--- title: Amazing Things People Found on Google Maps description: "Type in an address, drop the little yellow man, and suddenly you're there — wherever 'there' happens to be. That's the magic of Google Maps and Street View. But when you give the internet a window onto every street, field, and ice-covered ridge on the planet, you also give it the chance to spot the truly unexpected. We're talking mystery villages that never existed, tanks-that-aren't-tanks worshipped as holy relics, Antarctic 'bunkers,' and pranks elaborate enough to warrant police attention.\n\nSome finds turn out to be simple glitches. Others… well, let's just say the explanations are as strange as the images themselves. What started as a navigation tool has become the world's biggest accidental scavenger hunt — and today, we're sharing the wildest treasures ever discovered from the comfort of a sofa.\n\n## The Tonk\n\nMonuments to fallen soldiers usually inspire quiet respect, not internet hysteria. But then again, most war memorials aren't the size of a Fiat 500 and accidentally labelled as a religious shrine. Enter the Tonk — and no, we didn't misspeak there, we did say Tonk, not tank.\n\nIts rise to fame began when bemused Redditors — particularly those from the World of Tanks and War Thunder crowd — stumbled across the listing and immediately started cooing over it. They then dubbed it 'The Tonk,' a cute name for an apparently cute little contraption, and the name stuck.\n\nSoon, pranksters were flocking to its Google Maps page to pay tongue-in-cheek homage, leaving many five-star reviews extolling the Tonk's divine powers and holy ambience. Highlights included:\n\n> \"I live as Tonk said, I believe in Tonk.\"\n\n> \"I pray to the almighty Tonk to relieve me of my bone hurting after I overdosed on bone hurting juice, one day later, and my bones were filled with the many happies! All praise the Tonk.\"\n\n> \"I walk the path of The Tonk, it's more than just a shrine, it's a lifestyle. I love The Tonk and I cannot wait for the day I make my holy pilgrimage to it.\"\n\nAnd that, pretty much, is it for the Tonk itself. It's a little mini tank that went viral after being spotted on Google Maps — there really isn't that much to say. Although, because we are nerds for this kind of thing, we are able to tell you what it actually is: it's made using the M19 Commander Cupola from an M60 Patton tank — likely an M60A1 given that Italy fielded 300 of that model specifically — with its original M2 .50 calibre machine gun having been swapped out for a dummy cannon. The rest of it, i.e. the two road wheels and whatever length of track it has, they both come from an M60 as well, likely the same one that had its commander's cupola pinched.\n\nAs for who made it, and how did it get outside of that memorial? Internet sleuths have spent a lot of time pondering those very questions, and they always reach the exact same verdict: we just don't know. There is an unconfirmed but credible enough sounding story that it was commissioned as an art piece back in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, and then just left there owing to its weight, much to the chagrin of local motorists who kept hitting it. But keyword there, unconfirmed — we just don't know for sure.\n\nSadly though, all good memes must come to an end — and the Tonk is no exception. In October 2022, the Google Street View car passed by once again, and it was gone — with construction site fencing taking the place of a legend.\n\nFor devout Tonkists — praise be — this was a dark day. Who took the Tonk?! Conspiracy theories swirled: Did a disgruntled local get sick of random tourists flocking to it and request it be taken down? Had someone simply stuck it into the back of a Transit Van and made off into the night? Or had it been called back up to heaven?\n\nActually, none of those things. Turns out that the whole memorial was just being spruced up, Tonk included, and as of the time of writing, it's back, looking smarter than ever. A smidge anticlimactic perhaps as far as endings go — but no doubt a great relief to all the Tonkists out there who have yet to make their pilgrimage.\n\nOh, and if you want to see it for yourself, it's in Saviano — just outside of Naples!\n\n## The Non-Existent Village\n\nIf you tried to visit the British village of Argleton in 2008, you'd end up stuck in the middle of a muddy field, looking like a bit of a tit.\n\nWhy? Because Argleton did not exist. This 'Bermuda Triangle of West Lancashire' was first spotted by a chap named Mike Nolan, a university web manager and local resident. He was having a mooch about his local area on Google Maps one day, as you do, and saw 'Argleton' labeled in a familiar area, and basically went, \"Eh?\"\n\nHe then donned his wellies and went to go and investigate the matter for himself, sure enough finding only an empty field beside the A59 road. From there, he blogged about it, a local news channel sent out a bloke in a van to film a quick segment on it, and Lancashire writ large went \"Ooooh, weird,\" as they watched the 6:30 news over their tea… and then immediately forgot about it.\n\nOutwardly, not the most exciting event ever to befall Man, we'd be the first to admit, but it does spark a very interesting question: how could Google Maps, for all of its high-tech kit and normally fastidious attention to detail, manage to make such a monumental cock up?\n\nOne theory was that it was a simple typo — maybe a cartographer meant to type \"Aughton\" and somehow coughed up \"Argleton\" instead. The two names are tantalisingly similar after all. Another theory posits it was a deliberate so-called 'copyright trap.' You see, mapmakers have a long, sneaky history of planting fake towns or streets to catch plagiarists. If a competitor's map also contains your fake place, aha — they copied you, phone the lawyers and start planning an early retirement!\n\nGoogle stayed mostly mum on the matter though, saying only that their map data has occasional errors. The data in this case came from Tele Atlas, a Dutch company, which was equally flummoxed, and never gave an official explanation.\n\nWhatever the problem was, however, it was eventually fixed, as come mid-2010, it had been removed — thus ending the nail-biting tale.