I was just looking at it on TerraServer.com. They have two pictures of it there. One picture is from 2003 and the other picture is from 2007. The 2003 picture shows that there is a grove of trees there. The 2007 picture shows that there is nothing there. Has anyone else checked any other map sites to see what they have?

For anyone who is curious, the location of this picture is a little west of the city of Brummen in the Netherlands. The coordinate are: Latitude = N52.08969, Longitude = E6.12333.

Aoi

@Dr.Danger, Shogun of Jalopnik: It's hiding turtles on their backs.

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

Try using the candle.

Gann

@ctoomer: @Vibhorsir: The live map seems to be older, judging by the golf course. Unless all the grass dies during the winter.

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

windmills

WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY

Dr.Danger, Shogun of Jalopnik

It's a big field of weed. I've been there.

Mekevorka

Did anyone tried MS maps to check it out?

biofreak

@Rhodizzle: Scratch that, didn't scroll far enough. Nothing to see here.

Rhodizzle

seems to be a error on google's part.....
[maps.live.com]

ctoomer

@weatherman: How very neutral of them.

What turns a person neutral anyway? Is it their list for gold? Power? Or are they just born with a heart full of neutrality?

Rabid Penguin

Here is a link that shows it via some old google maps graphics...

[www.golftravelguide.com]

Just zoom in, switch to satellite, and scroll west to the end of the golf course.

Rhodizzle

Lookin at the area in LIVE maps (Thanks Vibhorsir), Every patch of trees in the entire bloody country looks really repetitious, so either that's one big secret, or it's just an unexplainable phenomenon.

ZPfan

I feel sorry for the Google guy whose job is retouching the world in Photoshop.

craighyatt

Does anyone here live in Holland? No? I guess we will never find out...

DarkHavoc99

Looks like a Zelda forest to me.

GeekyNerdGuy

So now we know exactly where to go to investigate. If it hadn't been covered up, how many people would go looking for it? (Several thousand less)

Khuluna

Is it really normal on livemaps or just a better photoshop job?

Tikitiki

well, it is The Netherlands, so perhaps a drug garden?

MFlick

yeah
Its normal on Live maps..

a_r

It must be were Saddam Hussein kept his WMDs. Bush will invade Holland next week!

walrusim

it hides Google's illegal tulip plantation

sargentr

It is adjacent to this hotel: [www.hoteliers.com] . Maybe it's their version of the Greenbrier in the US: [en.wikipedia.org]

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

Holland is using pre-megatexture technology.

ripfire

@lldsandsll:

The Netherlands is not neutral IIRC

Lyuse

@lldsandsll: and what exactly is neutral about them? they're the HQ for NATO FFS.

weatherman

I can tell you firsthand that Dutch leprechauns are far fiercer than their Irish counterparts.

John Mahoney

It was just an error. Look at the same place in LIVE maps.

[maps.live.com]

Vibhorsir

@lldsandsll: neutral gov'ts don't have secrets?

weatherman

The trees to the left of this are photoshoped as well. Prob covering a couple buildings.....

Y2KGTP

Hey, isn't Jesus Diaz in the neighborhood. Send him over... in a Lego boat or something...

Sean Harrington

Nothing makes people more curious than botched camouflage.

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

looks like the forests from the original legend of zelda for NES!

livermore111

That's just an aerial view of the Lost Woods from Zelda. If you zoom out even further you'll notice that whole entire picture repeats itself.

Rabid Penguin

They don't want the world to know that they have completely depleted their foliage making the wooden clogs?

Mayor McRib

Gov't secrets? They're neutral FFS.

lldsandsll

Its just a very meticulous reforestation initiative.

ALT

hire remote viewers

Valicious

It looks pretty clear (by looking at the light/shadows) that it's at the edge of two sets of sat imagery. I think things must've changed between the two and Google had to decide to eliminate the trees they had in the old image or put trees in the clearing on the new image.

