Google Earth User Claims to See a 'Face' in Antarctica — and People Have Some Wild Theories

From the eerie triangular black hole in Pacific Ocean to a mysterious doorway spotted in the dense layers of Antarctic ice – Ever since Google Earth was launched in 2005, its pixelated imagery has revealed some of the creepiest, darkest secrets lurking in the belly of the Earth. These spectacularly spooky snaps, sometimes backed by a valid scientific explanation, have long been a subject of conspiracy theories and opinions that can feel a bit unsettling. One such Google Earth geek, u/coachlife, took to Reddit a month ago to share another creepy coordinates that depict “The Possible Face in Antarctica.”

Once again, hundreds of people flocked to the thread to cook up bizarre scenarios and interpretations of this spooky-looking face. The pictures shared by the Reddit user for the coordinates “72°00’52″S 168°35’37″E,” reveal a blurry view of a giant, broken human face with a half-closed eye and an expression of scowl formed by the terrain of ice. People likened this bizarre face to the “Face of Mars.” u/ReTep481 said its “Megatron,” referring to the fictional character and the main antagonist of Transformers.

Others were prompted to spin otherworldly scenarios for the image’s backstory. “This looks eerily like Rudolf Steiner's depiction of Ahriman, the cold satanic force of materialism and nihilism,” commented u/Technical_Captain_15. u/Ravenstarchasers said the face belonged to a “Nephilim,” whom he called the “Giants that lived in Antarctica.”

u/docd442 said, “Some of us see faces everywhere. I see faces in floor tiles, tree bark, and all manner of places. It's a known phenomenon.” Many pointed out that the creepiness of this face results from a phenomenon called “Pareidolia,” which is “the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none,” explained u/Kaedekins. u/Eirineftis said, "Giant face carved in the mountain? Hell, I wanna believe there is some ancient giant buried there and that's its actual face."

As creepy as this giant pixelated face may sound, experts believe that it isn’t something to be too spooked about. “These sightings are just strange rocks or ice formations that look interesting from a certain angle,” wrote Maptive. Even Google Earth itself has explained that these haunting images appearing on maps are usually optical illusions cast by the play of light and shadow. Since Google Earth combines images from satellites, airplanes, kites, drones, and balloons to create these 3D representations of Earth, it is evident that the technology can experience glitches sometimes, especially during a process called “stitching.”

Explaining this in a blog post, the company wrote, “These ghostly figures appear rather often in Street View. This is because Street View cameras take photographs as they move. Once the photographs have been taken, they go through computer processing before they're ready for use on Google Maps. This includes stitching the still photos into panoramas. Sometimes when someone or something is moving while the images are captured, we capture only part of that moving object.”