Victorian 'ghost' picked up by Google Street View

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A ghostly figure dressed in Victorian clothes was filmed on Google Street View - before vanishing into thin air.
 
By Sarah Knapton
Last Updated: 7:50AM GMT 26 Mar 2009

Experts have been called in to examine the Google ghoul filmed at a former Victorian docklands which has a dark and sinister past.

The woman dressed in long skirt, crisp blouse, bow tie, blue boater hat and scarf appears to be shimmering above the pavement.
 
She was captured by the Google Street View cameras in Tiger Bay, Cardiff - the scene of murders and unsolved mysteries going back 200 years.

The water sculpture seen in the picture is used as the gateway to enter the fictional world of Dr Who spin-off Torchwood.

Local medium Jane Cohen, 39, said: "Apparitions have often been caught on film but are invisible to the naked eye. "This woman is very smart - but she is dressed in clothes that you just don't see these days unless it's in a period drama on TV.

"But what is really strange is that she doesn't appear as a full figure - you can't see all of her."

The old docklands has been redeveloped with a theatre, waterside restaurants and plush apartments.

But local historians say the woman was filmed in the heart of the notorious Tiger Bay - once the busiest sea port in the world.

The image was filmed last June as the Google cameras filmed the streets and landmarks of the Welsh capital.

The Google cameras have also captured a spooky ET alien figure in New Jersey, United States.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtec...-View.html

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Google’s ghostly ‘Mary Poppins’ mystery solved

Mar 26 2009 by Andrew Dagnell, South Wales Echo

THE mystery surrounding a sighting of Mary Poppins in Cardiff Bay has been solved – she was planted there by internet giant Google.

The Echo yesterday revealed how the picture of everyone’s favourite nanny was discovered on Google Street View, the new service allowing users to access 360-degree views of roads and homes in 25 British towns and cities, including Cardiff, Barry and Penarth.

Dressed to the nines and crossing a busy road outside the Wales Millennium Centre, the Disney character was captured by the Google street car which was traversing the capital’s streets last June.

No-one could explain why she was there – some suggestions even included that she could have been a ghost.

But today we can reveal that she is just one of a number of fictional characters that Google chiefs decided to cheekily place in the new map.

And while they chose Cardiff for Mary Poppins, Paddington Bear can be spotted on London’s fashionable Portobello Road, Sherlock Holmes has been caught in Oxford, and the Beefeater has been indulging in a spot of shopping at the Birmingham branch of Selfridges.

Google’s Laura Scott told the Echo: “The mystery has been revealed.

“We dressed up a real person in a Mary Poppins costume and she was photographed by the car as it went past.

“We’re always looking for fun stuff to include in our products – and well done for spotting her.”

Google Street View was launched last week and covers 23 other cities, including London, Belfast, Southampton, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford.

Google eventually plans to have the whole of the UK covered by its 360-degree imaging.

Sophisticated technology has been developed to automatically obscure the faces of people featured in Street View photographs, and car registration plates have been blurred.

But this has failed to quieten some critics, with many labelling the maps voyeuristic and intrusive.

Campaigners Privacy International have lodged a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner after claims that a number of people are identifiable through the Street View service.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-...-23235039/