I don't know about you, but I love wasting time on Google Maps.

What could be better than exploring the streets of a whole new country from your bed?

Google Maps have a lot of bloopers hidden on Street View (Pixabay)

But not only do you get to nosy at beautiful streets in far away countries, you get to see some hilarious Easter eggs.

Usually the funnier sights on Google Street View are of people doing something dodgy or pulling a funny pose.

Though this example is a little more serious.

It looks like the Street View car has been involved in a bit of an incident as a cache of photos have been shared on Reddit documenting what appears to be a hit-and-run traffic crash.

As if that wasn't crazy enough, the incident is now documented on Google Maps.

In the photos, a man on a motorbike is seen attempting a u-turn.

As the photos go by, he is seen then seen being knocked off his bike by the Google Street View car.

The person who shared the images to social media didn't reveal a location, but another user identified it as being Youpe Amadi in Senegal, Africa.

The crash was caught on camera (Google Maps)

Redditors shared their reaction to the images.

One wroted: "Imagine Google Street View being used as evidence."

Another commented: "How the f**k does this make it on Google? They’re not uploading in real time lmao are they? I’d think he’d go back and drive past the area without the crash for there to be a clean version to upload? Or at least blurred this out, but maybe it just slipped through the cracks."

While a third chipped in with: "Going up to your boss and saying 'Hey I just hit a guy so we should probably go back and retake pictures of this area' could result in a loss of job. My guess is the driver never reported this and there's no human actually looking at all of the pictures they take for Street View."

Ooh, there's a conspiracy if I heard one. It might explain a lot about some of the other blunders that have slipped through the net over the years too.

This seems to be the first time that the Google Street View car has been caught up in a collision itself.

On other occasions, it has spotted some other...interesting things.

One couple were caught getting down and dirty by the side of an Australian highway by Google's car.

In the rather saucy shots, the woman can be seen smiling at the Google car as the man takes a swig from his beer as they fool around on the boot of their car.

Taking a swig of beer whilst shagging in a car boot.

There's an image for this year's Christmas card, eh?

We've all seen those street view snaps, where an unsuspecting resident has been photographed outside their house by one of the Google Maps cameras.

The car has captured all kinds of incidents in the past, like one man who was carrying a tent on his bike (which internet sleuths mistook for a body) to what people think was a UFO flying over Bermuda.

But did you know you can actually blur out yourself or your property on Google Maps?

People are realizing just how important it is to do so, considering just about everyone uses the tool.

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

If you want to blur your property, it's really easy to do.

All you need to do is head to the Google Maps app and enter your home address.

Once you're outside your property, you can click 'report a problem'. The app will then ask you why you are reporting the image.

You can then select 'request blurring' and select 'my home'.

You'll want to drag the box over your entire property (so including any outside buildings or gardens) to make sure it blurs everything.

You'll then need to enter your email address to confirm the changes.

And beware, you can't undo the request once it's been made!

There's an important reason why more people are starting to blur their homes on Google, and it's all to do with privacy.

Of course, having your home on view comes with security risks. For example, potential burglars could use the app to learn more about your home, such as potential entry points that may be more accessible or out of view from street lights or door cams.

Though Google says it automatically blurs 'identifying information like faces and licence plates', if you somehow slipped through, you might want to request that to be blurred as well.

Google Maps

“Google takes a number of steps to protect the privacy of individuals when Street View imagery is published to Google Maps," Google explains.

“We have developed cutting-edge face and licence plate blurring technology that is designed to blur identifiable faces and licence plates within Google-contributed imagery in Street View.

“If you see that your face or licence plate requires additional blurring, or if you would like us to blur your entire house, car or body, submit a request using the ‘Report a problem’ tool.”

So if you ever spot the Google Maps camera cruising down your road while you're out in your PJs, at least you know you can blur yourself out ASAP.

Baffled Google Earth users have been left with more questions than answers after stumbling upon what looks to be a giant 'ice ship' in Antarctica.

Between 'UFOs' and 'hollow islands', our little planet is home to all sorts of unusual sights.

It would be near impossible to see all of them in person, but Google Earth allows us to travel far and wide without ever leaving our sofas, and it's through this handy tech that some explorers found themselves with a birds-eye view of Antarctica.

Considering it's an area famously covered in ice, you might not expect there be much to see in Antarctica. But a video published in 2020 proves that theory wrong, as YouTube user MrMBB333 highlighted a large, icy mass in the shape of a boat.

In the clip, the YouTuber uses Google to determine that the 'ship' measured more than 400 feet in length, with shadows indicating that it rose up higher than the land around it.

YouTube / MrMBB333

MrMBB333 put the map into 3D view to get a better view of the shape, saying: "You look down on it and it looks like the outline of a ship. This measures 400ft long, whatever that looks like it looks like a ship..

"An ice ship if you want to call it – a 400ft yacht just sitting there off the coast of Antarctica."

