“After writing this article, one of our readers and friend was successful in getting the FBI to listen to us. It was the Los Angeles office who has their Cyber Division checking it out. As of now, there is an active FBI investigation into this matter. After Jacksonville and Washington DC blowing us off, it seems as though LA is the location in the FBI for cyber crimes. They ran this through their linguistics and found that the language was not Urdu, like our translation script told us. In fact, it’s a very esoteric form of Arabic and it is Pakistani. We were told that the words are locations, but that the locations don’t match. The FBI assured us that they will get to the bottom of this matter and they are working on it as we speak.
Islamic Messages Encoded In Google Maps.
Why?
Some people have discovered Islamic words and phrases encoded inside Google maps. For some strange reason someone has put Islamic words within the zoom of Google maps. Even stranger, some are found in very rural areas of America.
For example, one section of words is in the most redneck part of Florida. It has an Islamic phrase encoded inside the zoom over a section of the woods. It is encoded because if you view it you can’t see it. You have to be at a particular level of the zoom to see it. If you zoom in, instead of it getting bigger, the word(s) disappears. If you’re too high on the zoom, you can’t see it at all.
After further investigation, we discovered not only is it Islamic, but it is actually the language “Urdu,” which is one of two languages used by Sunnis in Pakistan. Now why would there be Urdu words that are indigenous to Pakistan inside Google maps of America?
I tried it using KB’s comment.
That’s simple, Shawn. Look southwest of Lake City. You can search maps.google.com for Lake City, FL. It’s to the left (west) of I-75. It’s over a patch of woods near the intersection of County Road 240 and 47. At the right zoom level, you’ll see it plain as day.
May 6, 2010 at 5:11 am
That’s pretty screwed up mcnorman. I like that the Feds have told the people that found it to pound sand.
May 6, 2010 at 6:23 am
Interesting behavior on their part DE. I thought how unusual. Those areas are less traversed.
May 6, 2010 at 5:12 am
We need to find one of those moderate Taliban to translate it for us.
I’m guessing it’s a translation programming error.
May 6, 2010 at 6:23 am
Why are there never errors like this seen in other languages?
May 6, 2010 at 7:16 am
I am not surprised. As sick as it may sound..I feel like this country has been infiltrated. They are in our government most certainly.
May 6, 2010 at 8:59 am
Google bends over backwards for Islam.
May 6, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Doesn’t sound sick at all, Betty.
May 6, 2010 at 8:20 am
Feel the same way Betty….when I see obamadinejad, I think Little Nikita.
“Say What You Will…It Feels So Good”
May 8, 2010 at 8:13 am
And all this time I thought Nikita was in hell?
May 6, 2010 at 8:35 am
when I first read this at godlike productions I didn’t believe it, but one has only to go to google earth and type in new dorp new york and there it is “ريتشموند” lat=40.5739937, lon=-74.1304203.
google translator identifies this as urdu but says google translator cannot yet translate urdu. I have found no online urdu-english dictionary that recognizes this word, perhaps it is a proper name. so far my only hit on this sequence/word is: http://www.scribd.com/search?cat=redesign&q=%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%B4%D9%85%D9%88%D9%86%D8%AF&x=29&y=7
will check out some of the other words after work later.
🙂
May 6, 2010 at 9:03 am
Just a bit weird nom. A little too weird.
May 6, 2010 at 9:08 am
it may be transliterated (from right to left) as: dwa*na*va*ma*sha*ta*yaa*r*
dw (symbol I take for dw is missing little overhead symbol, I think it is a detach symbol)-n-v-m-sh-t(is shown flat on bottom instead of more curved)-y (is shown with 2 dots under it but letter doesn’t have, probably a vowel change, I think it may change a to aa)-r
May 6, 2010 at 9:12 am
oops just noticed wordpress has changed the letters to read left to right, what I typed in was backwards to what is above.
May 6, 2010 at 9:14 am
oops 2, forgot to say: the coords above do not relate to any mosque locations.
May 6, 2010 at 10:21 am
How about natural gas pipeline locations.
May 6, 2010 at 10:47 am
Gas pipelines? That is an ugly visual.
May 6, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Yeah mcnorman we drove to Tampa a few weeks ago and I noticed lost of these small fenced in areas along the road with large gas pipelines coming out of the ground and shutoff equipment in them. I joked to Angi that seems like something you would want to have a security guard around.
May 6, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Maybe that is what this is all about. Crippling energy.
May 6, 2010 at 2:57 pm
HTSI has a complete digital nationwide dataset but I don’t have access to it, since they don’t maintain my many gas pipelines, lol.
but literally, there are millions, trillions, of linear feet of natural gas pipelines in the US and even under all the oceans.
these few little markers would not be for that.
