Giant head spotted from space on Google Maps divides the internet

By Dean Murray

Internet users are baffled after what looks like a huge human head in the Canadian landscape went viral.

The bizarre geological structure can be seen on Google Maps in a rocky area of Alberta, Canada.

Some believe it appears to bear an uncanny resemblance to a human head adorned with an Indigenous headdress.

Despite renewed interest, the science website IFLScience revealed the formation is known as the Badlands Guardian, and was discovered through satellite imagery in 2005 by Lynn Hickox.

In an interview with the Calgary Eyeopener, Lynn Hickox explained: "I was just sort of panning around in that southern Alberta vicinity and I just happen to see it in the hills and I thought, you know, that looks rather strange."

The face is located on private land and measures approximately 255 metres (837 ft) across and 225 metres (738 ft) in length.

Now the Badlands Guardian has become viral it has attracted fresh debate about what it could be.

Peggy Bolton, who highlights unusual phenomenon on social media, said: "I'm not buying that this is nature made. This thing is massive."

TikTok user sel commented: "Archaeologists need to check this out if not already. There is a few other aerial art carvings/mounds in deserts that are man-made.

Osvaldo Soberanis posted online, "It wasn’t carved, it was an actual giant, petrified giants, look it up."

Lisha 🇨🇦 added: "Lol, I live close enough, the formations are created by water over time."

A likely explanation is that it's an example of pareidolia, the psychological phenomenon where people perceive familiar patterns, such as faces or objects, in random or vague stimuli.

On TikTok, Isanacko🇨🇦 wrote: "Human brains are made to find faces and patterns within abstract shapes. There’s not a purposeful face there, it happens to look like a face but that’s cuz our brain is trained to find a face."