Google Maps has a massive global reach, and you’re bound to see funny and weird things. You can even see ghost towns, haunted forests, and corpses that don’t decompose.  

Google Maps’ Immense Reach

As of July 2024, Google Maps had more than a billion monthly active users. The app is downloaded over 600 million times a year. Over 25 million websites and 67% of smartphone owners use it.

The Street View app lets users take 360-degree photos on their cell phones. Google collects images using its proverbial Street View car, which is the most frequently used piece of equipment. It has been used to take photos of locations spanning more than 10 million miles across the globe. Memorable images include a horse eating a banana and a Google Street View car going 37 mph in a 30 mph zone.

The Weird

Reijo Kela, an artist from Finland, holds an art exhibit in Kainuu. The exhibit, “The Silent People,” shows thousands of scarecrows in a field.

You can see a group of people wearing pigeon masks on a sidewalk in Tokyo and a creepy mannequin pool party in Ontario.

Google captured two men in India carrying a dentist’s chair in the street.

The Funny

Someone was pulling a penguin on a bike in Western Australia.

The camera caught a floating Ramones fan. Only his head and torso were visible, nothing from the waist down.

You can see a man shooting at a can on top of another man’s head on a front lawn in Connecticut. He was shooting an arrow, but still.

A bear was snapped with a hungry look on its face in Kurile Lake, Russia. It had just caught fish.

A man was walking with a cockatoo on his hand in Portland, Oregon.  

Scary Ghost Towns  

At the top of our list of creepy Google Earth coordinates is the abandoned town of Pripyat, Ukraine. It was evacuated after the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.

Chaos overwhelmed the country (much like now) after the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in the town. Pripyat remains frozen in time as of 2024, with nature consuming the abandoned streets and buildings.

Next is the Japanese village of Nagoro, once a lively city. Its population is diminishing. It even seems to be on its way to becoming a ghost town, like Pripyat.

A local artist created more than 300 life-sized figures, symbolizing the population of Nagoro. He formed each figure in the likeness of a past villager or a made-up character. They are styled in everyday poses: waiting for the bus, fishing, or tending gardens.

Sometimes, Google mistakes them for real people and blurs them, which is how realistic they are. Nagoro started attracting visitors from all over Japan and even neighboring countries with its figures. Most tourists miss the point: a quaint village fading into oblivion as Tokyo welcomes its 38 millionth resident.

Cursed Figure In France

There is a blurred area in Nancy, France. It hides what looks like a corpse in an apartment, but it’s actually just a creepy-looking statue.

It has big white eyes and messy hair. People wonder why Google blurs it if it’s only a tiki statue.

Haunted Hoia Baciu Forest In Romania

Some forests are famous for their uncanny, twisted trees. One such forest is the Hoia Baciu in Romania. Locals say there are ghosts here.

The Shipwreck Near North Sentinel Island

The biggest shipwreck on Google is near India’s North Sentinel Island. It is the remains of an almost 300-foot-long Bolivian ship that ran ashore and sank in 2003. Few people have tried to visit the island because of its hostile inhabitants, a tribe of hunters and gatherers.

Finally, a 2013 meme said that typing in specific Maps coordinates would show two men attempting to dispose of a body. The information turned out to be false.