May 6, 2010 at 9:19 am
I have to wonder who are Feds are working for. This is really scary.
May 6, 2010 at 9:21 am
Shouldn’t they be asking questions as well?
May 6, 2010 at 10:20 am
They don’t care!
May 6, 2010 at 4:51 pm
have another one: bottom left photo is of Nooseneck, Rhode Island, text is in arabic this time, reads “أوستين”, this is “Austin” (a town in Rhode Island where the text occurs, not TX) can see at “أوستين” lat=41.5906556, lon=-71.6550653
May 6, 2010 at 5:10 pm
interestingly, this time wp did not invert the arabic so that it reads left to right, but kept it going from right to left: I believe transliteration of characters reads from right to left: a(detached)*va*sa*ta*yaa*na*: that is to say, “austin”
May 6, 2010 at 5:13 pm
oops let me rephrase that: google detected language as arabic and translated it as Austin, but I got the transliteration of the letters here: http://www.verbix.com/images/key_urdu.gif
(the script for urdu is supposedly a modified form of arabic)
May 6, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Whatever the reason, I believe we’re safe in assuming it’s nothing good.
May 6, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I think you are spot on Mary.
May 6, 2010 at 6:28 pm
next one: Coingtee Lake SC upper right is the same text as at New Dorp: “ريتشموند”. for some reason it appears to read left to right rather than right to left as urdu is normally written: therefore this text and the New Dorp one should read transliterated as:
ra*yaa*ta*sha*ma*va*na*dwa* ie “Richmond”.
Coingtee Lake is in Richmond SC. The dot where the New Dorp script is written is Richmond NY.
One surmises all the others are also place names.
May 6, 2010 at 6:37 pm
lol, somebody beat me to it.
a commenter, andy, at http://americaspeaksink.com/2010/05/islamic-messages-encoded-in-google-maps/comment-page-1/#comments
had a coworker translate them all, they include Anchorage, Columbia, Salem, and Austin.
May 6, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Still doesn’t seem right. Google is so picky about everything so I have to wonder why something like this is out. They raise hell just about everything that doesn’t suit them. Thanks for the updates Nom.
May 6, 2010 at 7:33 pm
i just love puzzles
they may have just done it for the fun of people finding it
May 6, 2010 at 7:46 pm
The one mentioned in your update, Lake City FL, is “كولومبيا” found at lat=30.0738438, lon=-82.6956787 (this is the middle bottom pic that says Wingate Rd.). Google translator says this is Arabic for Columbia, and it is in Columbia FL. I don’t understand why the FBI said the names don’t match the places, at least the 4 I have located do.
(Of course that does not explain what they are doing there).
May 6, 2010 at 8:07 pm
“كولومبيا” transliterated may be:
k?(the little squiggle may be a vowel indicator)*v*l*v*m*b*y(I think with a doubled vowel mark)*a
oops I thought urdu used “a” for a default vowel when one was not marked, but it is much more complicated than that, all of the syllables in above comments ending in “a” may use another vowel entirely, I could not say which; I believe the consonants are okay.
May 6, 2010 at 8:44 pm
For a minute there I thought I’d finally found a weird one!
the middle left pic is near Bastrop TX, lat=29.8430036, lon=-97.3277693, word reads “سالم” which google translator says is Persian for “healthy” but in urdu letters it is s*a*l*m (read right to left this time), except that it’s really Salem, TX.
🙄 so far 5/5 out of 8 match.
May 6, 2010 at 8:53 pm
middle right pic that says Huger is the same one as the Coingtee Lake/ Richmond SC, just a different scale on it.
May 6, 2010 at 9:00 pm
You’re doing very well Nom. I just want to know why an esoteric version of pakistani?
May 6, 2010 at 9:12 pm
hmm I wonder if it really is esoteric? after all I can translate it using an urdu alphabet gif, and I don’t speak a word of urdu or arabic; one presumes a certain generic quality applied.
the claim that the names don’t match the locations is incorrect, perhaps the esoteric part is too.
May 6, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I don’t do well with designs. LOL
May 6, 2010 at 9:15 pm
I love patterns, puzzles, organizing things
I am a big believer in that occam’s razor about the simplest explanation being the most probable, but I am still working on what the simplest explanation for this would be! because it is pretty strange, lol: that is probably why it is so much fun.
May 6, 2010 at 9:07 pm
bottom right pic that says Farm to Market 2504 is Anchorage TX, google translator says “انكوراج” is arabic for Anchorage, coords
lat=29.0674669, lon=-98.7058558 transliterated from urdu I believe it would be a*n*k*v*r*a*j (reading from right to left again)
May 6, 2010 at 9:17 pm
You’re killing me Nom….this is fun?
