was started. Must be construction or something.
- rdiddly 7y agoIn some areas the soil has a lot of iron in it and looks reddish (like rust-colored literally). But I'm not sure whether this is one of those areas, and also the particular shade of red here seems a bit more vivid than just rusty-red!
- dmix 7y agoIt could just be a tarp or a toy that melted. Pools always attract a lot of dirt and insects. Without constant maintenance it will look discoloured pretty quickly. There's also construction-looking vehicles parked out front of these house so it's probably under renovation.
- jessaustin 7y agoDogfights. Empty pools are ideal venues. Handlers back up to the walls, spectators can see over their heads, and it's easy to clean up...
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- pleatedwaffle 7y agoNow if only it could start giving me directions without having to click on 7 different buttons.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y agoNevermind it being visible on google maps since 2007... Imagine being the homeowner who had no idea a corpse was decomposing steps from his own backyard for the past 22 years... or that a car was in the pond behind your house. People really need to get out more often.
- brink 7y agoCould you imagine going out for a simple swim, diving down for fun, and stumbling across a car with a rotting corpse in it? There's the reason why I don't like swimming in deep water.
- jonknee 7y agoIt's a man made pond in Florida, it's not deep at all. Definitely not something you'd swim in though, lots of funky stuff grows in warm stagnant water like that, plus ever present alligators.
- vonseel 7y agoLots of funky stuff. Don’t let your dogs swim in those ponds either.
- scrumper 7y agoVisiting friends in Florida recently, they warned our kids not to go in the landscaped pond in their development (it had a beach). I asked if snakes were a danger. They laughed, not in the least: the real problem was flesh-eating amoebae.
- phkahler 7y agoYou mean brain eating amoebas right?
- outworlder 7y agoThere is brain eating amoebas and flesh eating bacteria. You pick.
- goda90 7y ago>Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office told the BBC that Mr Moldt is presumed to have lost control of his vehicle and driven into the pond. >The force said that, during the initial investigation into his disappearance, there was "no evidence of that occurring" until recently, when a shift in the water made the car visible. I'm surprised that no one saw signs of a car going off the road back when he went missing. In the image the car is quite far from the road suggesting a lot of momentum as it went into the pond.
- justinlink 7y agoit was a construction site during the time of the accident. Tire tracks in grass (if he tried to stop at all) wouldn't be as out of place.
- scintill76 7y agohttp://charleyproject.org/case/william-earl-moldt http://charleyproject.org/case/william-earl-moldt says it was under construction at the time. Maybe nobody lived there.
- scarmig 7y agoI wonder how hard it would be to scan ingested maps for interesting submerged structures, and also roughly how many cars would turn up if it's feasible. I'd guess... O(100)?
- castis 7y agoId be relatively surprised that this isn't already a thing.
- TravHatesMe 7y agoInteresting thought but uneducated guess. I bet IR scans could help, similar to how they are discovering ancient cities buried deep in the jungle.
- themodelplumber 7y agoSpace-based radar is also available which provides views of metal content as an intelligence product. Brighter parts of the image = more metal. I'm not sure if it's commercially available but it would sure help to find cars in shallow water...
- 7952 7y agoThere is a lot of other metal in shallow water though. Just think about rubbish, buoys, marker posts for utilities, boats, sewer outfalls, gratings etc.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoPresumably Google, or their contractee, are scanning with other frequency ranges (IR, UV) when they do visual photography for Google Maps. So any companies make this kind of imagery data available free; I'd be interested to see some.
- 7952 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dwighttk 7y agoalso visible in Apple Maps. Definitely in 3D, but only just in 2D. I.e. in 2D at maximum zoom there is a light spot where the car was. 3D lets you zoom in closer, and you can see the rear end of a car even more clearly than the picture in the article. 3D: https://www.ianitor.com/img/3dcar.png https://www.ianitor.com/img/3dcar.png 2D: https://www.ianitor.com/img/2dcar.png https://www.ianitor.com/img/2dcar.png
- dwighttk 7y agoIf you go to https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer [1] their resolution isn't great (can't see the car), but you can see that in 1999 (~2 years after his disappearance) they were still building houses there... ~2 years before (1995) that area was orchards or farmland. [1]I used 3789 Moon Bay Cir Wellington, FL 33414 United States
- emmelaich 7y agoNote that it wasn't _found_ with Google maps, it's just that you can see it. From the article .. > *it was a neighbour who reported the sunken car and was not aware of reports that Google Maps had been used."
- albedoa 7y agoThe second part of that sentence fragment is referring to the police spokeswoman.
- dwighttk 7y ago>[Police spokeswoman] Barbera said it was a neighbour[sic] who reported the sunken car and was not aware of reports that Google Maps had been used.
- ndidi 7y agosic? it's spelled neighbour in British English Yeah, I know you are just baiting me.
- GistNoesis 7y agoLast month, I noticed there was a sign not well fixed over the road. So when I arrived home, I reported it to the appropriate authorities through a web interface. And doing so, to pinpoint it for the repair guys, I noticed that the precise sign was available to be seen via street-view. I was even able using the time-travel feature to notice that it has been dangling for more than two years. Probably running anomaly detection on all road-signs all over the world, you could prevent a certain number of accident each year. The deeper question behind this, is what should have been done by those who have the info and didn't act ? Once you start running anomaly detection on data how do you navigate the ethical minefield that ensue.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago>Once you start running anomaly detection on data how do you navigate the ethical minefield that ensue. Where's the minefield? Just release it all publicly, and offer municipalities private services if they want you to really have a go at their signs.
