Google Street View shows strange liminal-looking stores in the middle of the ocean

For nearly two decades, Google has allowed users to get a first-person view of any given intersection – and even inside businesses – through its Street View feature.

It’s a convenient way to get a first glimpse of where you’re going, or even virtually explore some of the world’s most remote areas.

The feature’s 360-degree cameras also occasionally produce delightful surprises, from a group of pigeon-masked strangers posing for the camera in Japan to a reindeer running down a country road in northern Norway.

And now, as Redditors have spotted, the item appears to be populating ghostly, liminal commercial interiors in the middle of the ocean – like this Street View of a bathroom aisle in what appears to be a Brazilian hardware store, mysteriously transported to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The same user, who goes by the name KillHitlerAgain, found more than a dozen other Street View interiors of obscure stores — including numerous aisles of this same hardware store — dotting the ocean in a suspicious grid-like pattern.

We were easily able to confirm the Reddit user’s findings. By dragging the little yellow number Google uses for Street View several hundred kilometers east of the coast of St. John’s, Newfoundland, we could easily access a 360-degree view of the interior from a hardware store listed under the name “Joca Construção”. “

Many of the coordinates of otherworldly outlets fall along the same latitudes and longitudes, suggesting that someone has tampered with the data, whether intentionally or not.

The 360-degree view of the hardware store’s restroom aisle was created by a Google account called “Visual Art Brasil,” which, according to an Instagram profile of the same name, is a digital marketing agency.

In a Facebook post, the company advises clients on optimizing their Google Business Profiles, which help businesses get listed on Google’s search engine and appear on Google Maps.

But for now, it’s a true Internet mystery: the haunted, deserted interiors of retail establishments, appearing in the frigid waters of the sea – a browsing experience far more reminiscent of modern myths of Backrooms than the clean corporate shine of Google Maps. .

Zooming hundreds of miles off the southern coast of Iceland, for example, shows a different aisle of what appears to be the same Brazilian hardware store.

And hundreds of miles east on the coast of Greenland, you can find a Street View of the store’s paint aisle.

And in the waters between Iceland and Greenland you’ll find an aisle for paintbrushes and rollers.

Hardware wasn’t even limited to the Atlantic Ocean. In the middle of Hudson Bay, over a hundred miles from the coast of northern Canada, you’ll find the tile section of the store. And at the bottom of the Pacific, halfway between Hawaii and the Californian coast, you can browse its sinks section.

Joca Construção is not the only company perplexingly transported to the middle of the ocean. While searching around the Atlantic, we came across the Street View of a Polish restaurant in Germany and a German car dealership.

Another Street View in the middle of the South Pacific shows what appears to be piles of auto parts in a garage, a 360-degree view created by a marketing company called Xprasive.

Google allows users to post 360-degree images using a tool called “Street View Studio.” Chances are you’ve come across other user-submitted views on Google Maps, showing the inside of a store or the view of a waterfall.

“Data about your location is used to geotag and position your recording on the map,” reads an explanation from Google Street View. “Most 360 cameras add metadata and GPS data to your video file.”

Could companies like Visual Art Brasil have manipulated this metadata to gain visibility to their customers in the middle of the ocean? Was this the intention to improve the store’s visibility by changing Google’s search algorithms and Google Business listings – or was it the result of simple human error? We’ve reached out to the company, as well as Xprasive and Google, for clarification.

Whatever the explanation, it’s not every day that you come across the haunted aisle of an empty hardware store in the watery expanse of the Atlantic.

But that didn’t stop Internet users from having a little fun.

“Bed, bath and beyond,” mused one Reddit user.

“Way, way beyond,” another user added.

Learn more about Google Maps: Top secret aquatic drone spotted on Google Maps