And I thought I was a geek?
May 6, 2010 at 9:25 pm
lol, I am having fun! it’s a real puzzle!
May 7, 2010 at 6:16 am
lol
May 6, 2010 at 9:22 pm
so far they all match, I’ll save the one in the middle with no landmarks 🙂 for tomorrow
May 7, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Military installations close by as well as water reservoirs.
May 7, 2010 at 10:22 pm
the obvious similarity is that these are the country cousins of their famous relative cities, and only Anchorage was not also the name of a state capital.
I wonder if it is not the famous counterparts that are the actual references, since there are duplicates: the 2 Richmonds might be 2 different groups in Richmond VA.
google certainly provides data to the feds.
Still Anchorage AK is hardly a hotbed of muslim radicalism…
the one name I’ve not yet identified (center pic, no landmarks) is not any of the state capitals, I translated them all and they all look different; I can make out a couple of the letters but not all. Will look at it some more after work tomorrow.
May 7, 2010 at 10:27 pm
interestingly, I have not seen anyone else identify this pic either, though commenter andy noted above among others named the other locations…
it is not Richmond, Austin, Columbia, Salem, or Anchorage
I expect once I determine the reason for the others it will become more guessable
Here are the others all again, in case anyone wants to visit:
Top left picture, says New Dorp: “ريتشموند”/ Richmond NY@ lat=40.5739937, lon=-74.1304203
Middle left picture, says 304: “سالم”/ Salem TX @ lat=29.8430036, lon=-97.3277693
Bottom left picture, says Nooseneck: “أوستين”/ Austin RI @ lat=41.5906556, lon=-71.6550653
No top middle picture:
Center Picture, says nothing: ?
Bottom middle picture, says Wingate Rd.: “كولومبيا”/ Columbia FL @ lat=30.0738438, lon=-82.6956787
Top right picture, says Coingtee Lake: “ريتشموند”/ Richmond SC @ lat=33.0754486, lon=-79.8786918
Middle right picture, says Huger: same as top right, “ريتشموند”/ Richmond SC @ lat=33.0754486, lon=-79.8786918 just at a different scale
Bottom right picture, says Farm to Market 2504: “انكوراج”/ Anchorage TX @ lat=29.0674669, lon=-98.7058558
May 7, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Well I agree this is strange.
FYI Lake City, FL is in Columbia County, FL. So if it translates to Columbia then that would make sense, but why that language to begin with??
I live in north Florida there isn’t anything of significance in that area that I can think of. My husband is an ATC and he checked the airway maps of the area too. Most of the fixes are to the east of that area and so is the main jetway. A jetway is basically a highway in the sky. There is a MOA over that area where A-10’s flying out of Moody AFB to the NW of the area train. They rarely use it though.
May 7, 2010 at 10:37 pm
it would also be interesting to learn when this script became embedded in google earth.
is it in all versions, or just the most recent version? it would be nice to put a date to this, it might help determine why it was embedded.
mine is 2010 update.
May 8, 2010 at 8:42 am
Timing is everything Nom. It would be very interesting to learn when these were embedded.
May 8, 2010 at 7:59 am
OK I did think of something in that area of Florida. There is a river in that area that goes underground and down into the Florida aquifer. It dips underground for several miles and somehow if you dive down there you end up in the Florida aquifer which supplies drinking water for a large portion of Florida. Many divers get lost and die down there too. I found a wikepedia link below describing the Santa Fe River but there is no mention of the aquifer in it. However I know for fact you can get into the aquifer there and at several sink holes in that particular area. In fact PBS did a special, one of their first HD specials, where they sent divers with cameras down there.
Coincidence??? I’d have to look at the map zoomed in which apparently but I do know there are several places around there that go directly into the aquifer. The area I’m speaking about should be near the town of Ft. White. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_River_%28Florida%29
I hope that link works?? Also Ichetucknee springs, river and state park are in that area. I read a link about Ichetucknee that talked about all the springs and sink holes around there, the Ichetucknee flows into the Santa Fe.
But I still think it’s just some weird label since all of them coincide with names in those areas. I guess the question would be why not all of the US?? Why only these specific locations???
Are there aquifers, reservoirs or other drinking water supplies in the other areas?? Even if that were the case why nothing on the west coast?? After all California does have the largest population??? Hmmmm interesting.
May 8, 2010 at 8:40 am
I asked about water in an email to another blogger. We’re thinking water contamination?
