If you are the proprietor of a secret base, Google Maps just may be the bane of your existence, since the service continues to raise awareness about locations that were likely supposed to remain hidden.
YouTube user Dark5 has compiled a look at five sites obscured by Google Earth either through outright censorship or clever technological trickery.
Although some of these locations are the 'usual suspects,' such as a US Air Force testing facility in the Mojave Desert, there are other sites that are truly mind-boggling.
Perhaps the most vexing in the collection is a mountain peak in the Himalayas known as Kantanga which is entirely blacked out by Google Earth.
The inexplicable obscuring of the seemingly innocent mountaintop is made all the more compelling when taking into account an urban legend which says that the Nazis explored the site during WWII and discovered a secret ET base!
If the location truly is the domain of aliens, we can image that they are not too thrilled about the attention cast upon their base due to Google's clumsy censorship.
The video also looks at the case of Sandy Island, a mysterious patch of land in the Pacific Ocean said to have been discovered by Captain Cook.
Despite being featured on a number of maps over the years, the island was blacked out by Google Earth and later deemed 'undiscovered' after a ship looking for the location could not find it.
Whether Cook actually sailed to Sandy Island or the site is merely a fanciful tale of exploration that was actually fiction remains a mystery as does whatever Google spotted where the island should have been.
Check out the complete video to learn more about the site that Google either doesn't want you to see or simply isn't allowed to show to the public.
Source: YouTube