Minneapolis lake plane spotting mystery solved

The mystery behind a ghostly image, seemingly showing a passenger plane “submerged” in a US lake on Google Maps, has been solved.

Pictures of a plane, which appeared to have sunk to the bottom of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, puzzled authorities after they emerged on Google’s satellite map.

Officials appeared to have no record of a plane crash in the area and were unaware there was a wreck in the lake.

However, before the image began to spark mass conspiracy theories, a Google Maps spokeswoman suggested there was a simple explanation to the conundrum.

Due to the way Google’s satellite imagery is created it is most likely the picture of the lake was taken at the same time as a plane was flying over it, causing the two objects to merge.

Susan Cadrecha, a spokeswoman for Google maps, told The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "In short, each satellite image you see on the map is actually a compilation of several images.

"Fast-moving objects like planes often show up in only one of the many images we use for a given area."

Lake Harriet is around five miles from Minneapolis-St Paul Airport, where more than 400,000 planes land and take off each year. It is also under the airport’s flight path making Google’s theory even more plausible.