Whether you pleaded and petitioned for a visit from Google’s Street View trike or gave the all-seeing eye a slightly chillier reception in your town, there’s no denying the inherent fun in virtual roaming. From Bordeaux to Berlin, dropping a digital doppelganger down onto the street allows you to explore the world without ever leaving your desk – and not just the pretty parts. Google’s Street View vans capture everyday life as it unfolds outside, from folks innocuously waiting at bus stops, sipping coffee at outdoor cafes and pushing strollers in the park, to burglaries in process, car accidents and the stray street fight. Call us weird, but we find the latter a lot more interesting. With that in mind, we’ve scoured the streets for the some of the funniest, most intriguing, and most bizarre feats ever frozen in time within Google’s digital world. Here’s what we found.
Horseboy
It’s a man! It’s a woman! It’s a… horse? The paunchy reverse centaur (horse on top, man on the bottom) has been spotted by Google’s Street View cams not once but twice, both times in Aberdeen, Scotland. We have no explanation for why this particular Scotsman has chosen to don a horse head instead of kilt – or how he managed to track down the Street View van twice, but we almost prefer the equine mystery.
When Norwegian Scuba Enthusiasts Attack
What’s stranger than passing two men relaxing in lawn chairs in full scuba gear by the side of the road in Norway? When they fly into a rage and begin flopping after the Street View van. Don’t worry, nobody was harpooned: According to a Gizmodo reader, they were pals of the drivers out to prank their friend. And you get mad when your friends show up to your work unannounced for lunch.
Presidents Heads
Mt. Rushmore has nothing on Houston Texas, where an entire garden of supersized presidential heads await unsuspecting drivers at the end of this dead-end street. Dozens of them – plus towering mecha-Beatles that could crush an entire city. We’ll spoil the mystery by pointing out they all belong to SculptureWorx, a studio owned by artist David Adickes, though we still have no idea why he’s stockpiling king-sized presidential busts.
Fence Climber
Did this guy lock himself out, or is this a burglary in progress? In either case, our acrobatic fence scaler picked a miserable time to find himself climbing up a well-guarded apartment in San Francisco, as the Street View car drove by and snapped him for the whole world to see, going down as one of the first Street View sighting to hit the Web.
The Stig
Fans of BBC’s Top Gear will be perplexed and amused to see the show’s mysterious test driver – The Stig – behind the wheel of a vehicle slightly less prestigious than the Lamborghinis and Ferraris he normally throws around the track on the show. More specifically, a Lego go cart. The same shoot spied him in front of a Lego pharaoh, and riding a Lego camel.
Proposal 2.0
What will make your soon-to-be fiancé swoon more than presenting a glittering diamond engagement ring in front of some scenic vista? Doing it on Street View, obviously. Don’t let the 2.0 fool you: According to Google employee Michael Weiss-Malik, the guy with the sign, she already said yes. Of course he would say that.
Men at Work
You had to wonder what this particular Street View driver thought he was going to capture driving down a crumbling strip of pavement in an industrial part of Miami right next to the railroad tracks. Surprise! Graffiti artists going to town. To their credit, that white patch really didn’t match the rest of the wall too well, anyway.
Showoff
If you’re going to showboat on a motorcycle… might as well do it when your feats will be immortalized by Google Street View. This Frenchman gave his Yamaha R1 just enough gas to tear by the Street View van on one wheel in Marseilles. Good thing you can’t see the plates.
A Little Shady
It’s not technically from Google, but this Russian clone has plenty of interesting finds, including this curious-looking exchange on the streets of Saint Petersburg. We’re going to go ahead and assume they’re not used to roving camera cars on the street and didn’t recognize the van crawling by… a fact the driver was probably thankful for.
Italian Streetfight
Are they fighting or playing? Judging by the lack of intervention from onlookers, we’ll guess the latter, but the grip on that guy’s neck sure doesn’t look too comfortable. Let’s hope nobody ended up over the railing.
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