\n\n## The Antarctic Doorway\n\nIn early 2024, map enjoyers on Reddit spotted something bizarre on a desolate ridge in East Antarctica: a huge, dark door-shaped shadow on the snowy slope, looking for all the world like an entrance to… well, something. A massive secret bunker? An alien base? The gateway to the Hollow Earth? Whatever it was, they dubbed it the 'Antarctic Doorway,' and naturally, tinfoil hats were donned Reddit-wide.\n\nThe location of this supposed door was about as remote as it gets — near Antarctica's Queen Maud Land coast, not far from the Japanese Showa Research Station, which itself is tiny and rather isolated.\n\nHelpfully, the Reddit user also posted the coordinates so others could see the anomaly for themselves, and sure enough, on Google Maps' satellite view, there was a peculiar rectangular shadow on a hillside, roughly the size of a large building. In an environment of endless white and grey, this certainly stood out.\n\nReactions abounded: \"Could be an underground base entrance. Could be nothing. Excellent find either way.\" Others joked it was Bigfoot's vacation home or the door from *Monsters, Inc.* where Mike and Sulley got banished to the Himalayas.\n\nA few killjoys even started making 'sensible' suggestions, like it being a blown-off airplane hatch, or simply just a random crevasse.\n\nFortunately, this did nothing to dissuade those who weren't allergic to fun, and so more and more out-there suggestions started appearing: some tied it to the old myth of a secret Nazi bunker in Antarctica — an enduring trope since WWII. Or maybe it was an extraterrestrial hangar? After all, the internet had a field day with a so-called 'Antarctica pyramid' in 2016 — where a mountain vaguely shaped like a pyramid got people buzzing about ancient aliens… and now we had a door to go with that pyramid.\n\nEventually, however, with the story doing the rounds on social media and legacy media alike, actual scientists soon stepped in to set the record straight.\n\nOne of them, Professor Bethan Davies, a glaciologist, pulled historical satellite imagery in Google Earth Pro and immediately popped the bubble: it was just an iceberg. A really, *really* big rectangular-ish iceberg that got wedged against the coast and stuck in place, causing a straight-edged shadow in the snow. As evidence, she pointed to nearby chunks of ice, basically all of which showed the exact same patterns. So yeah — between all the wrinkles atop her brain, her expertise in her field, and the easily verified evidence, it's not a conclusion one can disagree with — however much we may want to deep inside.\n\nAnother expert, Professor Martin Siegert, took the explanation further still, and pointed out that that area has fast-moving ice floes around some shallow, rocky islands, and when an iceberg freezes in such conditions, snow drifts pile up leeward of it, making those weird sharp lines — nothing alien, just Mother Nature doing geometry.\n\nAnd to top it off, a volcanologist named Professor John Smellie then chimed in and described the features: a rocky ridge poking up (the 'top' of the doorway), and two parallel snow ridges formed by wind (the 'sides' of the doorway). Add a low sun angle for dramatic shadow, and voilà: spooky ice door illusion. In his words, it's a \"weak and totally false door-like appearance overall.\" Translation: take it down to two guys, it clearly ain't a Door to the Underworld no matter how much you may want it to be.\n\nAnd indeed, once you look closer, the magic does evaporate rather. The supposed doorway has no depth; it's not an actual hole or entry — just a shaded area on a slope. The surrounding context shows other ice blocks and drifts that put the anomaly in perspective. In plain terms, it's one big optical gotcha. No secret bunker for the evil moustache man, no UFO base, no vacation home for Bigfoot. Just a natural phenomenon, and nothing to get excited about.\n\nAnd while certainly disappointing, as reality often is, it's a textbook example of apophenia if nothing else — seeing meaningful patterns where none exist.\n\n## Nothing to See Here, Move Along\n\nZoom in on certain spots in Google Maps, and you might think your internet is glitching — big blurry blocks, pixelated patches, or just conspicuous blank areas. Nope, it's not your Wi-Fi. Google sometimes censors locations at the behest of governments and their militaries, resulting in a global patchwork of mystery zones. Please keep your arms inside the vehicle as we peek at some of these secretive and bizarrely blurred sites!\n\nOur first stop: Israel. Until recently, if you tried to get a close-up of, say, downtown Tel Aviv or the hills of the West Bank, Google would serve you potato-quality images. Turns out, a U.S. law — the Kyl–Bingaman Amendment — forced online maps to cap resolution that way for security reasons. And for years, as a result, much of the region was intentionally blurry — the largest single area on Google Earth under such restriction.\n\nThat rule was eased in 2020, and yet, as of the time of writing, much of the imagery there still only has an amount of pixels you could count on your fingers, and it's done in a way that doesn't necessarily scream sense.\n\nConsider Kiryat Menachem, a neighbourhood in South West Jerusalem — it is still displayed in very low resolution, but then head a mile to the East to Beit Safafa, and it's in perfectly clear modern detail. Initially — because we picked this spot at random — we thought this might be down to the '1949 Armistice Border' that lies between them — the ceasefire boundary established between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War — especially given that both were photographed at the same time, May 2024.\n\nBut then we scrolled further south, and the town of Aderet and village of al Dayr are both displayed perfectly clearly, despite them both also being separated by that same line — so clearly it isn't down to that either.\n\nUltimately, we don't have a clue why. Every source we could find while searching for an answer didn't address the specific ins and outs of where is and isn't blurred nowadays and why, and instead just discussed the general circumstances that led to some of them being that way… so your guess is as good as ours!\n\nMoving on from Israel now though, because many other countries have given Google a stern finger-wagging over the years, and ordered that certain installations be blurred or entirely erased.