Why are parts of the ocean on Google Earth/Maps blurred out?

[Calter]

I saw this reddit post earlier
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1apjzh6/google_maps_and_earth_have_removed_the_ocean/


The OP claims an anomaly/structure off the coast of Malibu has been removed and provides before and after images of a place. (A few days ago and now)

Personally, I don't think this is some sort of structure that has been intentionally hidden or anything like that, but I'm interested in knowing if anybody knows why a decent chunk of the west coast is apparently blurred out.

This is the link to the location on Google Earth https://earth.google.com/web/@33.99...ogChwxbzFaZUlRMjQzWDJVeXN0eU9vMGVORkJ5TlVNIAI

The blurry part seems to stretch South from that point bordering the coast, maintaining about a 6km distance off the coast.

For example, here you can see it bend around to keep the distance a couple of times

I think knowing why Google Maps does this kind of stuff could help in explaining some conspiracies about Google Maps hiding alien megastructures and UFOs.

It is worth noting that there are other blurry spots on the ocean (so it's not just the west coast of the US), but I was curious about this case since it seems to have a pattern of mantaining a certain distance from the coast and, according to the OP of the reddit post, is a fairly recent addition.

 

[jdog]

FYI, here's the same location on NOAA's Bathymetric Data Viewer at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/bathymetry/

Which also provides the Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) Data Synthesis version of the image:

As you can see what might be the "official" government representation of the location hasn't changed or been censored.

It's important to note that what's being displayed here isn't an aerial or satellite image, but a three-dimensionalized representation of bathymetric data, generally from sonar scans.

Google Maps and Google Earth use tiling to display images. For wider areas lower-resolution images are displayed; as you zoom in the system swaps in successively higher-resolution tiles for the areas of interest.

It's also possible Google is pulling the detailed data from the National Centers for Environmental Information data source and it's not being fed, since they have a note about scheduled maintenance today:

 

[sigmops]

@jdog This may be off topic but do you know anything about the Seabed 2030 initiative? Its goal is to have higher resolution bathymetric surveys of the entire ocean floor by 2030. I haven't had any success understanding how to view the results of their ongoing work.

Wondering if those scans are being actively / automatically imported into Google or the NOAA's renderings?

 

[Duke]

I saw this reddit post earlier
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1apjzh6/google_maps_and_earth_have_removed_the_ocean/


The OP claims an anomaly/structure off the coast of Malibu has been removed and provides before and after images of a place. (A few days ago and now)
View attachment 65995View attachment 65996

Personally, I don't think this is some sort of structure that has been intentionally hidden or anything like that, but I'm interested in knowing if anybody knows why a decent chunk of the west coast is apparently blurred out.

This is the link to the location on Google Earth https://earth.google.com/web/@33.99...ogChwxbzFaZUlRMjQzWDJVeXN0eU9vMGVORkJ5TlVNIAI

The blurry part seems to stretch South from that point bordering the coast, maintaining about a 6km distance off the coast.

For example, here you can see it bend around to keep the distance a couple of times
View attachment 65998
View attachment 65997

I think knowing why Google Maps does this kind of stuff could help in explaining some conspiracies about Google Maps hiding alien megastructures and UFOs.

It is worth noting that there are other blurry spots on the ocean (so it's not just the west coast of the US), but I was curious about this case since it seems to have a pattern of mantaining a certain distance from the coast and, according to the OP of the reddit post, is a fairly recent addition.

This story has been around for about ten years, it was broken by a paranormal radio host/podcaster named Jimmy Church. Here's an article a Malibu newspaper did on him and his claims.

Jimmy Church, host of "Fade to Black" on the Dark Matter Radio Network, released a video featuring nine images of the Malibu alien base, which has circulated widely on the Internet and been the topic of news stories. He and others theorize that the base might be a portal for spaceships to travel underground to other Earth locations.

https://malibutimes.com/article_eda95e50-33b4-11e4-b284-0019bb2963f4

 

[jdog]

I heard an update at the end of January about how many percent more of the seafloor we now have at a higher resolution thanks to the initiative, but I tuned out the details. I'll have to find the recording.

The Seabed 2030 site isn't very up to date; according to GEBCO, the new global grid is updated every June. You can download the very large source files, or there's a viewer at https://download.gebco.net/ where you can load up the 2023 data.

 

[MapperGuy]

Actually the question should be "why is there so much detail shown in some parts of the ocean"?

Lack of detail is the default, high levels of detail is the anomaly.

Before the 20th Century all bathymetric data was collected by throwing a lead weight over the side of a ship and measuring how much line had been paid out when that weight hit the bottom. It wasn't until after WW2 that depth sounding equipment was routinely used. Only in recent decades have even somewhat accurate contours of the oceans been possible.

A few decades ago I was looking at a then current USN Hydrographic chart, on one corner was a diagram showing the sources of the bathymetric data displayed on different parts of the map. Most was in recent decades, but one corner was labeled "Royal Navy Survey 1895".