May 8, 2010 at 11:56 am
maybe but the best place would be the Ogalalla aquifer: it serves as the principal irrigation source for 8 states, is the principal source for ~1/3 of irrigated crops in the country, and is the drinking water to ~3/4 of the people who live in its environs.
agriculture and withdrawals for drinking water are vastly depleting it, but still, it’s the most important water source in the country at present. the Salem and Anchorage TX spots are not really near it. of course, one might also argue that the radioactive waste dump in Andrews County TX is doing enough to poison it.
http://www.austineconetwork.com/content/stop-texas-becoming-nations-radioactive-waste-dump
May 8, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Scary Nom, just plain scary.
May 8, 2010 at 6:46 pm
I am not worried. the likeliest explanation is still an easter egg hunt for family or friends: the 2 richmonds could be the parents or a couple, the others the siblings or single friends, the unidentified one might be the one who embedded the script.
The next most likely is a hoax. there are several significant unanswered questions:
1 who sent the pics to C Rich? he states people found them, presumably people sent them: who?
2 if multiple people really found the pics, why are there no records of people discussing their finds prior to C Rich’s article?
3 the pictures are oddly cropped: why were they cropped, where are the rest of the pictures, and do the missing parts more readily reveal the locations to nonarabic readers?
4 why is one location repeated?
5 why are there identifying characters beyond the script on all pieces but one?
6 if commenters really had coworkers who speak arabic translate, then why is the center pic still untranslated?
7 if the fbi has really taken an interest, does one credit they would tell anyone anything they learned, such as the writing being an esoteric form of arabic spoken in pakistan?
8 how might one determine from transliterated place names that the language was esoteric?
I could go on.
if the script were anything nefarious, then putting it on google earth where it would be found (there are people who search google earth for oddities as a serious hobby) would make for some really moronic terrorists. I am not saying that there are not moronic terrorists in this world, but anyone that stupid is not exactly a credible threat.
how many moronic nerdy terrorists who like puzzles and playing in google earth and speak an esoteric version of Pakistani arabic can there really be?
just sayin.
but it is a puzzle and imo the locations do signify something. it’s fun trying to figure out what.
May 10, 2010 at 9:10 am
No way.
May 8, 2010 at 7:18 pm
They pose the worst kind of threat Nom…a bad mistake. I can’t wait to see who this all pans out in the end. It is a puzzle.
May 9, 2010 at 5:11 pm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37022728/ns/us_news-environment/
oh and this one too
May 10, 2010 at 5:13 pm
yes way
lol, mcnorman there are whole forums and websites devoted to this
May 10, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Well Nom, that is totally new for me. LOL
May 9, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I’m been watching this and reading every comment I could find wherever this has been picked up. Talk about red flags going up.
BUT since these names do match the locations in some way, although it may be an unincorperated area (Try this link and you’ll see what I mean
http://www.histopolis.com/Place/US/TX/Atascosa_County/Anchorage),and since accidentlly finding Japenese writing near Laramie Wyoming with the Eblish words “Test Wrong Locality” I think there may be an answer.
More than likely Google is/has outsourced the map work to Pakistan or wherever (which by the way Pakistan along with India are the fastest growing computer outsource spots on the planet} and they are left over words from the original map work. Maybe after somebody finishes it- the map gets run through a computer program that looks for mistakes or a supervisor looks it over and says “Whoa— wait Anchorage in Texas? is that RIGHT? Better check that.”
But nobody does.
So the original Arabic or Asian language word is left and its hurry up and finish it and it gets sent on without the final translation.
Homeland Security tells us to be aware of suspicious stuff and since 9-11
I am, so I think this kind of stuff SHOULD raise red flags and we do need to look at it, so good job people. We all know we can’t depend on our government all the time to look at what they should, or Fort Hood never would have happened.
But after searching everything I could find and finding the Asian word by Laramie, I don’t think its anything more than sloppy work on google’s part.
May 9, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Hi Trac, tried your link and got zero. Thank you for the thoughts on this. Yes, Google outsources much work and this may just be a coding error. Perhaps, but it looks as if most of the names are within a certain radius of Islamic mosques or centers.
May 10, 2010 at 6:06 am
I thought of that too, but then there should be many more. I started looking up the other Salems (there are over 10), Austins, etc and noteworthy cities that might also cause confusion like other Detroits etc in google earth but I couldn’t find any more script.
May 10, 2010 at 6:11 am
plus as I noted above: these maps aren’t in any way contiguous; about the only similarities is a certain proximity to coastlines (and over 50% of Americans live within 50 miles of the coast so we have more major cities there).
May 10, 2010 at 7:09 am
Interesting take on it trac, perhaps an explanation. But like Nom says why not all cities/locations with those names?
McNorman locations are near Mosques, ROFL! I can’t imagine a Mosque near the one in north Florida. In fact the only Mosque I really know of in the area is in Jacksonville right off of state road 9-A. That one hasn’t even been there long and every time I drive by it, it catches my eye because it looks so out of place. If there is a Mosque over by Lake City it has to be a very small one, LOL!