If you're keen to see the shape for yourself, you can do so on Google Maps using the coordinates 66°54'18.0"S 163°13'37.0"E. But with Antarctica virtually uninhabited, could it really be a ship? And if so, how did it get there?

These are the questions internet users have been left with after watching the video, which Snopes has confirmed is undoctored.

"Has the ice receded in the area where the 'ship' is? Just saying it could be receding ice revealing ship wreaks?," one person suggested.

YouTube/MrMBB333

Another wrote: "That ship probably ended up there from the Bermuda Triangle."

It's still unclear whether the shape really is a ship, but it's worth noting that ships have sunk in Antarctica in the 21st century.

A Canadian cruise ship named MS Explorer sunk in the continent in 2007, though its last known location was more than 3,000 miles from the icy shape spotted on Google Earth, suggesting it's not responsible for the curiosity online.

In 2013, another ship named Lyubov Orlova was abandoned in Antarctica, but it wasn't nearly as long as the shape spotted on the map.

So, the 'ship' remains a mystery, and until someone can get to Antarctica and explore it for themselves, it's likely to stay that way.

Whilst many people will already know that Google Maps offers you the option to hide your house from Street View, the real question that you should be asking is whether it’s something you should be doing.

Google Maps is one of those things that we probably take for granted nowadays, but was absolutely unimaginable just a few short years ago.

It’s remarkable that we can just take out our phone and find anywhere in the world – just about – in a matter of seconds.

Still, it is quite invasive when you think about it, isn’t it?

Would you like the idea that anyone can just turn on their computer or phone and see the outside of your house, your car, or your front garden?

Well, it’s a fairly simple process to get Google to blur your house out, if that’s something you want to do.

If you want to do it, head on over to the Google Maps website and find your house on Street View, then find your property before clicking ‘report a problem’ when you’re certain you’ve found the right house address.

When it asks what problem you are reporting, click the ‘request blurring’ button and select ‘my home’ as the reason.

You’ll then be asked to provide more information on why you want the blurring done, at that point you can just write about privacy concerns.

Speaking of which – what are they?

Well, apart from the obvious fact that everyone can see your house and address online, it allows potential thieves and housebreakers the opportunity to scope out your property at their leisure, or to see if you’ve got a new car, or check for signs of prosperity when selecting a target.

Online stalkers can also use the platform, or generally anyone you don’t want knowing about your whereabouts.

While these things are unlikely, they’re certainly not impossible, meaning that getting the address blurred is the safe option from a privacy and security standpoint.

On the other hand, if you plan to sell your house in future, having it blurred might mean that some folks are put off when trying to look for it.

At this stage, it’s worth pointing out that the blur is hard to get undone.

Furthermore, while Google Maps is by far the most popular mapping platform out there, and getting it removed on there won’t do anything for Bing Maps, Yandex, and whatever else.

Anyway, it’s something to think about, and we’ve told you how to do it if you so desire.

There's definitely pros and cons, so you'll have to make your own decision.

A 'ghost' plane in Australia has supposedly popped up on Google Maps, and it's pretty bizarre.

The possible passenger plane, that looks a bit like an Airbus A320, looks to have landed on the south side of a mountain ridge north-east of Mount Leach in the Cardwell Ranges north of Ingham.

It's hard to tell if the aircraft is commercial as there seems to be no visible markings on the plane - well, as seen from Google Maps.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has spoken out about the strange sight and told Cairns Post: "There appears to be a phenomenon called ghost images and that could be what this is."

A ghost image is a secondary image caused by a fault or glitch in an optical system,

UNILAD has contacted Google for comment.

According to Simple Flying, "the reason ghost flights exist is so that they can keep their slots at airports. This is a rule that is enforced by the European Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States, known as the 'use it or lose it' rule.

"Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines were required to abide by the 80:20 rule which means the airlines will have to use at least 80 percent of their slot time to be entitled to keep their designated slots."

Well, pretty recently on June 8, 2022, a ‘ghost’ plane entered the airspaces of Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria without permission with its transponder and radio switched off. 

It seems that the small aircraft had belonged to the director of Nida Airfield, Bronius Zaromskis.

He claims to have sold it to an unidentified Russian-speaking customer in Panevezys, northern Lithuania, saying: “I cannot guess which country they were from.

“They might be Ukrainians, maybe Romanians or Bulgarians. I was speaking to one of them in the Russian language. But I don’t know the names of any of these men, I was not interested.

“I’ve been trying to sell that plane for years, I had nowhere to store it, so I’m glad somebody bought it. I don't remember the name of the company which bought it.” 

Bulgarian Minister of Defense Dragomir Zakov said: “At no time the plane was a threat to the civilian or military infrastructure of Bulgaria.

“It was flying at a low altitude, difficult to catch by fighters, but we monitored it at all times. We located where it landed and are working to establish the circumstances.”

If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com