\n\nThe Netherlands, for example, had a real penchant for pixelation. The royal family's Noordeinde Palace in The Hague was once blurred into oblivion on Google Maps, as was Volkel Air Base — site of an American nuclear weapons repository — as well as a nearby NATO communications centre, with all three of them appearing as a very obvious patchwork of earth-coloured pixels up until 2016, when a change of law in the country allowed them to be properly displayed.\n\nThe reasons for this are obvious enough: national security. Although, as the change in law clearly shows, the Dutch Government evidently takes a more liberal view on the matter nowadays.\n\nThe Dutch, however, are not the only ones in Europe to have covered things up so, as the French still do so to this very day, with parts of Paris — the Palais de l'Alma, an official residence, and La Santé Prison — still being pixelated to this very day.\n\nAnnoyingly, however, the exact specifics of why this is the case remain elusive — obviously it's national security related, but the full details of 'X Minister said Y to Z that made it happen,' nada. The only thing we could find on the matter at all was reporting from back in 2018 that discussed the French Government specifically asking for prisons to be censored, after Redoine Faid, a convicted murderer who had been dubbed the 'Jailbreak King,' broke out of a prison near Paris after some of his pals pinched a helicopter and flew it into the courtyard.\n\nBy going back through old maps though, we also found that Tours Val de Loire Airport did used to be uncensored, before it was pixelated in 2016, two years before, and totally unrelated to, the censoring of prisons — a state which it remains in to this day. So, from this alone, and in the absence of more conclusive evidence, we're inclined to believe that the French government simply demands Google to censor specific things on an as and when, case by case basis.\n\nNot every pixelated patch of ground in Europe is due to cloak and dagger international man of mystery naughtiness, however. Sometimes it's just a technical foul-up, as Spain's 'mystery square' in El Ejido can vouch.\n\nFor years, this lot showed up as a pixelated tan square on Google Maps. Everything around it — mostly greenhouses and farms — was clear as day, but this one plot? Redacted. When first spotted, rumours abounded online that it contained a military helipad, or the entrance to some kind of secret government facility — claims that proved rather puzzling to the locals, as they knew it only as a patch of dirt occupied only by a few trees.\n\nEventually, however, around 2013, Google updated the imagery and the blur was gone, revealing… bugger all. There was no secret entrance to Dr Evil's lair, no ultra-classified NATO nuclear silo, nothing — just as the locals had been pointing out for years. Like we say, sometimes it's just a technical foul-up.\n\nSometimes, though, the censorship can also be personal, because fun fact: if you're rich or powerful enough, you can ask Google to blur your house — and they will.\n\nCase in point: the mansion of Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller in Russia was deliberately blurred on Google Maps — or rather, it was, because after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google decided it actually didn't care about respecting his privacy all that much, and stopped bothering to censor it in future updates.\n\nAnd occasionally, it's not state secrets, technical glitches, or VIP paranoia behind the blur — sometimes, it's just basic human decency. Case in point: the site of the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash in the French Alps. On the 24th of March 2015, the plane tragically slammed into a remote mountainside, killing all 150 people onboard. Just one day later, a satellite image of the crash site was taken — while recovery teams were still on the ground. Yet if you headed to the coordinates when it was updated, what you would have seen wouldn't be a detailed snapshot of the wreckage, but an oddly blurred or scrubbed section of landscape. Google, for obvious reasons, took it upon themselves to do this without any prompt or pushing from an external agency, and frankly, it was nothing if not a respectful and good call on their part.\n\n## Smile, You're on Street View!\n\nBe real folks, when you see a Google Street View car, certain devilish voices appear in the back of your psyche, don't they? Voices that — rightly so we might add — point out what fantastic fun it'd be to drop your skids and present your cheeks as it passes by, to present the other side and set about windmilling. Or maybe, even more simply, to just whip up your opinion finger in its direction and give it a good old wobble about.\n\nFor most of us, however, such compulsions remain mere niggles in our minds, impulses that however much we may wish to, we would never act upon. Key word there though, most, because there exist people among us who are braver, stronger, and, frankly, better, than us mere mortals… and they surrender themselves gladly to their impulses.\n\nPoint in case, this guy in Munich, this guy in Brisbane, and this lady in Paris — although do note, we haven't forgotten to include pictures of the other sorts — the pants down ones — because we happen to be rather partial to food and shelter here, and so we'd prefer it if the video didn't get demonetised.\n\nBeyond mere individual acts of cheekiness, however, some folks up the stakes even further and plan full-on pranks for the Street View car, one of the earliest being 'Horse Boy.' As you can see from the picture, that is nothing if not an apt description; because it's a kid, in a horse mask… and that's about it.\n\nAnd because internet culture was a bit… tamer back in those days, the image went viral, and 'Horse Boy' became a viral superstar for a time — a juggernaut of a man whose stature among the locals was matched only by Scotland's greatest sons and daughters — the poet Robert Burns, the great war leader William Wallace, the guy who invented Irn Bru, people like that.\n\nNot to be outdone, a group of Japanese pranksters known via Daily Portal Z orchestrated the 'Human Pigeon' incident. When they learned the Google car was coming through Tokyo's Mitaka neighbourhood, they mobilised. The result: Street View images of an entire posse of people wearing giant pigeon masks, nonchalantly hanging out by the road.