Google Earth, False Pyramids and Everything In Between

Well this is weird. How does a woman in North Carolina using Google Earth discover supposed pyramids in Egypt that archeologists had no idea were there in the first place? Sounds completely absurd, and the “discovery” was nothing significant at all, but apparently the news was big enough to attract scientist after news source to the story.

This news was hot just this past Monday and Tuesday, when Angela Micol out of Maiden, NC claimed that she found two areas that had very conveniently shaped mound structures similar to that of pyramids just by looking at satellite images from Google Earth.

Yeah.  Pyramids.  About That. 

The first suspicion that should have been raised was how oddly close these sites were to widely-used grounds that have been researched by archeologists for years, as is made clear by PC World.  At this point, I wouldn’t see how every square mile has not yet been covered by Egyptologists.

That's a Butte!!

Of course, it didn’t take very long for more established scientists in the field to debunk Micol’s findings as merely a set of buttes, which admittedly are strange looking hills with nearly vertical sides and a flat top.

While most of them have a cubic shape, some of them conveniently look like pyramids…sort of. If you look at them on a satellite image, the confusion becomes even more clear.

That Didn’t Take Long

So the news left the mainstream as fast as it came, but why is it that this story, with so many obvious holes in it, garnered the attention of such major news sources? First guess might be that merely having “Google” tagged on the story automatically makes it a contender for important news.

But really, the media had to be sure that they weren’t confirming anything, with words and phrases like might, did, found? taking up the headlines. Anyone who was anyone could have easily made the guess that nothing was actually found other than just a couple of buttes.

People enjoy speculation; they love the possibility of something being true. Speculation rules the airwaves, cluttering TV shows that I am sometimes coerced into watching with others on satellite dish tv channels with absurd stories and titles like “Ancient Aliens” and so forth. Don’t forget about all the ghost hunter shows as well!

I imagine that ridiculous claims like this must be made on a daily basis. Does Google have that much power whereby tying one speculation to their name means the story will be picked up by everyone? Apparently so. We’ll just have to go along for the ride while it’s there.