A CHILLING image of what appears to be a dead child on Google's Street View was a prank.

Some inhabitants of Middle Road in Worcester, western England, panicked and called police when they accessed images of their quiet street on the virtual map and saw the body of a girl, apparently dumped by the roadside.

However, a neighbour admitted her nine-year-old girl and a friend had heard that the Google car, fitted with panoramic cameras on the roof, was in their area and decided to carry out the trick.

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 wasn’t anything suspicious.”

Google’s cars were photographing in the area last summer. A spokeswoman for Google said she was unable comment on individual images but said people could remove pictures with which they were unhappy.

“The imagery in Street View represents a snapshot in time of Britain’s streets and is no different to what anyone might expect to see for themselves around the country,” she said.

“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."



To see the image click here, zoom in, hit Street View and pan right.

Originally published as Google Map's child corpse mystery solved