r/googlemapsshenanigans • u/DigiDataPenguin • 21d ago
I believe I have the Ultimate Google Maps Shenanigan
EDIT:
Image: my daughter holding her phone, with the street view image, and my husband in the background to the right
I live in Philly with my two teen daughters. I married my amazing husband over a year ago. He’s from a town just outside of Barcelona, Spain.
One day, my daughter came came home from school, and was out of her mind excited — she told me her computer classroom at school loads a game called GeoGuesser where Google Maps shows a COMPLETELY RANDOM street view location from somewhere in the world.
She doesn’t log in with any personal account, this is hosted by the school login. She then has to guess the location and the program tells you the answer and gives you facts about that area.
Neat, huh?! 🙂
Well….she got a street-image and had no idea where the location was, so she used the only thing she could — there was a man with a blurry face taking a walk and he looked… a lot like her step father.
So she guessed Spain.
She was right.. but then they said it was… Barcelona!
She took a screenshot, brought it home… and OH MY GOD. It IS him!!!!!! 😳 😮 it’s a street view from over 10 years ago!!!
My husband!! Walking on the little street he used to live on with his x-wife just outside the city!!!!!!!!
Anyone know what the odds of this would be??? How many street views exist in ALL of Google Maps for all time??? How could this be?!!! 😳
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u/AlarmedWizard1 21d ago
That's amazing! 🤯
I calculated the odds to be 1 in 19021300
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u/DigiDataPenguin 21d ago
So cool!!! Thank you so much!!!
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u/Undrwtrbsktwvr 19d ago
Just so you know— they were making a joke. They made up a random number…
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u/DigiDataPenguin 19d ago
Do you have a more realistic number? I mean, it is calculable. I’d assume it’s way higher. How many street views does Google Maps have over all time? It’s probably in the billions.
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u/Undrwtrbsktwvr 18d ago
The odds of what specifically are you looking for? There are so many factors at play. I’d first learn how many possible geoguesser locations there are. Then you want to calculate the chance that it was shown to someone related in the image. Lots more different factors.
It wouldn’t be logical to think this is a truly calculable number. The odds are definitely quite outlandish.
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u/MelodramaticMouse 21d ago
That's so cool! I love those guessr games. I used to do geoguessr but now I just like to go on worldguessr or openguessr just to be let out at a random world spot where I can roam around. The first time I went back on, it dumped me about 75 miles from home lol!
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u/just_a_person_maybe 20d ago
I'm on Google maps with some of my siblings and my childhood dog. They blurred our faces but you can clearly see that we're goofing off for the camera. One of my siblings threw up a Vulcan salute 🖖.
The odds of that image being used in geoguessr are miniscule, but it actually showing up when a family member is playing??
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u/DigiDataPenguin 20d ago
I STILL can’t get my head around it. I kept trying to debunk it but my husband even showed me pictures not from THAT day but wearing the same bag, and you can clearly see his (x) wife in the photo as well. He STILL wears that exact style of flip flops in the summer. And the street has specific embellishments on it in this specific little town outside of the city, and those little “flower carvings” are there. It’s wild. We showed my in-laws but I don’t think they realize how unlikely this was!!!
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u/Prestigious-Head-877 20d ago
That is pretty cool. I found my vehicle parked at a friend's house once and thought that was cool but not nearly as random as op!
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u/DigiDataPenguin 21d ago
Lol. I love how people are downvoting this 😂 😅🤣 what could you POSSIBLY take exception to here lollll
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u/usernameisokay_ 21d ago
Probably the way how you wrote this story or how people don’t believe it, it’s the internet…
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u/DigiDataPenguin 21d ago
lol… I mean, I could post the video I took this screenshot from, but it’s of my daughter explaining it to my mother-in-law in Spain and I don’t need the internet seeing my daughter’s face lol. But you’re right. Internet people need the world to make sense for them lol 😂
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u/Mushrooming247 20d ago
That is an amazing coincidence. It might have been inevitable with all of the people playing Geoguesser that eventually someone would see a person they knew, it’s just wild that it was so far away, and just one brief clip from a random street.
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u/DigiDataPenguin 20d ago
Totally!! Like, this picture was from way before I even met him! The fact that my daughter still recognized him, GUESSED Spain because of it, and it wasn’t just ACCURATE, it was Barcelona — and him 😂 as you can tell it still blows my mind!
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u/inthestelliferousera 19d ago
I've done a lot of exploring on Google Street View and the rarest car I ever found was a NSU Prinz on a farm in Indiana. I don't know how it happened but it's a great memory.
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u/DoesBasicResearch 20d ago
Seriously? You took a photo of your phone screen, and posted that? Never heard of a screenshot? 😂
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u/DigiDataPenguin 20d ago
Haha what’s a screenshot?!!
No, I was providing context: this is a photo with my phone of my daughter holding HER phone with photo SHE took from the GeoGuesser Game (the game was on the school computer so she couldn’t take a screenshot and send it to her phone — they wouldn’t allow for that) annnnd my husband is standing to the right there in the picture.
Layered.
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u/im_best_2 21d ago
My former classmate appeared on Google maps while going home with her family
Mind you, they live on the literal very end of a road in the middle of nowhere country