A girl captured on Google Street View sprawled out in the gutter of a street sparked panic after concerned locals feared cameras had caught a dead body lying on the pavement.
Worried residents spotted the ‘corpse’ lying by a red car as they browsed pictures of Middle Road, in Worcester.
But rather than being a crime scene, the images turned out to just be a youngster playing around with a friend outside her home.
One resident, who did not wish to be named, confirmed the girl pictured lying on the floor was playing with her nine-year-old daughter at the time.
She said: “When we heard about the Street View images we had a look at our street and thought it was really cool.
“Then we noticed the girl lying on the ground which looks a bit strange but thankfully we knew it wasnt anything suspicious…”
The family of the young girl could not immediately be contacted…
A spokesman for Google said: “The imagery in Street View represents a snapshot in time of Britains streets and is no different to what anyone might expect to see for themselves around the country.
“Sometimes that means our cars inadvertently capture odd or inappropriate moments as they drive past.
“This is why we have put in place tools so that if people see what they believe to be inappropriate, they can report them to us using the simple reporting tool and the images will be quickly removed or further blurring applied.”
Cripes! I’ll bet some people thought they had found an undiscovered murder and screamed for the coppers.
Did they think a body was left lying around the neighborhood – waiting, I guess, for a clean-up crew to happen along?
So with all the budget cuts the cops are saving money by getting the Google van to take the pics of crime scenes for them. Sounds reasonable.
We might, however, notice a bit of a drop-off in the numbers of cases solved.
The biggest worry Stateside about comparable situations would be coppers and other civil employees turned up by Street View in the act of drug deals.
Not as undercover stings, you understand. As willing participants.
These are the same sorts of people who got excited about the face on Mars.
Didn’t everyone get excited to find out the “Man in the Moon” isn’t the only face looking at us from a distance.
ba dum
Maybe they were just trying to put a face on Google’s “Eye in the Sky”.
ba dum
Face it, some people are from outer space.
ba dum
Face? That was no stinking face. That was the Virgin Mary.
ba dum
Cripes. You must be on vacation.