Trees 1 - Golf Course 0

Drew Draws nothing of merit

Interesting, just to the left of that image across the water is another curious patterned image, also likely a cosmetic coverup of some sort. I once found a water image that had been "shopped" it was probably covering up some stealth watercraft or private island.

glasgow

@biofreak: Can you has a grammar checker? =)

FunkNotPunk

@Margatron: Well, they ignored the clone stamped waves in the ocean. I mean, checking for that would just be crazy.

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

What I want to know is, who took the time to find this one patch of clone-stamped trees, out of THE ENTIRE WORLD MAP? That's a lot of searching!

Margatron

I think we're on to something with the Lego Boat... Could this be the working version of a full size flying saucer made out of Legos?

Lupison

People, this is Holland. And, obviously someone is trying to coverup his/her marijuana plantation.

FlipSwitch

@weatherman: NATO's HQ is in Belgium, not the Netherlands. But the Netherlands are nonetheless still not neutral - they're a member of NATO.

AdamBLang

"Dems saucers up in thar hills!!"

tamoko

I checked multimaps and there's just trees there.

puntai

Whatchu been hiding der, Hans?

SigmundTheSeaMonster

@NateN: Just like it would be crazy to put a doomsday shelter for the US government underneath a hotel? Check out Project Greek Island at the Hotel Greenbrier. [en.wikipedia.org]

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

I think I just saw that they Google and MS used different sources for the satellite images. Maybe there was just a small, embarassing gap that the ones supplying to Google wanted to fill in.

wvv

Cleverly disguised missile base. The dunes are actually silos.

thebear91

Call me a skeptic, but I just think it would be a bad idea to plop anything top secret RIGHT NEXT to a golf course. Or vice-versa, since the Live Search Maps makes it look like the golf course was either being built or had a major drought when those pictures were taken.

NateN

@cmsjustin: We aren't asking you to take a train for two hours to look at trees. We're asking you to take a two hour long train ride to see that there are no trees there.

Aoi

I'm going next week, but I'm not taking a train for 2 hours to go look at trees

cmsjustin

There was probably a US Spy over it or something.

Stephen-Bees

I've checked it, its 111 km from my place.. and its definetly not a military base.. If a Dutchman wants to make a military base they will make it on the sea..

santaclown

did a better job there than in fort belvoir in virginia. all they did was make the govt buildings piles of dirt. haha

brybriel

Ok so who is going to go, take pics and report back? someone? please?

Digitallysick

I actually used to work in ariel photography, which once you zoom in so far google uses.

I did many jobs involved with the process from scanning in negatives from the 500m long films, to warping the photos to fit 2D maps (as hills can really make a difference), "stitching" the photos together (including colour balancing them and finally removing things like film scratches, dust and other corrections.

During that final step you use the clone tool in photoshop a whole lot. Normally it's in small doses, but there were occasions where you had to pretty much recreate whole fields or forests. Seeing something like this doesn't suprise me at all.

As for the people above saying its might be a military base or something, you're probibly wrong. The company I worked for did the whole of the UK, and we didn't ever have to hide something. The Military are fully aware of everything that flies over their bases and I can tell you they put everything away in plenty of time.

Phlashman

@Rabid Penguin: I thought the exact same thing. Bravo. You get a Hookshot!

KarinDiscoGirl

Well, by the looks of it, considering there are water bodies close by to the west, and northeast of the so called forest.....it could be a power plant!!
And for all we know, this could be natural too. in colder climates, trees do tend to die from top (higher reflectance), and if its due to a plant disease, it could be effecting all the trees, and it seems cyclic.....may be the trees were planted that way.

TheConstantGardner

hmm I'm in Holland rite now.. where is this exactly taken? I'll go there by foot if I can? :D

santaclown

@Mekevorka:

Holland...that was my thought exactly.

D-Rock78

Google is becoming too powerful for us Dillinger.

end of line.

