Technology
Google Maps panic over beached ships and ‘distress call’ in Bermuda Triangle
AN internet sleuth has spotted two shipwrecks and what they say is a “distress signal” on Google Earth.
Satellite imagery available on the digital map tool shows what appears to be a pair of rusting tankers run ashore on a remote atoll in the Bermuda Triangle.
GoogleThe mysterious Atoll as seen in satellite imagery available on Google Earth[/caption]
GoogleOne of two shipwrecks marooned on the circular reef[/caption]
GoogleA second shipwreck visible in Google’s birds-eye-view snaps[/caption]
Google/The SunThe map sleuth who flagged the atoll said that this shape in the sand ‘looks like a distress call’[/caption]
On one islet, a dark, blurry shape embossed in the sand appears to take the form of a waving person.
A minute-long video tour of the birds-eye-view images was posted to Reddit last month by user Virtual_Dealer_9397.
Sharing them to the site’s popular r/GoogleMaps forum, they wrote: “Found these two ships and what looks like a distress call on nearby coral reef.”
The uninhabited atoll sits in the West Indies, roughly 200 kilometres off of Cuba’s eastern coast.
That places it right on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, a region where dozens of ships and planes are alleged to have wrecked in mysterious circumstances.
Reddit fans praised the discovery in comments under the original post.
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“That’s an interesting find,” one wrote.
Another questioned the suggestion that the shape in the sand is a distress call.
“Not likely a distress call,” they wrote. “With how rusted those wrecks are any man made signal on that islet would’ve likely been washed/blown/worn away.
“Those islets are likely just a couple feet above sea level. No protection from wind/waves means nothing lasts long on them. Cool wrecks though!”
Precisely how the wrecks ended up on the atoll remains a mystery.
One possible explanation is that they were once used in exercises carried out by the United States military.
The US Navy and Air Force have used remote atolls and islets across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to test weapons and other technology for decades.
They could also have been victims of the Bermuda Triangle, a section of the North Atlantic Ocean covering an area of 440,000 miles.
It’s one of the most heavily travelled shipping lanes in the world, with vessels crossing through to get to ports in America, Europe and the Caribbean.
It has been blamed for the disappearance of dozens of planes and ships in the past 100 years.
The atoll lies on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, a feared location off the coast of North America
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