May 10, 2010 at 9:07 am
Perhaps new sites for mosques or their centers somebody? Who knows what’s up or down anymore. I’m stumped.
May 10, 2010 at 5:16 pm
the famous city cousins to the little towns with the famous names: Austin TX Richmond VA, District of Columbia, Salem Massachusetts, and even Anchorage Alaska, all have moderate to extremely large muslim communities
May 10, 2010 at 9:28 am
see what I figured out about this matter and posted it at the GoogleMaps help forum:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/maps/thread?hl=en&tid=4d53cb2de814e203
The above referenced post explains what exactly happens (GoogleMasp versus GoogleEarth) & gives the proof about the CONTENT of the different labels on GoogleMaps & GoogleEarth.
May 10, 2010 at 11:31 am
Thank you.
May 10, 2010 at 10:36 am
Perhaps, but Bubba the rednecks of north Florida would make them feel mighty unwelcome with their Florida location, LOL!
Hey maybe some kind of camps or potential sites for schools or something???
May 10, 2010 at 11:27 am
Maybe these are areas being labeled for unfriendliness then? Bubbas united would certainly vouch for kicking some butt now, wouldn’t they? ROFL
Real estate? Possibly. According to CAIR, no one wants them close by. Wah. Lies.
May 10, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Yeah you guys are right when you say “why not all cities by that name?” I don’t know, it seems like ever since obama got to be POTUS everything is a puzzle anymore.
Did anybody else see the Asian writing one near Laramie, WY?
Link:
Hope that works. “Test- Wrong Locality” written in English shows up mo matter how you zoom it but the Asian letters only at a certain zoom level.
It’ll be interesting to see if google comes up with an explanation, eh?
May 10, 2010 at 2:19 pm
where did my link go?
try again:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Laramie,+WY&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.082817,55.634766&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Laramie,+Albany,+Wyoming&ll=41.426253,-105.375366&spn=1.037939,1.738586&z=9
May 10, 2010 at 5:57 pm
thx, very interesting! I don’t like to think what was tested so close to
Dick Cheney’s old stomping groundsCheyenne’s old nuke missile sitedo you perhaps have the coordinates of the Opelousas LA site mentioned? ot the Poteet TX? I could not find them. If one right clicks on the red dot next to the writing, the “Fly to” box will show the exact coordinates, which one can copy and paste; and one can read the meters above ground as well at the bottom of the screen.
May 10, 2010 at 5:58 pm
sorry, awful typist here “or the Poteet TX?”
May 11, 2010 at 12:45 am
the coordinates and the Gmaps link for the case “Poteet TX” you can find describes among the thread I linked to your in my post on to May 10, 2010 at 9:28 am.
cheers
ehg
May 11, 2010 at 5:27 am
links are numbers in brackets that do not work in my google earth, not sure why, would you mind posting coords here? thx
May 11, 2010 at 6:13 am
lol, I don’t know why I said “in my google earth” :neutral:, I meant, when I click on the link you provided the bracketed numbers do not have a hyperlink.
May 11, 2010 at 6:22 am
MY? google earth Nom…the puzzle is getting to you 🙂
May 11, 2010 at 8:55 am
Gotcha Nom.
May 11, 2010 at 12:23 pm
lol, when I say “my” google earth, I mean the version installed in my computer as opposed to the one installed in someone else’s computer because I have no idea from when these scripts originate: the Opelousas and Poteet scripts may not be in mine if they are from a newer update than I have.
I did note there is a teeny town near Opelousas called Washington, I wonder if it is not nearer that? Anyone with coords for Opelousas or Poteet, plz post! Or anyone who can read the pic in the center with no other identifying characteristics but the script.
jeebus, I am going to have to email that pic to someone with a printer so I can take it around and ask some native speakers. 🙄 Maybe then i’ll be able to find it one “my” google earth. 😉
May 11, 2010 at 2:48 pm
hope this helps:
Poteet Coordinates: 29.131280 -98.534502
Opelousas Coordinates
N 30.53353 and W -92.08151
I tell ya what guys I’m learning more about maps than I ever wanted to know (LOL) for example did not know Bing also has maps, didn’t see any weird words in “our” spots though.
This was interesting:
http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Poteet,_Texas¶ms=29_2_23_N_98_34_27_W_city
May 11, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Ok going to try and post that one link again because to me it looks closer to Anchorage. But my eyes are beginning to cross.
http://www.histopolis.com/Place/US/TX/Atascosa_County/Anchorage
May 11, 2010 at 4:05 pm
thx for coordinates! unfortunately I get no script at Opelousas no matter what height I am above it: the other ones I can see from 300m off the ground for all and many at much, much higher, some even 3000 m; I went from 7m to 370km above. 😦
could you right click on the red dot associated with the script and copy the script? I would love to see what it says: I have a feeling it will be for the nearby town of Washington, but would like to see & transliterate it.