Neverkilled: The complete series

I bet its a unicorn birthing center.

zingbot

@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: That's not that crazy. Underneath a hotel is a pretty hidden location, since you can control access to the area along with who can see it. Putting a secret building next to a highway and a golf course and announcing it's secret by blurring it on Google Maps isn't a great idea.

If the gov't hid their doomsday bunker underneath the Holiday Inn, and then called Google to demand said Holiday Inn be blurred out all the time, that would be a better analogy.

Canadian Impostor

@AdamBLang: oh, I thought we were talking about Belgium. Too quick reading the article I guess. Or maybe I just don't know the difference between Holland and Belgium... like there even is one.

weatherman

I bet there was a hidden pattern, like a swastika or something.

Con Seannery

here it is on microsoft's live local [maps.live.com]

McBlastie

Is it me, or does that look like a screenshot from Xevious?

astroglide

@lldsandsll: They're neutral, you say? all the more reason to have secrets!

Rodime

@Rabid Penguin: "If I don't make it... tell my wife 'Hello'."

DeusExMach

I checked out the same view Microsoft Live Search Maps:

[maps.live.com]

It's curious in that it shows "real" foliage in both sides of the body of water, not the pattern-repeated foliage present in Google Maps.

LandShark

Someone from North Oaks, Minnesota now lives there.

MarkB

@Rodime: Damn neutrals. At least with your enemies you know where you stand.

@DeusExMach: I love that episode :c)

Rabid Penguin

I figured it was just a glitch.... :( I wanted secrets.

Human Bomb

@Con Seannery: Didn't I read something about the Nazi's doing that back in the war? And only now with the boom of aerial and space photography it is coming to light?

Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity

@AdamBLang: maybe he was thinking of the Hague. being where the International Court of Justice is. the main UN judicial body. war crimes. etc. been in the news a few times.

x23

@lldsandsll:

It's kind of hard to be neutral if you're in NATO. The Netherlands hasn't been neutral since WWI.

Brandnew70x7

@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: yep, a village in Germany planted trees in the shape of a swastika in the forests, a type of birch I think, that yellowed in the fall, while the other trees were still green. They matured after the war ended, nobody remembered them, and then in the mid 90s they discovered the trees, cut down in 2000

Con Seannery

holland, photoshop. just one conclusion, huge outdoor marjhuana plantation.

krom

Clone trees

Th3Chos3n0n3

@weatherman: Like how there is no difference between the USA and Canada, and England and Ireland right? And could everyone stop it with the marihuana jokes as well? No need to grow that somewhere secluded and hide it. We have balconies here as well.

Badmofo

I'll go, I live in Berlin, just pay for my train ticket, and I'll do all the 007 work. Seriously, a couple of hours away...

the chupacabra lives there.

I have worked at a military base near there. Google does blurr out some bases. The one I was in is here, in its blurred out form: [maps.google.com]

I've worked at a military base near there. Google does in fact blur out some bases. I don't know about this specific place. The base I was in is here [maps.google.com]

maps.live.com shows that it's still just trees.
[maps.live.com]

@:

omg chupacabra reference!!!

General Halfshaftery

@weatherman No difference between Holland and Belgium? Just like there's no difference between the U.S. and Canada?

Looks natural to me. Take a look at the HQ for the Maclaren Racing Team:
- 51.343746, -0.542831

These guys planted their trees with a pertractor! They look even better now the've grown.

Maybe they're hiding trees. See live maps for less photoshopped trees.

I tried MS Maps.

Except for a slightly smaller lake, looks the same. I don't think Photoshop is involved, just mother nature.

[maps.live.com]

Just highlight 9 peons and right click it.

The area on the left of the little pond is also PhotoShopped. Both left and right of the pond are Photoshopped.

MadMacs

The CEO of google was having an affair with the wife of the rich guy that owns the golf course next to this big group of trees. He's covering up his bare white ass.

esubi81