Going Off-Topic | Hunting for secrets on Google Earth @GoingOffTopic | Uploaded March 2021 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Normal folks use Google Maps to simply get directions—but that's just scraping the surface. Here are some of the elite sleuths who have mastered Google Earth and pushed it to its limits.

From the Utah #Monolith, to locating an illegal stash of hand sanitizer using #OSINT techniques, to guessing a country based on a single Streetview in #Geoguessr—there are worlds within Google Earth that you may not know about.

SOURCE LINKS:

• Utah DPS original footage: dpsnews.utah.gov/dps-aero-bureau-encounters-monolith-in-red-rock-country
• Utah Helicopter flight path: flightaware.com/live/flight/N352SL/history/20201118/2146Z
• Monolith location (Google Earth link): earth.google.com/web/@38.34301098,-109.66609761,1314.60328611a,136.15957716d,35y,0h,0t,0r
• Weird Google Earth: weirdgoogleearth.com
• Streetview Encounters: twitter.com/nickmorgenbach
• Emily Gorcenski’s thread: twitter.com/emilygorcenski/status/1239307655254024192
• New York Times story: nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html
• Quiztime Twitter account: twitter.com/quiztime
• Geowizard YouTube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCW5OrUZ4SeUYkUg1XqcjFYA
• GeoWizard fan doing his own straight-line mission: youtube.com/watch?v=aMvHvWDUXkY

I spoke with Tim Slane, who found that viral Utah Monolith back in 2020. When authorities refused to disclose its location, Tim leveraged the help of the subreddit /r/findthemonolith to locate the monolith before anyone else on the internet. He used flight tracking data, visual clues in the rocks, and his extensive geography knowledge to deduce its location. (He says it took him a breezy 30-40 minutes.)

In a similar vein: Data scientist and activist Emily Gorcenski made a splash in 2020 when she located a stash of hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies that two men in Tennessee were hoarding near the beginning of the pandemic. Her Twitter thread shows how small details can add up to big clues when a trained eye picks apart visual information on the internet.

Finally, Geoguessr. A game that seems to have found new life while many of us are frustratingly housebound, instead of traveling. It’s a simple game—you guess where you are in the world based on a random Streetview location—but it’s surprisingly addicting to both play and watch. One player that caught my eye is Geowizard, who ranks amongst the best Geoguessr players in the world, and racks up millions of views of his impressively pinpoint gameplay. He has also popularized a style of travel called the “straight-line mission”, where he attempts to cross entire countries in a perfectly, unnaturally straight line.

If you’ve ever found yourself absentmindedly clicking around Google Maps satellite imagery or Streetview scenes: here’s how you can up your Google Maps game.

00:00 Intro
00:35 The Man Who Found the Monolith
02:55 Off-Topic: Google Earth & Streetview Easter Eggs
03:47 OSINT: The Illegal Stash of Hand Sanitizer
06:07 The Wizard of Geoguessr
08:25 Outro