\n\nThen there's the legendary Fake Murder Prank, which again, occurred in Scotland. It happened when two mechanics in Edinburgh decided their time for greatness had come when they spotted the Street View car approaching their garage. With only seconds to act, one of them lay on the ground while the other grabbed a pickaxe handle and stood over him ominously. Then, the Street View camera dutifully captured what looked like a brutal axe murder in progress.\n\nThe image went unnoticed for a while — until a year later, when someone saw it online and called the police. Cue a real police investigation, only for the cops to head to the scene, and become baffled when they discovered the supposedly dismembered 'victim' elbow deep in a Volkswagen Beetle. Google, for their part, and because they're allergic to fun, eventually updated the images, but not before \"Street View axe murder\" had become a viral sensation.\n\nAnd then, along a similar vein, there's the things that people don't intend to have recorded.\n\nTake a now infamous case from Peru. There, in 2013, a man casually browsing Street View noticed a familiar silhouette on a park bench in Lima — his girlfriend (later wife), arm around another man, leaning into him affectionately. Despite her face being blurred, he recognized her clothes, posture, the bag at her feet. Confronted with the truth, she admitted to the affair — and their marriage then collapsed.\n\nThen there's the case from Groningen in the Netherlands, circa 2008. There, a 14-year-old boy was mugged — only the crime scene was caught by Google's camera rolling past at that exact moment. The image, showing the thieves approaching behind him, surfaced months later. No witnesses, no CCTV — just that Street View frame. It was enough for Dutch police to identify and arrest the twin brothers responsible, making it one of the first crimes solved thanks to a Google car.\n\nElsewhere, Google's lens froze mortifying and humiliating moments also: a man in Mexico squeezing a fat one out back in 2020, a man in London in 2009 spewing up his Christmas cheer after he hit the ale big style at the office party, and a South African chap doing a runner after bolting the fence at Carletonville Prison — still donned in his orange jumpsuit.\n\nAnd that's the beauty — and absolute danger — of Street View, really. You never quite know when it's watching, or what it's going to catch. Could be a prank. Could be a crime. Could be your unfortunate post-pint stride of pride caught in immortal 360°. Google set out to map the world, and what it accidentally did was catalogue the weirdest bits of humanity — pants down, fingers up, guts out, and dignity nowhere to be seen. So next time you see that weird little car with the periscope sticking out the top, maybe pause and think: do you want to be famous? Or do you want to be Street View famous? Because only one of those ends with you windmilling the internet for eternity.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Google Maps and Street View have revealed unexpected and mysterious locations, from non-existent villages to peculiar structures.\n- The 'Tonk,' a small tank-like structure, gained internet fame and was worshipped as a holy relic by pranksters.\n- The 'Antarctic Doorway' was debunked by scientists as a large iceberg casting a shadow, not a secret bunker.\n- Governments and individuals request Google to blur sensitive locations, leading to a global patchwork of mystery zones.\n- Google Street View has captured both humorous pranks and serious crimes, showcasing the unpredictable nature of public behavior.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What is the Tonk?\n\nThe Tonk is a small monument resembling a tank, made using the M19 Commander Cupola from an M60 Patton tank. It gained internet fame after being spotted on Google Maps and was dubbed 'The Tonk' by Redditors.\n\n### Where is the Tonk located?\n\nThe Tonk is located in Saviano, just outside of Naples.\n\n### What is the story behind the non-existent village of Argleton?\n\nArgleton was a village that appeared on Google Maps but did not actually exist. It was first spotted by Mike Nolan in 2008, who found only an empty field in its place. The error was eventually corrected by mid-2010.\n\n### What was the 'Antarctic Doorway'?\n\nThe 'Antarctic Doorway' was a shadow on a snowy slope in East Antarctica that resembled a large door. It was actually a rectangular iceberg wedged against the coast, causing a straight-edged shadow.\n\n### Why are some locations blurred on Google Maps?\n\nSome locations are blurred on Google Maps due to censorship at the behest of governments and militaries for security reasons. For example, certain areas in Israel were intentionally blurry until a U.S. law was eased in 2020.\n\n### What is the 'Horse Boy' incident?\n\nThe 'Horse Boy' incident involved a child wearing a horse mask who was captured by Google Street View. The image went viral, making 'Horse Boy' a brief internet sensation.\n\n### How did Google Street View help solve a crime in the Netherlands?\n\nIn Groningen, the Netherlands, a 14-year-old boy was mugged, and the crime scene was captured by Google Street View. The image helped Dutch police identify and arrest the twin brothers responsible.\n\n### What happened with the 'Fake Murder Prank' in Scotland?\n\nTwo mechanics in Edinburgh staged a fake murder scene for the Google Street View car. The image went unnoticed until a year later when someone called the police, leading to a real investigation.\n\n### Why was the Gazprom CEO's mansion blurred on Google Maps?\n\nThe mansion of Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller was blurred on Google Maps at his request. However, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google stopped censoring it in future updates.\n\n### What was the 'Human Pigeon' incident in Tokyo?\n\nA group of Japanese pranksters wore giant pigeon masks and were captured by Google Street View in Tokyo's Mitaka neighborhood. The image became a viral sensation.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: Amazing Things People Found on Google Maps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns3LUV5lk_w)\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/amazing-things-people-found-on-google-maps.