I have been using this gif: http://www.verbix.com/images/key_urdu.gif
and google translator once I learned about right clicking the dot, lol.
May 10, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Thanks for the link Trac.
May 11, 2010 at 4:06 pm
I have never used bing, I had no idea it had maps, will have to take a look at that!
May 12, 2010 at 9:18 am
http://americaspeaksink.com/2010/05/muslim-messages-masked-in-google-maps/#more-7212 new article on the script is up: CRich has expanded the area around the mysterious script with no other identifers, now says N. Greenburg Rd. this is in MS. it is located here: lat=31.2335085, lon=-90.6778794, script can be read from about 300m up to groundlevel, and says “الخليل” which is translated as Hebron.
Okay, now that is pretty weird, because while there are at least 8 other Hebrons in the US, we all know where the real Hebron is.
May 12, 2010 at 9:35 am
This is becoming weirder by the day.
May 12, 2010 at 9:19 am
read from about 3000m up, sorry
May 12, 2010 at 9:21 am
another typo, jeebus: Greensburg Rd.
May 12, 2010 at 9:36 am
Bizzare.
May 12, 2010 at 2:45 pm
There is another one in Montgomery CA
“مونتجمري” lat=39.2336111, lon=-123.3897222 “Montgomery”
it was mentioned in a comment at http://americaspeaksink.com/2010/05/muslim-messages-masked-in-google-maps/#more-7212
commenter says google aware of problem because someone reported this on April 30:
“Why is there resizing Arabic text on California USGS topo Report abuse
Lbuz10
Level 1
4/30/10
Hey folks, any idea what’s up with the resizing Arabic text in the USGS quad data on the northerly ridge at Montgomery Woods State Park in Mendocino County, CA at +- 39°14’8.13″N 123°23’25.08″W?
Reply 1 of 1
Googler Dave
Google Employee
4/30/10
Hi Lbuz10,
Likely a bug. Please report it by clicking the “Report a Problem” link in the lower-right corner of the map, and it will go through a process to get resolved. Thanks for finding it!
-dave
Did you find this answer helpful? Sign in to vote. Report abuse”
btw,the lat should be +, and the long should be –
May 12, 2010 at 5:08 pm
LIKELY A BUG? Thats google employee’s answer? A BUG? No a “bug” is a technical glitch, like when you’re trying to navigate and the bloody buttons don’t work.
A bug! Okaaaayyyy!
May 12, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Well Trac, what did you expect from google? lol
May 12, 2010 at 6:12 pm
unfortunately Googler Dave was told only about one instance of foreign script, so he couldn’t have known about the strangeness of the names-like-famous-city-names. but he sure needs a curiosity transplant, because he didn’t even notice the poster gave wrong lat/long: I’m betting he never even looked at it, just decided on the spot it wasn’t important.
May 12, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I can no longer see the Montgomery Ca one: can anyone else still see it? I have a screen shot.
May 13, 2010 at 6:35 am
Do you remember why most of us dumped Blogpost Nom? The same shiteous attitude.
May 12, 2010 at 8:28 pm
LOL what did I expect from Google?
Well I EXCEPTED a nice pat answer that would calm all my fears, dispel all my silly conspiracy theories and allow us all to sleep peacefully tonight without a ….OH WAIT… eh huh – that is kinda….the answer they gave, isn’t it?
“Move along folks, nothing to see here.”
Ummmmm. A bug huh?
Anyway heres a link to the map of the Montgomery one that shows the script, can’t find the script anymore in google earth.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&gl=us&hl=en&q=montgomery+california&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Montgomery&z=14
and I can’t see anything strange about Opelousas LA no matter how I zoom but I can’t remember why I’m looking at it???? LOL Where did we get Opelousas again?
For awhile I thought I had stubbed my toe on rock quarries. Theres a proposed limestone quarry at the Laramie WY site (which I can’t translate the script (hint hint ) it doesn’t seem to be Japanese or Korean, but I am no good at that translating part, so it may be after all.) ( oh and I did note the name Albany in the link I gave so it might transliterate to Albany.) Anyway back to quarries….And if the Laramie quarry gets approved there is a 50 million dollar processing plant to go with it.
Theres also a limestone quarry associated with the Columbia FL site, in fact that one has mercury pollution.
But then my “quarry theory” broke down after that. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try transposing coordinates and see what I come up with. But I keep thinking the almost all state capitols has to be connected. Awww well tomorrows another day.
BTW Nom, your comment over at America Speaks Ink was excellent!
