February 25, 2009 by James Oliver
Late last week a British man claimed to have discovered the lost city of Atlantis using Google Ocean, an add on to Google Earth that allows users to see the terrain of the ocean floor as well as land. The man claimed that a pattern of lines on the ocean floor about the size of Wales, off the north-west coast of Africa represented an ancient system of roadways. The story gained a surprising amount of traction, making the front page of the Sun and even crossing over to the broadsheets with the Daily Telegraph getting in on the act.
It was all very fun whilst it lasted but yesterday Google poured cold water on the excitement and caused a lot of red faces on Fleet Street by (after letting the publicity run for a few days) explaining that the lines were nothing more than an anomaly with the application.
“What users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric, or seafloor terrain, data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the seafloor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.” – Google statement.
Ah well, the search continues.
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