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/amazing-things-people-found-on-google-maps datePublished: 2026-06-25 dateModified: 2026-06-25 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/ns3LUV5lk_w/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 7c0afeba2fd274a996879d47f3fc4394bd0d0aee4fd89e987ae3da984b96ce0e tokens: 6261 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/amazing-things-people-found-on-google-maps.md.summary.md --- Type in an address, drop the little yellow man, and suddenly you're there — wherever 'there' happens to be. That's the magic of Google Maps and Street View. But when you give the internet a window onto every street, field, and ice-covered ridge on the planet, you also give it the chance to spot the truly unexpected. We're talking mystery villages that never existed, tanks-that-aren't-tanks worshipped as holy relics, Antarctic 'bunkers,' and pranks elaborate enough to warrant police attention. Some finds turn out to be simple glitches. Others… well, let's just say the explanations are as strange as the images themselves. What started as a navigation tool has become the world's biggest accidental scavenger hunt — and today, we're sharing the wildest treasures ever discovered from the comfort of a sofa. ## The Tonk Monuments to fallen soldiers usually inspire quiet respect, not internet hysteria. But then again, most war memorials aren't the size of a Fiat 500 and accidentally labelled as a religious shrine. Enter the Tonk — and no, we didn't misspeak there, we did say Tonk, not tank. Its rise to fame began when bemused Redditors — particularly those from the World of Tanks and War Thunder crowd — stumbled across the listing and immediately started cooing over it. They then dubbed it 'The Tonk,' a cute name for an apparently cute little contraption, and the name stuck. Soon, pranksters were flocking to its Google Maps page to pay tongue-in-cheek homage, leaving many five-star reviews extolling the Tonk's divine powers and holy ambience. Highlights included: > "I live as Tonk said, I believe in Tonk." > "I pray to the almighty Tonk to relieve me of my bone hurting after I overdosed on bone hurting juice, one day later, and my bones were filled with the many happies! All praise the Tonk." > "I walk the path of The Tonk, it's more than just a shrine, it's a lifestyle. I love The Tonk and I cannot wait for the day I make my holy pilgrimage to it." And that, pretty much, is it for the Tonk itself. It's a little mini tank that went viral after being spotted on Google Maps — there really isn't that much to say. Although, because we are nerds for this kind of thing, we are able to tell you what it actually is: it's made using the M19 Commander Cupola from an M60 Patton tank — likely an M60A1 given that Italy fielded 300 of that model specifically — with its original M2 .50 calibre machine gun having been swapped out for a dummy cannon. The rest of it, i.e. the two road wheels and whatever length of track it has, they both come from an M60 as well, likely the same one that had its commander's cupola pinched. As for who made it, and how did it get outside of that memorial? Internet sleuths have spent a lot of time pondering those very questions, and they always reach the exact same verdict: we just don't know. There is an unconfirmed but credible enough sounding story that it was commissioned as an art piece back in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, and then just left there owing to its weight, much to the chagrin of local motorists who kept hitting it. But keyword there, unconfirmed — we just don't know for sure. Sadly though, all good memes must come to an end — and the Tonk is no exception. In October 2022, the Google Street View car passed by once again, and it was gone — with construction site fencing taking the place of a legend. For devout Tonkists — praise be — this was a dark day. Who took the Tonk?! Conspiracy theories swirled: Did a disgruntled local get sick of random tourists flocking to it and request it be taken down? Had someone simply stuck it into the back of a Transit Van and made off into the night? Or had it been called back up to heaven? Actually, none of those things. Turns out that the whole memorial was just being spruced up, Tonk included, and as of the time of writing, it's back, looking smarter than ever. A smidge anticlimactic perhaps as far as endings go — but no doubt a great relief to all the Tonkists out there who have yet to make their pilgrimage. Oh, and if you want to see it for yourself, it's in Saviano — just outside of Naples! ## The Non-Existent Village If you tried to visit the British village of Argleton in 2008, you'd end up stuck in the middle of a muddy field, looking like a bit of a tit. Why? Because Argleton did not exist. This 'Bermuda Triangle of West Lancashire' was first spotted by a chap named Mike Nolan, a university web manager and local resident. He was having a mooch about his local area on Google Maps one day, as you do, and saw 'Argleton' labeled in a familiar area, and basically went, "Eh?" He then donned his wellies and went to go and investigate the matter for himself, sure enough finding only an empty field beside the A59 road. From there, he blogged about it, a local news channel sent out a bloke in a van to film a quick segment on it, and Lancashire writ large went "Ooooh, weird," as they watched the 6:30 news over their tea… and then immediately forgot about it. Outwardly, not the most exciting event ever to befall Man, we'd be the first to admit, but it does spark a very interesting question: how could Google Maps, for all of its high-tech kit and normally fastidious attention to detail, manage to make such a monumental cock up? One theory was that it was a simple typo — maybe a cartographer meant to type "Aughton" and somehow coughed up "Argleton" instead. The two names are tantalisingly similar after all. Another theory posits it was a deliberate so-called 'copyright trap.' You see, mapmakers have a long, sneaky history of planting fake towns or streets to catch plagiarists. If a competitor's map also contains your fake place, aha — they copied you, phone the lawyers and start planning an early retirement! Google stayed mostly mum on the matter though, saying only that their map data has occasional errors. The data in this case came from Tele