- GistNoesis 7y agoWell depending on the pricing of the API there are plenty of low revenue services that can't be run profitably. So depending on the pricing of the API, you let accidents happen. Or even worse, depending on whether or not the municipality is rich enough to buy your services you let them happen or not (even though the poorer the city the more likely it is that they already have maintenance issues). There are plenty other things you may notice on street-view, like dangerous/illegal behaviors, pot-holes, even finding cars in lake can have an impact of property value. Reporting anything is probably a legal or PR risk because of the unknown ramifications so you end-up doing nothing and the accidents happens, yet no-one can hope to offer a better service because it doesn't make economical sense because of the existing service tailored to another usage of the data. That's not an easy problem but that's one which is at the heart of all-data related business. For example, when you have access to plenty of face pictures with flash you may notice some medical issues with eyes, obviously this is a valuable information for the health insurer, and also to the user.
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- georgedotin 7y agoThis is unbelievable.
- aazaa 7y ago> "Amazingly, a vehicle had plainly [been] visible on a Google Earth satellite photo of the area since 2007, but apparently no-one had noticed it until 2019," according to the report. This sounds like a job for machine learning. Are there any systematic efforts underway to use Google Earth to search for out-of-place objects?
- tanilama 7y agoI don't think Google would even attempt to do this, at least not in a high profile public fashion. Google is watching your backyard from above seems like a PR disaster to its already troubled image.
- journalctl 7y agoI imagine the amount of bodies of water with cars clearly visible from space but not shore is too small to make it worth investigating.
- paxys 7y agoFYI most of Google's "satellite view" images aren't actually taken from space but by airplanes.
- DogOnTheWeb 7y agoThat's actually an amazing fact I'd never heard before. I would love to read more about that operation.
- devb 7y agoI see them in my area on flightradar24, running very consistent grids like this one: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pattern-Cover-1170x429.jpg https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/0...
- shantly 7y agoThat's where Microsoft's old TerraServer got their stuff, too, IIRC, which is the first place I remember seeing anything like that online. Wasn't that much worse than Google's version, really, considering how much earlier it was. I think my parents had an aerial photo of their land a few years before even TerraServer was came around, from some guy who'd flown over a big chunk of territory taking photos and then sold them to the land owners. I assume this was far from the only person doing that, all over the US. Pretty cool back then, when a clear shot from the air of the area you lived in wasn't something you could grab at a computer any time you wanted, or with a cheapish drone and a few spare minutes. And before everyone else could creep on your space in the same manner on a whim, for that matter.
- mikey_p 7y agoThis same story has happened before, in Michigan, when a worker putting christmas lights on a nearby tree noticed a car in a pond from their raised vantage point. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/car-with-body-of-man-missing-9-years-visible-on-google-maps_n_5645f5e4e4b045bf3deead62 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/car-with-body-of-man-missing-...
- _maverick_ 7y agoI wonder how many other cases like this can be solved with an image recognition based AI scraping the rest of Google Maps out there.. anyone on here interested in collab on that?
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoI suppose it would need more context than just image recognition. There may be lots of sunken cars with no bodies or no unsolved case.
- _maverick_ 7y agoYou could just send an automated email to the local police departments based off of sunken car ZIP code from long/lat data. And let them decide.
- droithomme 7y agoI've found and reported obviously problematic submerged items on Google Maps on a few occasions. No one is interested. Now I just share them with my friends.
- libraryatnight 7y agoyou should post them on a blog or make a subreddit or something. This comment section would seem to indicate people love looking at weird stuff on Google Maps.
- rdiddly 7y agoSo if a whole car can stay hidden for 22 years, that tells me that in those 22 years, nobody swam or fished nearby. The aerial photo makes it obvious the whole subdivision is intercut with ponds that are obviously man-made, and they look stagnant, nasty & sad. Probably also full of pesticide & herbicide runoff(t). Everybody in the subdivision probably tells their kids to stay out of the ponds. "That's what the pool is for honey! Ponds are for poor people!" I wish Kate Wagner (mcmansionhell.com) was here.
- justinlink 7y agoIt's Florida though. It's more of a swamp than a pond. Very likely it does not have fish, but might have snakes and the occasional alligator.
- rdiddly 7y agoGators! I'm smiling at the thought.
- KingMachiavelli 7y agoI'm very curious why anyone would want a mosquito invested swamp/pond in their back yard. I guess it must be a Florida thing.
- devb 7y agoThey don't look that stagnant to me? Each one seems to have multiple inlet/outlet pipes, and the next pond over has an aerating fountain. If they were truly stagnant the car wouldn't be visible.
- sjukfan 7y agoI thought the whole idea of Pokémon go was for people to go check map oddities like that?
- werber 7y agoI wonder if they could could programmatically scan all bodies of water for submerged vehicles
- furyofantares 7y agoCaptcha of the future: Which of these photos contains the answer to an unsolved mystery?
- ptaipale 7y agoOT, but looking at this neighbourhood, it's not surprising that there's trouble when a hurricane comes.
- epigramx 7y agoLet alone Cthulhu is on a pond https://i.imgur.com/CbgqpkF.png https://i.imgur.com/CbgqpkF.png