Almost since its inception way back in June of 2001, the tool has given internet denizens across the globe a chance to peek into just about any other area of the globe, all from the comfort of our offices or living rooms.

And for nearly as long, there have been people on the lookout for strange stuff that goes unnoticed in day-to-day life.

You know, things like ghosts in windows, mysterious holes in the ground, barges of hanging chads left over from the 2000 U.S. Presidential election.

Weirdness.

Thankfully for us, these lone eagle eyes have sprouted into legions over two decades, and the web is now teeming with oddball images, from all corners, for us to ponder.

Here, then, for your pleasure and paranoia, are 10 web pages to find some of the best weird sightings on Google Earth. Enjoy, and don’t be afraid to pull the blanket over your head if it all gets to be a little too much.

EmbedGoogle maps

Image we love: Human Lips in Sudan

This is just a hill in Gharb, Darfur, Dudan, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that a giant set of lips are just waiting to devour you … or kiss you … or whistle a song from the center of the earth. However you look at it, these “lips” are a good reminder that things aren’t always as they seem.

Boredom Therapy

Image we love: Ancient Antarctica Ruins

Antarctica is nothing but a frozen and deadly wasteland … right?

That’s certainly the image that we’ve built up over the years thanks to the little that we’ve learned from science and popular culture over the years. But images like this one — and this one in particular — might make you think again about what has happened through the ages in our southern-most continent.

Can You Actually (CYA)

Image we love: Giant Target in the Nevada Desert

There is nothing going on in the American desert.

There are no aliens.

There is no bomb testing.

There are no giant targets in Nevada.

We repeat …

There is nothing going on in the American desert.

(Just ask the government.)

The Telegraph

Image we love: A lake in an island in a lake in an island

Located in Luzon, Phillippines, this geographic oddity packs a lot of wonder into a relatively small space. It also makes you wonder if the pattern continues, Russian-doll style, until the whole thing just collapses in on itself.

Live Science

Image we love: Ghost woman

OK, so this woman isn’t really a ghost. But she is a good illustration of how even Google can’t stay current with everything all the time. By the time the woman’s daughter saw this picture on Google Earth, her mother had been dead for 18 months.

Creepy, if nothing else.

Geek.com

Image we love: Indochinese Border Scale Model

China and India have a long-running border dispute, and at least one of those countries seems to have an obsession with the situation. That ant-farm shaped box in the middle of this picture is a 1/20th scale model of part of that disputed border region.

No official explanation has been proffered, but there’s no way it can be an innocent coincidence … right?

BrainJet

Image we love: Planning a Trip?

The folks at BrainJet say that these five landing strips outside Eloy, Arizona, “have never had a plane either coming or going on them.”

There is other information around the internet about some abandoned airstrips in the area — could they be one and the same? Or is there something more mysterious at work here?

Either way, it’s a desolate and chilling image.

Twisted Sifter

Image we love: The Badlands Guardian

Most suggest this is a natural land formation near Walsh, Alberta, Canada, but could there be another explanation?

How to explain the strong American Indian overtones, including the “feather” or “leaf” to the right of the guardian’s head?

It’s an amazing image, no matter which explanation you believe.

The Chive

Image we love: The Nothing

According to The Chive, this huge yawning hole in the Kantega area of the Himalayan mountains is not a hole at all — or a shadow or a terrible cut-and-paste job. In fact, it seems no one is quite sure what it is.

What we do know is that this area is hiked on a fairly regular basis, and the dark maw (or whatever) is not visible in person.

Does Mork live there? Is it a portal to another dimension? The consequence of electromagnetic interference?

The unknowing is delicious and frightening.

Pulptastic

Image we love: Gobi Desert String Code

What are these strange squiggles in the middle of China’s Gobi Desert?

There are as many theories as there are lines in the formation, but the general consensus seems to be that they are too regular and too angular to be anything other than manmade

One particular idea holds that they are a calibration mechanism for Chinese spies who fly over the area and line up their cameras on the scribbles in a particular way to make sure that the photos and videos they take later on have the proper perspective.

Whether any of that is true or not is open for debate, but it evokes a fun bit of Cold War imagery, don’t you think?

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