Atlas, a Dutch company, which was equally flummoxed, and never gave an official explanation. Whatever the problem was, however, it was eventually fixed, as come mid-2010, it had been removed — thus ending the nail-biting tale. ## The Antarctic Doorway In early 2024, map enjoyers on Reddit spotted something bizarre on a desolate ridge in East Antarctica: a huge, dark door-shaped shadow on the snowy slope, looking for all the world like an entrance to… well, something. A massive secret bunker? An alien base? The gateway to the Hollow Earth? Whatever it was, they dubbed it the 'Antarctic Doorway,' and naturally, tinfoil hats were donned Reddit-wide. The location of this supposed door was about as remote as it gets — near Antarctica's Queen Maud Land coast, not far from the Japanese Showa Research Station, which itself is tiny and rather isolated. Helpfully, the Reddit user also posted the coordinates so others could see the anomaly for themselves, and sure enough, on Google Maps' satellite view, there was a peculiar rectangular shadow on a hillside, roughly the size of a large building. In an environment of endless white and grey, this certainly stood out. Reactions abounded: "Could be an underground base entrance. Could be nothing. Excellent find either way." Others joked it was Bigfoot's vacation home or the door from *Monsters, Inc.* where Mike and Sulley got banished to the Himalayas. A few killjoys even started making 'sensible' suggestions, like it being a blown-off airplane hatch, or simply just a random crevasse. Fortunately, this did nothing to dissuade those who weren't allergic to fun, and so more and more out-there suggestions started appearing: some tied it to the old myth of a secret Nazi bunker in Antarctica — an enduring trope since WWII. Or maybe it was an extraterrestrial hangar? After all, the internet had a field day with a so-called 'Antarctica pyramid' in 2016 — where a mountain vaguely shaped like a pyramid got people buzzing about ancient aliens… and now we had a door to go with that pyramid. Eventually, however, with the story doing the rounds on social media and legacy media alike, actual scientists soon stepped in to set the record straight. One of them, Professor Bethan Davies, a glaciologist, pulled historical satellite imagery in Google Earth Pro and immediately popped the bubble: it was just an iceberg. A really, *really* big rectangular-ish iceberg that got wedged against the coast and stuck in place, causing a straight-edged shadow in the snow. As evidence, she pointed to nearby chunks of ice, basically all of which showed the exact same patterns. So yeah — between all the wrinkles atop her brain, her expertise in her field, and the easily verified evidence, it's not a conclusion one can disagree with — however much we may want to deep inside. Another expert, Professor Martin Siegert, took the explanation further still, and pointed out that that area has fast-moving ice floes around some shallow, rocky islands, and when an iceberg freezes in such conditions, snow drifts pile up leeward of it, making those weird sharp lines — nothing alien, just Mother Nature doing geometry. And to top it off, a volcanologist named Professor John Smellie then chimed in and described the features: a rocky ridge poking up (the 'top' of the doorway), and two parallel snow ridges formed by wind (the 'sides' of the doorway). Add a low sun angle for dramatic shadow, and voilà: spooky ice door illusion. In his words, it's a "weak and totally false door-like appearance overall." Translation: take it down to two guys, it clearly ain't a Door to the Underworld no matter how much you may want it to be. And indeed, once you look closer, the magic does evaporate rather. The supposed doorway has no depth; it's not an actual hole or entry — just a shaded area on a slope. The surrounding context shows other ice blocks and drifts that put the anomaly in perspective. In plain terms, it's one big optical gotcha. No secret bunker for the evil moustache man, no UFO base, no vacation home for Bigfoot. Just a natural phenomenon, and nothing to get excited about. And while certainly disappointing, as reality often is, it's a textbook example of apophenia if nothing else — seeing meaningful patterns where none exist. ## Nothing to See Here, Move Along Zoom in on certain spots in Google Maps, and you might think your internet is glitching — big blurry blocks, pixelated patches, or just conspicuous blank areas. Nope, it's not your Wi-Fi. Google sometimes censors locations at the behest of governments and their militaries, resulting in a global patchwork of mystery zones. Please keep your arms inside the vehicle as we peek at some of these secretive and bizarrely blurred sites! Our first stop: Israel. Until recently, if you tried to get a close-up of, say, downtown Tel Aviv or the hills of the West Bank, Google would serve you potato-quality images. Turns out, a U.S. law — the Kyl–Bingaman Amendment — forced online maps to cap resolution that way for security reasons. And for years, as a result, much of the region was intentionally blurry — the largest single area on Google Earth under such restriction. That rule was eased in 2020, and yet, as of the time of writing, much of the imagery there still only has an amount of pixels you could count on your fingers, and it's done in a way that doesn't necessarily scream sense. Consider Kiryat Menachem, a neighbourhood in South West Jerusalem — it is still displayed in very low resolution, but then head a mile to the East to Beit Safafa, and it's in perfectly clear modern detail. Initially — because we picked this spot at random — we thought this might be down to the '1949 Armistice Border' that lies between them — the ceasefire boundary established between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War — especially given that both were photographed at the same time, May 2024. But then we scrolled further south, and the town of Aderet and village of al Dayr are both displayed perfectly clearly, despite them both also being separated by that same line — so clearly it isn't down to that either. Ultimately, we don't have a clue why. Every source we could find while searching for an answer didn't address the specific ins and outs of where is and isn't blurred nowadays and why, and instead just discussed the general circumstances that led