Giant Cat Appears on Google Map of New Zealand

On 27 October 2014, a giant cat sighting on Google Maps made news — but not the sort the internet has come to expect. A New Zealand news site first reported that a giant cat had appeared on Auckland's Google Maps entry in the form of a remote pathway.

By the time Auckland's giant cat drew large-scale attention, it had already been discovered and removed by Google. Annie Baxter, Google Australia and New Zealand's head of communications, confirmed the map anomaly and said the company is investigating it:

The Irish Mirror described how such an alteration to a Google map might have been effected:

The changes can then be user reviewed before they officially become part of Google Maps.

But if you make amendments to the map in a place where fellow users are incredibly unlikely to check, you can sneak changes through by getting friends to give positive reviews of the changes, or even by running multiple Google User accounts and giving yourself positive reviews under pseudonyms.

Also, if you add a very small amount of path at a time, with a view to eventually joining separate paths together, you can slowly get the sum of all the parts of a giant cat through the Google user review process, and carry out your evil plan.