Could you find your home, starting from orbit?

A doddle. There are distinct geographic features at all levels of zoom that make it thus.

I am in the center of a continent, but I know my relative position from Lake Superior, and I am also on a fairly large river, so I landed 2 blocks from my actual house.

Yeah, no kidding. I can find my home in about 60 seconds.

I can also find my favorite hotels in my favorite vacation spots. What sucks is that I can’t find my sister’s or parents’ houses.

I’m pretty easy once I can see Long Island. At worst I’ll end up in Queens or Weehawken or something.

OMG, my house is gone!!!

My house has never been on Google Earth. In fact, the spot where they say my house is is actually about 4-5 houses down from where I actually am.

I blew it hard and ended up WAY south of where I live. I couldn’t remember if I was closer to the top of Lake Okeechobee or the bottom. I’m on the east coast of FL where everything looks the same.

Oh, and my apartments weren’t built yet either, which doesn’t help.

bullseye

Yup, I was pretty much there before it quit displaying images that close in. Everything in the screen was within 15 minutes’ walking distance. I have a couple of large lakes and waterways to guide me.

Ended up on the parking lot just south of my condo, but that’s just as well as there isn’t room in my real parking spot for an alien craft :slight_smile:

I landed about a half-hour’s drive from home. Not sure how many miles it is.

Landed right on my roof deck.

It was pretty easy; each successive zoom level gave new and better landmarks. Locating the Chicago area is pretty easy from a global scale, a couple of zooms later I could see North Avenue Beach and the Chicago River, next zoom level showed Goose Island clearly, and next a couple of distinctive cross streets. Easy as pie.

Got right on it. It helps that I’ve looked at this aerial photography countless times for work-related purposes. Also, Google’s got some fairly high resolution photography for my area. I can tell you whose car is parked in the yard (2 kids and 2 of their friends). I can also see my little white dog in the back yard.

Easily. I dropped myself off in the middle of the football stadium on campus. Didn’t have to use streets, even. I did the whole thing by angling in on Mt. San Gorgonio, after getting the right latitude from identifying the Palos Verdes Peninsula from orbit.

Oh sure. You just find Sacramento and head north to the city-sized blob in the middle of the north valley.

Apparently the aliens took me back in time. I landed on my street, but my house looks like it did before my huge remodel that began two years ago.

Note to self: buy plenty o’ real estate and dump it all in May of '07. By the time I get back to April '08, I should be rich, rich beyond the dreams of avarice!!

Right in my backyard (2nd try) first one ended up about 16.5 miles away. Stupid reservoirs all look alike.

Hey! My house is on google street view! Cool!

Got it - pretty easy to find Boston, then head up 93 a bit. Of course, my deck is missing. Damn aliens.

A direct landing in my backyard, but living near an obvious coast and close to the northern branch of a two branch reservoir, it was easy to get close to start. Then as I was landing, I found the school and the park nearby.

Dammit! I’m on the wrong side of the lake. Can I take the ferry, or do I have to swim?

I’m confused. We’re zooming in with the mouse wheel, but are we expected to reposition the pointer after each zoom, or are we picking a spot from the zoomed out map and sticking with that spot all the way? The former seems way too easy, but some of you must be doing it, because I don’t believe you could land in your backyard without any readjustments.

IMO the spirit of the OP suggests you should just pick one spot and descend in a straight line. Doing that, I aimed for Manhattan and wound up in the western portions of Queens, maybe 15 miles away. I could hop on the subway and be home a couple hours after landing.