to some of them being that way… so your guess is as good as ours! Moving on from Israel now though, because many other countries have given Google a stern finger-wagging over the years, and ordered that certain installations be blurred or entirely erased. The Netherlands, for example, had a real penchant for pixelation. The royal family's Noordeinde Palace in The Hague was once blurred into oblivion on Google Maps, as was Volkel Air Base — site of an American nuclear weapons repository — as well as a nearby NATO communications centre, with all three of them appearing as a very obvious patchwork of earth-coloured pixels up until 2016, when a change of law in the country allowed them to be properly displayed. The reasons for this are obvious enough: national security. Although, as the change in law clearly shows, the Dutch Government evidently takes a more liberal view on the matter nowadays. The Dutch, however, are not the only ones in Europe to have covered things up so, as the French still do so to this very day, with parts of Paris — the Palais de l'Alma, an official residence, and La Santé Prison — still being pixelated to this very day. Annoyingly, however, the exact specifics of why this is the case remain elusive — obviously it's national security related, but the full details of 'X Minister said Y to Z that made it happen,' nada. The only thing we could find on the matter at all was reporting from back in 2018 that discussed the French Government specifically asking for prisons to be censored, after Redoine Faid, a convicted murderer who had been dubbed the 'Jailbreak King,' broke out of a prison near Paris after some of his pals pinched a helicopter and flew it into the courtyard. By going back through old maps though, we also found that Tours Val de Loire Airport did used to be uncensored, before it was pixelated in 2016, two years before, and totally unrelated to, the censoring of prisons — a state which it remains in to this day. So, from this alone, and in the absence of more conclusive evidence, we're inclined to believe that the French government simply demands Google to censor specific things on an as and when, case by case basis. Not every pixelated patch of ground in Europe is due to cloak and dagger international man of mystery naughtiness, however. Sometimes it's just a technical foul-up, as Spain's 'mystery square' in El Ejido can vouch. For years, this lot showed up as a pixelated tan square on Google Maps. Everything around it — mostly greenhouses and farms — was clear as day, but this one plot? Redacted. When first spotted, rumours abounded online that it contained a military helipad, or the entrance to some kind of secret government facility — claims that proved rather puzzling to the locals, as they knew it only as a patch of dirt occupied only by a few trees. Eventually, however, around 2013, Google updated the imagery and the blur was gone, revealing… bugger all. There was no secret entrance to Dr Evil's lair, no ultra-classified NATO nuclear silo, nothing — just as the locals had been pointing out for years. Like we say, sometimes it's just a technical foul-up. Sometimes, though, the censorship can also be personal, because fun fact: if you're rich or powerful enough, you can ask Google to blur your house — and they will. Case in point: the mansion of Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller in Russia was deliberately blurred on Google Maps — or rather, it was, because after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google decided it actually didn't care about respecting his privacy all that much, and stopped bothering to censor it in future updates. And occasionally, it's not state secrets, technical glitches, or VIP paranoia behind the blur — sometimes, it's just basic human decency. Case in point: the site of the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash in the French Alps. On the 24th of March 2015, the plane tragically slammed into a remote mountainside, killing all 150 people onboard. Just one day later, a satellite image of the crash site was taken — while recovery teams were still on the ground. Yet if you headed to the coordinates when it was updated, what you would have seen wouldn't be a detailed snapshot of the wreckage, but an oddly blurred or scrubbed section of landscape. Google, for obvious reasons, took it upon themselves to do this without any prompt or pushing from an external agency, and frankly, it was nothing if not a respectful and good call on their part. ## Smile, You're on Street View! Be real folks, when you see a Google Street View car, certain devilish voices appear in the back of your psyche, don't they? Voices that — rightly so we might add — point out what fantastic fun it'd be to drop your skids and present your cheeks as it passes by, to present the other side and set about windmilling. Or maybe, even more simply, to just whip up your opinion finger in its direction and give it a good old wobble about. For most of us, however, such compulsions remain mere niggles in our minds, impulses that however much we may wish to, we would never act upon. Key word there though, most, because there exist people among us who are braver, stronger, and, frankly, better, than us mere mortals… and they surrender themselves gladly to their impulses. Point in case, this guy in Munich, this guy in Brisbane, and this lady in Paris — although do note, we haven't forgotten to include pictures of the other sorts — the pants down ones — because we happen to be rather partial to food and shelter here, and so we'd prefer it if the video didn't get demonetised. Beyond mere individual acts of cheekiness, however, some folks up the stakes even further and plan full-on pranks for the Street View car, one of the earliest being 'Horse Boy.' As you can see from the picture, that is nothing if not an apt description; because it's a kid, in a horse mask… and that's about it. And because internet culture was a bit… tamer back in those days, the image went viral, and 'Horse Boy' became a viral superstar for a time — a juggernaut of a man whose stature among the locals was matched only by Scotland's greatest sons and daughters — the poet Robert Burns, the great war leader William Wallace, the guy who invented Irn Bru, people like that. Not to be outdone, a group of Japanese pranksters known via Daily Portal Z