Looks like a new chapter’s just been added to the recent bit of Google strangeness that’s been going on. Except instead of coming to us by sea, this particular mystery seems to want to take on both land and air in a Jetson’s dream-cum-reality: the flying car.
Yesterday, SFGate revealed that Zee.Aero, a suspiciously ambiguous company nestled next to (on?) Google’s grounds, had filed a patent for a personal flying aircraft. Looking like the offspring of a quadcopter, drone, and fighter jet’s unholy union, the vehicle bears a remarkable resemblance to photos of a similar aircraft that were taken about a year ago near Google’s Googleplex. And as SFGate uncovered, at the same offices where Zee.Aero’s website has been registered in Mountain View, California.
Looking at the two, it’s nearly impossible to deny that both the drawing and the prototype were born of the same vision. And after doing a little digging, SFGate found that Zee.Aero “operates a barebones website — just three brief pages and there’s no address, phone number, e-mail or contact form.” Highly suspicious for a company that apparently has the means to build what is essentially a flying car.
Plust, it would make sense for them to operate under an alias — Google is certainly no stranger to stealth. The Zee.Aero “offices” are just a hop, skip, and jump away from Google X, Google’s top-secret facilitiy that’s given the world both Google Glass and the self-driving car. And then, of course, there is the now-infamous Google mystery barge.
We’ve reached out to both Google and Zee.Aero to inquire about any sort of connection and will update as soon as we’ve heard back. But for now, it certainly seems like this odd-looking personal flying machine is at least somewhere in our imminent future. That or aliens. [SFGate via @machinestarts]