What Google Earth Isn’t Showing You

Google Earth is an incredible tool, letting us virtually wander almost anywhere on the globe right from our living rooms. But as comprehensive as it seems, there are some places the service keeps hidden from us, whether by blurring, editing, or completely blacking them out.

Most of the time, the reasons are pretty clear; we’re talking about military bases or nuclear power plants. However, a few locations are far more mysterious. They include spots with creepy histories, possible sites of unrecovered nuclear weapons, and places so strange that the only explanations for their blocking lean toward conspiracy theories.

Here are six secret locations worldwide that Google Earth seems reluctant to show you:

1. Britain’s Anthrax Island

Anthrax is one of the most feared and well-known agents of biological warfare. It can be contracted by simply inhaling it, and if you do, the fatality rate is 95% even with immediate treatment.

In 1942, during the Second World War, British scientists tested the power of anthrax by releasing it on a tiny, oval-shaped Scottish island in Gruinard Bay. Researchers detonated anthrax bombs on the island, and the victims were 60 sheep, all of whom died within days. Years after this “great sheep massacre,” the government decontaminated the island and declared it probably safe to visit in 1990. While I’m not sure why anyone would want to visit this creepy sheep graveyard, if you look at Google Earth, you won’t get a clear view.

2. Secret Russian Cities

Take a look at this area of Russia in the Siberian Tundra. Not only is it blurred out, but it’s done in a super creepy, sinister, silent, hellish manner. Nobody truly knows why, but the best guess is that this is where some of Russia’s secret cities are located.

The concept of “secret cities” originated in the USSR in the 1940s. They were created to be secret locations where the most brilliant minds congregated to develop new technologies, energy, or industries like aerospace and arms, kind of like a Russian Eureka. These cities were known only by a postal code, identified with a name and a number, such as Arzamas-16, which is believed to be where a large group of nuclear engineers lived and built Russia’s first nuclear weapon.

These weren’t small settlements; many had populations of over a million people. They were often surrounded by barbed wire and protected by armed guards. Access was only allowed to those with special permission and was strictly prohibited to all foreigners. Even leaving was difficult, requiring special documents from the authorities. Today, Russia still has over 44 of these secret cities, whose existence wasn’t fully revealed even to the Russian public until 1986.

3. The Pacific Northwest Mystery

This blacked-out location near the Washington-Oregon border in the Pacific Northwest of the US is rumored to be a site where FEMA and HAARP are working together on something sinister.

HAARP, according to its website, is a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the ionosphere to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes. Sounds innocent enough. But others claim HAARP is actually developing technology to control the weather, causing tsunamis, earthquakes, and other devastating natural phenomena, basically, a weather-controlling machine or chronosphere. People actually went to this site, and all they found was a threatening-looking fence and an unmarked entrance. If that’s all there is, why is this blacked out on Google Earth?

4. Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls

If you didn’t know anything about their dark past, you would look at these beautiful atolls about 600 miles from Tahiti on the edge of French Polynesia and think they are perfect vacation spots.

But you wouldn’t want to go anywhere near them if you knew that between 1966 and 1996, France conducted 193 nuclear tests on these two places, making them some of the most deadly sites on the planet.

5. A Missing Nuclear Bomb

In 1968, a B-52 bomber caught fire and crashed into the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base in Northern Greenland. The aircraft was carrying four nuclear bombs.

Following the crash, a massive operation took place to recover the debris from 500 million gallons of ice, some of which contained radioactive wreckage. The US stated that all four nukes were destroyed. However, documents obtained by the BBC under the US Freedom of Information Act disclosed that one of the weapons was never recovered.

6. The Snow Saddle in Nepal

This one is definitely the most controversial on the list. The Kangtega peak in the Nepal Himalayas, also known as the Snow Saddle, is a major peak with a summit of over 22,000 feet. If you look at Google Earth, you’ll see a large area of the peak blocked out. If it’s just rock, snow, and ice, then no big deal, right?

That’s why a lot of UFO enthusiasts suggest that what’s blocked out is the remote and only accessible through air Hinku Pass, and it’s either an alien base or some secret government military facility, as this area is known as a hot spot for UFO sightings. Skeptics, of course, say it’s just a simple glitch.

This location is the most interesting to me. I don’t know if I buy the simple glitch theory; it’s gotten so much attention. Wouldn’t Google have fixed it by now? What could be located on a super-tall mountain peak? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I do love myths and legends. If you look at the legends surrounding the Himalayas, it could possibly be the mythical city of Shambhala, maybe Noah’s Ark, or even the entrance to the center of the Earth. I have no idea what it is, or if anything is even there, but it’s fun to guess!