orchestrated the 'Human Pigeon' incident. When they learned the Google car was coming through Tokyo's Mitaka neighbourhood, they mobilised. The result: Street View images of an entire posse of people wearing giant pigeon masks, nonchalantly hanging out by the road. Then there's the legendary Fake Murder Prank, which again, occurred in Scotland. It happened when two mechanics in Edinburgh decided their time for greatness had come when they spotted the Street View car approaching their garage. With only seconds to act, one of them lay on the ground while the other grabbed a pickaxe handle and stood over him ominously. Then, the Street View camera dutifully captured what looked like a brutal axe murder in progress. The image went unnoticed for a while — until a year later, when someone saw it online and called the police. Cue a real police investigation, only for the cops to head to the scene, and become baffled when they discovered the supposedly dismembered 'victim' elbow deep in a Volkswagen Beetle. Google, for their part, and because they're allergic to fun, eventually updated the images, but not before "Street View axe murder" had become a viral sensation. And then, along a similar vein, there's the things that people don't intend to have recorded. Take a now infamous case from Peru. There, in 2013, a man casually browsing Street View noticed a familiar silhouette on a park bench in Lima — his girlfriend (later wife), arm around another man, leaning into him affectionately. Despite her face being blurred, he recognized her clothes, posture, the bag at her feet. Confronted with the truth, she admitted to the affair — and their marriage then collapsed. Then there's the case from Groningen in the Netherlands, circa 2008. There, a 14-year-old boy was mugged — only the crime scene was caught by Google's camera rolling past at that exact moment. The image, showing the thieves approaching behind him, surfaced months later. No witnesses, no CCTV — just that Street View frame. It was enough for Dutch police to identify and arrest the twin brothers responsible, making it one of the first crimes solved thanks to a Google car. Elsewhere, Google's lens froze mortifying and humiliating moments also: a man in Mexico squeezing a fat one out back in 2020, a man in London in 2009 spewing up his Christmas cheer after he hit the ale big style at the office party, and a South African chap doing a runner after bolting the fence at Carletonville Prison — still donned in his orange jumpsuit. And that's the beauty — and absolute danger — of Street View, really. You never quite know when it's watching, or what it's going to catch. Could be a prank. Could be a crime. Could be your unfortunate post-pint stride of pride caught in immortal 360°. Google set out to map the world, and what it accidentally did was catalogue the weirdest bits of humanity — pants down, fingers up, guts out, and dignity nowhere to be seen. So next time you see that weird little car with the periscope sticking out the top, maybe pause and think: do you want to be famous? Or do you want to be Street View famous? Because only one of those ends with you windmilling the internet for eternity. ## Key Takeaways - Google Maps and Street View have revealed unexpected and mysterious locations, from non-existent villages to peculiar structures. - The 'Tonk,' a small tank-like structure, gained internet fame and was worshipped as a holy relic by pranksters. - The 'Antarctic Doorway' was debunked by scientists as a large iceberg casting a shadow, not a secret bunker. - Governments and individuals request Google to blur sensitive locations, leading to a global patchwork of mystery zones. - Google Street View has captured both humorous pranks and serious crimes, showcasing the unpredictable nature of public behavior. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is the Tonk? The Tonk is a small monument resembling a tank, made using the M19 Commander Cupola from an M60 Patton tank. It gained internet fame after being spotted on Google Maps and was dubbed 'The Tonk' by Redditors. ### Where is the Tonk located? The Tonk is located in Saviano, just outside of Naples. ### What is the story behind the non-existent village of Argleton? Argleton was a village that appeared on Google Maps but did not actually exist. It was first spotted by Mike Nolan in 2008, who found only an empty field in its place. The error was eventually corrected by mid-2010. ### What was the 'Antarctic Doorway'? The 'Antarctic Doorway' was a shadow on a snowy slope in East Antarctica that resembled a large door. It was actually a rectangular iceberg wedged against the coast, causing a straight-edged shadow. ### Why are some locations blurred on Google Maps? Some locations are blurred on Google Maps due to censorship at the behest of governments and militaries for security reasons. For example, certain areas in Israel were intentionally blurry until a U.S. law was eased in 2020. ### What is the 'Horse Boy' incident? The 'Horse Boy' incident involved a child wearing a horse mask who was captured by Google Street View. The image went viral, making 'Horse Boy' a brief internet sensation. ### How did Google Street View help solve a crime in the Netherlands? In Groningen, the Netherlands, a 14-year-old boy was mugged, and the crime scene was captured by Google Street View. The image helped Dutch police identify and arrest the twin brothers responsible. ### What happened with the 'Fake Murder Prank' in Scotland? Two mechanics in Edinburgh staged a fake murder scene for the Google Street View car. The image went unnoticed until a year later when someone called the police, leading to a real investigation. ### Why was the Gazprom CEO's mansion blurred on Google Maps? The mansion of Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller was blurred on Google Maps at his request. However, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google stopped censoring it in future updates. ### What was the 'Human Pigeon' incident in Tokyo? A group of Japanese pranksters wore giant pigeon masks and were captured by Google Street View in Tokyo's Mitaka neighborhood. The image became a viral sensation. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: Amazing Things People Found on Google Maps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns3LUV5lk_w) ## Related Coverage