May 12, 2010 at 9:32 pm
eng’s link at 19. has a comment that says there is script at Opelousas: I could not find it either. perhaps like the Montgomery it was reported and removed?
May 13, 2010 at 6:26 am
Trac, Google is not friendly. This must be your first exposure to their superior attitude. Many of us left Google a long time ago precisely for their snot attitude. I will never be surprised to any of Google’s behavior regarding anything.
May 13, 2010 at 6:34 am
Trac, thanks for working the puzzle. Nom loves them.
May 13, 2010 at 10:18 am
looked again at Laramie, WY google map & believe that’s japanese kanji, I have some books, will find them tonight, should be able to find most symbols, they don’t have too many brushstrokes; but will still take a good while.
May 13, 2010 at 4:35 pm
LOL well — No I’ve never dealt with google before other than to use their stuff, are they by any chance related to sprint?
Kanji is what my son thought too (martial artist) and I found a Kanji dictionary online and according to the gif on that site a couple of the letters looked right. BUT it popped up with a “need a language pack” deal to translate and every time I tried to download it —nada.
It was here:
http://www.kanjidic.com
Like I said no good at translation.
At any rate this has been a learning experience for me and verrrrryyyy interesting! Puzzle is a good word for it, I like trying to figure stuff out, the why, the who, the when part I mean.
May 13, 2010 at 6:43 pm
OMG, you are funny. I say that every day. 🙂
You and Nom are doing a fabulous job of trying to figure this out. I don’t think anyone in the government gives a rat’s rear at this point. Too much other stuff on their inexperienced plate.
May 14, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Hi,
I just want to encourage you all to keep at this. I haven’t had the time or patience to track all your references down but have tried to follow the trail a few times since I first ran into this oddity with varying success. It sure seems that you are onto something unique here. Don’t give up.
May 14, 2010 at 2:19 pm
We thank you for that. Read on another blog that anyone can add to Google maps and that makes me nervous.
May 15, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Worked on it awhile today. Got this stuck in my head:
“Once is happenstance; twice is circumstance; but three times is enemy action…” Goldfinger said it to James Bond (and I don’t even like James Bond movies).
Been a nice diversion from my usual hobby of trying to figure out what the dog Obama is up to lately and just HOW ineligible can one be and still be POTUS.
Anyway back to puzzle—been using :
http://www.placenames.com
Been going to
“advanced search” and putting the names of these places in the box and then clicking on : “all states”
And for type of place I’ve been scrolling down to “populated places” and clicking on that. Talk about a wealth of information including coordinates and a list of maps including google maps.
Searched through every “Anchorage” in google maps and it seems only Anchorage Texas has the Arabic name.
Then tried Hebron. Tons of Hebron populated places in the US. But in Mississippi alone there are 4 Hebrons… (no joke).
Amite County
Jefferson Davis County
Jones County
Pontotoc County
And 2 of them have the Arabic name (that I can see anyway)
Hebron a Populated Place in Amite County, Mississippi, USA.
Latitude: 31.23333 : Longitude: -90.67778
And Hebron a Populated Place in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, USA.
Latitude: 34.14667 : Longitude: -89.13972
Didn’t try any Hebrons in other states yet, so please somebody, anybody, feel free to search away, eh?
Happy Sunday to ya’ll!
May 15, 2010 at 9:33 pm
thx for finding a 2nd Hebron! so now we have duplicates for both Richmond and Hebron: I was wondering if someone hadn’t a list of cities, and done Richmond 2x by accident, like they had gotten up and come back to the computer and forgotten they’d already done Richmond: that answers that question at least.
I decided to look at the kanji today but I have only translated 3 of the characters so far and have no idea what it means: of the 6 read from left to right, the 2nd means person(#362), the third means talent(#871), and the 4th I believe means 3(#899); where numbers in parentheses refer to their number in the 1945 officially recognized Jōyō Kanji.
will try and get some time tomorrow to go back to the urdu-arabic script also.
May 16, 2010 at 9:02 am
it is not kanji, it is katakana:
it looks like it says: wa-i-o-mi-so-gu
Wyoming or Wyoming(-something?)
Waiomingu is Wyoming in japanese: the symbol for the phoneme “no” is very similar to the character for the phoneme “so”: probably the 5th symbol from left to right is really an “n”
May 16, 2010 at 10:17 am
I decided to look for all the Columbias since I now think each name refers to a different person or group in the “real” city, and if Columbia is DC one imagines there would be many scripts: the original script in Columbia FL has now disappeared.
Make sure to save screen shots, iCytes etc, of both the hits and misses & include dates: it would be useful to know if anymore scripts are appearing as well as disappearing.