 

[Calter]

I get the witty argument you are trying to make, but by that argument then we shouldn't be questioning why we lose anything at all considering the average of what humanity has had in the past million years. You lost your bike? Well, 1000 years ago bikes couldn't even be fabricated.

My point is that there was detail and then there wasn't (I know the detail is still there in other sites, it just isn't there in Google Maps/Earth), high level of detail was the default and the sudden lack of detail is the anomaly. So, my question is, what was the reasoning behind the detail being removed?

Could it have been to save resources or something of the sort?
Could it be just an error?
Could it be some sort of privacy deal with the state of California?
...


I don't think it was done to censor this alleged megastructure, but I would like to have some sort of source or base knowledge on why it was done in the first place and I'm not really sure where to look for that information myself. I think it would be useful knowledge to have in case similar conspiracies of "google maps censoring aliens" or the like come up.

 

[Ann K]

I don't think it was done to censor this alleged megastructure, but I would like to have some sort of source or base knowledge on why it was done in the first place and I'm not really sure where to look for that information myself. I think it would be useful knowledge to have in case similar conspiracies of "google maps censoring aliens" or the like come up.

I'll suggest an answer, although I really don't know if this is the case. Google Earth uses an enormous, colossal, astronomical amount of data. If the wet three quarters of the earth's surface is used by almost nobody, does it make sense for them to continue to update that with newer scans? The Seabed 2030 scans exist for specialized uses, such as to look for the results of undersea quakes, and are available for anyone, especially those with a specific need to know, but that may not include the run-of-the-mill user, and Google might be choosing not to duplicate stuff that is found elsewhere in a more complete form.

 

[jdog]

I get the witty argument you are trying to make, but by that argument then we shouldn't be questioning why we lose anything at all considering the average of what humanity has had in the past million years. You lost your bike? Well, 1000 years ago bikes couldn't even be fabricated.

My point is that there was detail and then there wasn't (I know the detail is still there in other sites, it just isn't there in Google Maps/Earth), high level of detail was the default and the sudden lack of detail is the anomaly. So, my question is, what was the reasoning behind the detail being removed?

Could it have been to save resources or something of the sort?
Could it be just an error?
Could it be some sort of privacy deal with the state of California?
...


I don't think it was done to censor this alleged megastructure, but I would like to have some sort of source or base knowledge on why it was done in the first place and I'm not really sure where to look for that information myself. I think it would be useful knowledge to have in case similar conspiracies of "google maps censoring aliens" or the like come up.

There is a bit of tunnel vision involved in focusing on this one spot and thinking there's an answer specific to those coordinates; there's a whole swath of Google Maps/Earth seafloor data that dropped to a lower resolution. From what I see on Google Maps this morning, it hasn't reverted -- but one person's experience is not necessarily representative, since Google serves up data from multiple server locations across the planet. Google also licenses data from various providers; it's also possible this particular data was in a set contributed via a third-party provider that has expired and hasn't been renewed.

The conspiracy theory only pays attention to this one spot because that's where people wanted to look after the site was mentioned -- was it all from some Sol Foundation lecture? -- and assumes this is some sort of censorship when a) other publically available maps show the location in the previous resolution and b) plenty of people have screen grabs of the high-res imagery.

 

[FatPhil]

The conspiracy theory only pays attention to this one spot because that's where people wanted to look after the site was mentioned -- was it all from some Sol Foundation lecture?

I see no obvious match from their youtube chan at https://youtube.com/channel/UCzlWCeD3J0zVb4KSeaeDNdw/videos

z-kNIzV5qSE     David Grusch gives the Sol Foundation 2023 Symposium Closing Remarks
vWsWpa1Lfl4     Jacques Vall\u00e9e, Ph.D. on the UFO Phenomenon being a Genuine Scientific Problem
rvV9AHvEyHw     Diana Walsh Pasulka, Ph.D. on Uniting Science, the Humanities, and Intelligence in UAP Scholarship
odTMAzkdPKw     Jairus Victor Grove on Atmospheric and Orbital Threat Reduction in an Age of Uncertainty
njNP8ypUbDM     Beatriz Villarroel, Ph.D. on Multiple Transients and the Search for ET Probes
oq7of1A7F_E     Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D. on How the U.S. Government\u2019s UAP Apathy is a Case of Misplaced Priorities
nifLdoJYamQ     Christopher Mellon on The Potential Consequences of Disclosure
lngv8bUkVpQ     Jeff Kripal on Paradoxical Thoughts on the UFO Phenomenon from a Historian of Religions
p3BYRuGMAHE     Larry Maguire on the Canadian Government\u2019s Stance on UAP
PMNO_9Zc720     Avi Loeb, Ph.D. on The New Frontier of Interstellar Objects

(sorry, that's the format I look at YT playlists in!)

 

[Mick West]

was it all from some Sol Foundation lecture?

Gallaudet is interested in a nearby feature, like 50 miles away. It looks like a submarine landslide, just with a bunch of rock that went a long way. He thinks it's significant.