In
One post on Threads (archived) shared a pair of images, one of which appeared to be a Google Maps screenshot showing a snake-like shape purportedly off the coast of Virginia.
The post read:
Have yall seen the leviathan is waking up theory 😱🤯 their saying this is the reason there is a snow storm ! Saying the weather is being manipulated to freeze this creature in its tracks ! The military are in that area so they are doing what they have to to keep them safe…. What do you think 🤔 Cc
Multiple posts on Facebook included just one of the screenshots (archived) or the other (archived). Other popular posts sharing the theory on Threads (archived) and Facebook (archived) used their own screenshots (archived) of the supposed Leviathan on Google Maps, in an area of the ocean between South America and Antarctica. Some social media users instead claimed the images showed was Jörmungandr (archived), a giant serpent from Norse mythology, or a dragon (archived).
In reality, none of the Google Maps screenshots showed the existence or movement of a giant sea monster. The snake-like shape off the coast of Virginia in one of the screenshots was actually
As of Feb. 2, 2026, Google Maps did not depict a snake-like shape off the Virginia coast. That exact shape, however, could be seen at a much larger size between Antarctica and South America, matching the landforms seen in the comparison image with the realistic reptilian head.
The snake shape could not be seen off of Virginia's coast on Google Earth, a Google tool for exploring high-quality satellite imagery, either.
As for the reasons for the two major winter storms, they both can be credited to the lingering frigid air from the Arctic that kept much of the eastern U.S. bitterly cold in the waning days of January. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico combined with the cold to create the first winter storm, according to NASA. The North Carolina State Climate Office said a storm following the warm, off-shore Gulf Stream combined with the cold air to create the second storm, which it called a classic setup for a snowstorm in the state.
Telltale signs in image of Virginia 'snake'
The Google Maps satellite screenshot showing "Leviathan" off the coast of Virginia included multiple clues that it was a forgery.
One example is the fishbone icons marking numerous sites in Virginia and North Carolina. That icon is not one of the default options on Google Maps and Google Earth. Additionally, the map included labels for places such as Bald Eagle Creek, the Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel and Roanoke Island, which are not usually labeled at that zoom or in that font. The original screenshot featuring those particular icons and labels appeared to be this image on a teacher's Weebly page describing an activity for students to learn about Virginia's rivers using Google Earth.
That screenshot lacked the snake-like shape included in the 2026 Leviathan posts. Additionally, at the bottom of the original image is a 2015 Google credit and a 2013 date for the satellite imagery used in it. In the 2026 Leviathan posts, the satellite imagery's date has been cropped out and "2026" appears in place of the 2015 Google credit; the number "2026" appears in a much higher resolution than the rest of the credit text, suggesting it may have been edited in.
The "monster" edited into the screenshot of Virginia's coast is actually a miniature replica of the Scotia Arc and Scotia Sea between Antarctica and South America as it appears (without labels) on Google Maps. The most obvious giveaways are in the visible islands between the Leviathan image and the sea as it appears on Google Maps, namely the two large islands that are its "eyes" and the arc of islands dotting its "nose."
The snake-like shape on Google Maps
Many social media users simply shared screenshots of the Scotia Arc on Google Maps, connecting it to the rumor of the waking Leviathan. Those people weren't actually seeing a sea monster, though; they were seeing a formation of islands and seamounts created by the shifting of Earth's tectonic plates.
That area of the world is the Scotia Plate and the South Sandwich Plate, which sometimes appears on maps as part of the Scotia Plate. This small tectonic plate formed from the spreading oceanic crust that filled the space after the separation of South America and Antarctica, which were once connected by a land bridge. The Scotia Arc, which is the underwater mountain ridges, islands and volcanoes on the edges of the plate, is largely made up of the remnants of this land bridge.
As explained in a 2022 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) article, our map of the seafloor is far from complete — at that time, only 23% of the global seafloor had been mapped in high-resolution by sonar. Satellite gravity data allows for a lower resolution map of the seafloor, which the NOAA article said is what's visible on Google's satellite view.
The most recently updated map of the Scotia Sea from Seabed 2030, a project dedicated to fully mapping the Earth's seafloor by 2030, showed the area in a bit more detail but largely confirmed what could be seen on Google Maps. The islands above the water are on shallower areas of ocean, like any other island would be. The area of dark blue on both Google Maps and Seabed 2030's map is an oceanic trench, essentially an underwater canyon or valley.
Trenches are common next to elevated places at the edges of many oceanic plates. For example, the Mariana Trench, which is home to the deepest known place in all of the Earth's oceans, runs next to a far higher plateau of ocean with a chain of islands that rise out of the seafloor.
Finally, there are several photos of and from the Scotia Arc's South Georgia Island available on Google Street View. These photos depict a largely frozen, mountainous landscape with glaciers and rocks, not a sea monster's eye.