Eagle-eyed Redditor spots a flying Stealth Bomber on Google Maps

Google Maps is dwelling to a lot of surprising sights, from unusual pentagrams in Kazakhstan to a parked UFO in Romania. But a Reddit person has simply noticed one of many rarest ones but: a flying stealth bomber.Although the B-2 Spirit can fly at 1,010 km/h (or about 628mph), a picture of the bomber was nonetheless captured on Google Maps because it hurtled throughout a distant a part of Missouri. The picture was discovered by Redditor Hippowned.Naturally, the picture is barely blurry and in addition has some crimson, inexperienced and blue artifacts, that are the results of how satellites seize pictures. Google Maps, and its software-based companion Google Earth, collect their pictures from a number of sources, however this body is credited to satellite tv for pc imagery from Maxar Technologies.

A Stealth Bomber caught in Google Maps — (Image credit score: u/Hippowned / Reddit)

Rather than focusing mild onto a sensor like conventional cameras, satellites measure the depth of sure wavelengths of sunshine (like crimson, inexperienced and blue), that are then mixed to make a single picture.

It's this course of that is doubtless behind the colourful banding seen in Google Maps' shot of the stealth bomber, with the simultaneous movement of each the satellite tv for pc and plane inflicting the psychedelic separation between the crimson, inexperienced and blue components of the picture. This is not the primary time a stealth bomber has been noticed on Google Maps; a craft was beforehand seen parked on the runway at Whiteman Air Force Base, the present dwelling of the B-2 Spirit. But it's the first time one has been captured in flight, albeit in a location that is solely 25 miles north of that AFB, which matches some strategy to explaining why it is seemingly hurtling in direction of St. Louis.

Flying colours

A plane caught flying on Google Maps

(Image credit score: Google Maps)

Google Maps has been going for over 15 years, however a lot of its imagery is up to date each few years, which explains why new, uncommon sightings continuously pop up on the service.That stated, it is comparatively uncommon to see fast-moving objects like planes – and stealth bombers particularly – in its patchwork of satellite tv for pc pictures. In 2017, Redditors found an airliner in mid-flight over the South Downs National Park within the UK, with that picture additionally displaying the identical crimson, inexperienced and blue artifacts because the B-2 Spirit shot, but it surely's nonetheless fairly uncommon.Google's technique of compiling its satellite tv for pc photographs has additionally created some barely spooky, aircraft-based anomalies. In 2019, a Google Earth person within the UK noticed what seemed to be the shadow of an plane beneath the ocean, simply off the coast of Edinburgh, Scotland.But a Google spokesperson advised The Mirror that "the reason it looks like the plane is underwater is because each satellite image you see on the map is actually a compilation of several images."The spokesperson added that "fast-moving objects, like planes, often show up in only one of the many images we use for a given area. When this happens, faint remnants of the fast-moving object can sometimes be seen." Or within the case of the stealth bomber, a surprisingly clear shot of the one of the vital recognizable plane ever made.