Especially after my last post about mapping, I can’t resist sharing this bit of silliness. I’m chuckling at how Google can’t just blur it because “Google Earth images came directly from satellites, unlike those used for Google Street View.”
Huge penis prank captured by Google Earth
WELLINGTON – New Zealand students have put their school on the map by etching giant phallic symbols onto its playing fields with weedkiller, in a prank immortalised on Internet satellite service Google Earth.
While the stunt took place more than two years ago, its effects coincided with satellites taking photographs of Hamilton for Google Earth, meaning web users cop an eyeful whenever they view Fairfield College.
Local resident David McQuoid told the Waikato Times he was online searching for a property when he came across the crude etchings, some of which measure almost 15 metres (50 feet) long.
“At first I thought it was a large piece of art work,” he told the newspaper.
The school’s acting principal Gerhard van Dyk was less convinced of the symbols’ artistic merit, telling the Times he had been unable to catch the pranksters, who burned the phalluses into the grass on a weekend in May 2009.