May 16, 2010 at 12:01 pm
no other Columbias
May 16, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Nom, Still can see the Florida one, but yes screen shots are a good idea,
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=30.0738438%2C%20-82.6956787
So in Japanese it says Wyoming but then near it it says “Test- Wrong Locality”? Makes no sense does it, because it is Wyoming.
May 16, 2010 at 5:07 pm
yes it’s still in google maps but not google earth; someone posted to that effect as well at the americaspeaksink site & that some of the others had disappeared in both, but I haven’t yet checked which ones
I don’t think the katakana one is related to the the urdu-arabic first because it is in katakana; and second because it is the main Laramie.
May 17, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Saw you’d posted over at CS, so I added there what I found yesterday:
Here’s the other one I found: “بيت لحم”/ “Bethlehem TN” lat=35.1556364, lon=-87.5875224
There are scores (hundreds?) of these across the globe: other than these in the US, scripts appear to occur only in some Islamic countries: Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, UAE, Western Sahara, Yemen (a number of these nations are very poorly mapped & show very few script or even only the capital city); but inasmuch as I could find not Albania, Armenia, Cape Verde, Cyprus (has at least one Greek script), Gaza, Greece (multiple Greek scripts), Israel, Malta, Turkey…I have not yet searched Europe or elsewhere.
There are a couple of noteworthy differences though: these scripts are located across much longer aerial distances: many can be read from kilometers above.
Except for the ones found in the US, so far they are all in predominantly islamic nations.
The ones in the US appear over what I call “country cousins” of more famous (usually US but also Israeli) cities of the same name (these cities are also often state capitals): I haven’t had time to refine my search of the foreign countries to see if this also occurs there, I simply don’t know.
As noted previously: these scripts could have been embedded by a user in google earth at any time; they could also be a strange glitch in google earth (though one wonders why not all the Salems, Austins, Bethlehems…?), someone’s easter egg hunt, leftover text from map acquisition; but they are certainly a puzzle!
If anyone solves it, plz post the answer!!!
May 20, 2010 at 7:06 pm
all scripts noted here in US have disappeared.
none present as far as I can see in UK, France, Germany, Netherlands; not checked other EUs, Scandinavian countries yet: seems doubtful any present.
scripts still present in muslim nations listed above.
May 20, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Clean up was quick.
May 17, 2010 at 6:48 pm
They’re here, they’re there, they ain’t there. GRHHHH!
I agree with Nom’s assessment about the Easter egg hunt, leftover text, except MAYBE for one idea I had. And I’ll get to that in a minute. But first my thinking is that IF, and this is a big IF, but IF this is some evil scheme and not something fairly innocent the answer has to lie in finding the common denominator(s). I haven’t looked outside the USA but I see this with the ones in this country.
1. all are in a remote or heavily wooded area according to the street views.
2. all have a plausible reason to show up in google maps and/or google earth, so it can be said…“oh it’s JUST the name of a street/county/unincorporated area ( take your pick) and so its probably left over from a mash-up, layer, it’s a bug, WHATEVER.” Some show up on detailed highway maps but not geological maps — some visa versa, and some are from city maps. Meaning no rhyme or reason to it but for anyone except for those with the utmost inquiring — suspicious minds –hey it can be explained away. That may be more important than we think for hiding something in plain sight that people are certainly going to see and wonder about.
3. all are relatively easy to translate because they are ALSO the name of a state capitol or state’s most famous and populated city. Can you picture trying to translate the name Waxahachie (TX) or Taycheedah (WI) or Allegheny (PA)? What if it was written backwards? How do you translate less common Chippewa or Choctaw names? But pull out your handy dandy pocket size Arabic to English/English to Arabic travel related dictionary including 100 common USA city names and it would probably have the state capitols and each state’s larger cities. Therefore these names would be in there with the exception of Hebron and now Bethlehem, BUT THEY should be easy enough to translate for other reasons.
OK tell me I read too many Tom Clancy novels but let me throw some phrases out there just for fun.
Safe houses? Drop Zones? A place to tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree to alert a passerby? ( theres a word for that in spycraft LOL) Or maybe nothing to do with the physical location but here in this spot look for something to be edited on the map, an address changed or something, and THAT means something, but heres the spot you want to look at? Just a dry run to see if anyone will notice and care enough to make a fuss?
I don’t know.
I like this blog, I stumbled upon it because of this and foung it to be a friendly place and so I’ll be around, and I’ll ALWAYS have one eye on this topic but I think I’ve stared at maps and flew around the USA via google earth enough now. Probably time to get back to the real world. Ya’ll stay strong, and stay AWAKE, ya hear?
May 17, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Trac you are always welcomed. It’s wonderful to see someone else work at the Google oddities. You have a lot to offer, so please come around often. Thanks for the kind words.