Whales!
What do you guys think, could this really be two whales off the coast of California? Looks pretty convincing to me!
Thanks to Tara Wells. (Very sneaky Tara, but it worked! 
)
Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
29 Responses to 'Whales!' 
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Those are no whales, that is a submarine race!…
I’ve got $10 on the 688i class. (`’-'~)
There be whales here! Looks like George & Gracie to me.
wow…you really have a lot of free time. get a job you hippies!
that water’s too shallow for whales that size
“Those are no whales, that is a submarine race!…”
Those are no whales, IT’S A SPACE STATION!”
“Caguamon Says:
July 29th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Those are no whales, that is a submarine race!…
”
That’s what the government wants you to think…
Way to much free time here…
Blue whales can grow anywere from 80-100 feet long.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/8683/whale1ee.jpg
Yeah, this is Spacelab…. beep boop beep… and those, those are space fish.
I gathered some info, in defense of whales… (being a jobless hippie, I really do have far too much free time… but I wouldn’t have it any other way!)
Blue whales occur in all the oceans, primarily along the edge of continental shelves, but they also venture into deep oceanic areas and shallow inshore regions.
They live at the surface of the ocean, and are most commonly seen individually or in pairs.
so long, and thanks for all the plankton!
Ryan: What makes you say that water is too shallow for whales?
Kyle: I’m not sure what your image is supposed to suggest. Is the small part of the scale 80ft, and the large part 200ft? Are you saying these are too big to be whales, or just right? From what I can tell it looks like the size is about right.
The rest of you lot: For shame. This is turning into a Slashdot like free for all.
As for the image goes, I can certainly see two shapes that could resemble whales. Its pretty hard to conclusively say though, even after playing around with the image in photoshop. Try googling for “whales aerial” and you can see some closer up images of whales from above. I’m waiting to see what a professional pilot or whale watcher will have to say
I’ll also defend the possibility of it being whales, but I would suggest they are gray whales.
On the water being too shallow - gray whales do go in relatively shallow waters, as they eat by filtering foods out of the muck at the bottom of the ocean.
At 40-45 feet long (13-15 meters), the size could be about right when compared to the cars in the parking lot on the shore to the east.
Here’s a fact sheet on gray whales: http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/graywhl.htm
At the same place, on MSN Virtual Earth, there is… a submarine ?
Or a strange whale…
TOMHTML Says:
July 29th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
At the same place, on MSN Virtual Earth, there is… a submarine ?
Or a strange whale…
TOMHTML,
I have been using virtual earth lately. Perhaps you could shed some light on how a zombie like me could figure out how to transfer coordinates from a google map into VE like you did here.
thanks
There should be a “wildlife” category. This’d get filed with the shot of migrating geese.
Maybe it should be in “Crowds” instead of “Watercraft”?
I did some comparisons between the MSN map and the Google map, by overlaying the images in photoshop - and found that they are eerily similar in location, but that MSN object is approx twice the size of the potential whales. I calculate the “whales” to be approx 70 ft in length, and the MSN object to be approx 125 ft in length… according to the google distance key.
But who cares, legoman is drowning. Send in the whales!
Just ignore Pierre up there. He’s harmless. Back in the ’60s he was part of the peace movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS.
Hey! Two is a company, not a crowd!
LDS…lol!
The 1 on virtual earth is not at the same time.. quite a bit earlier pictures.. some people gave them some flak for it because they are also pre-apple complex in cupertino..
Well, it reminds me a true story!
When my brother crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, to go to Canada (we’re from France), he was watching through the aircraft window and thinking that this ocean was really disgusting and polluated because of the plastic bags he was seeing on the water…
then the pilot said: “on the right side you may observe some icebergs on the ocean!”… pollution, hey?
…
…
whales, hey?
wow. you must have a REALLY good eye to see that
Water depth is about 60 feet. Grey whales are pretty common along this coast and travel quite close to shore, but only get to about 50 feet in length.
The URL for google maps includes the lat and long for a given map. Just copy that over to virtual earth. You can also look at them side by side at the following URL:
http://www.jonasson.org/maps/
Not sure about the grey splodges, but Placemark: this / Google Earth is definitely a picture of wales.
“but that MSN object is approx twice the size of the potential whales.”
so… they are growing! my god!
“The 1 on virtual earth is not at the same time.. quite a bit earlier pictures..”
see guys!? they are meeting there!
well, doesn’t look like a wale shadow to me.
it indeed could be anything!
I think you’re right. Two mating whales!
Now go on searching for two mating elephants, deers, mice and human couples?