Tech Check: Google Earth - New York News | NYC Breaking News

Google Earth is fascinating, and you've probably used it to spy down on your house from space. Now there are claims that with Google Earth, new pyramids have been discovered in Egypt. Could that be true?

One researcher claims the Google Earth images are the possible sites of undiscovered ancient pyramids in Egypt. The three and four-sided mounds are deep in the desert.
    
As it turns out, it's not that unusual for scientists to make important discoveries by using Google Earth by looking down on remote areas.

A group of researchers found an undiscovered rain forest that way. Researchers with the Royal Botanic Gardens found a large rain forest on top of Mount Mabu in northern Mozambique. That led to the discovery of several new species of butterflies, snakes, birds and orchid.
    
Professor David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia claims to have found more than 2,000 ancient sites in Saudi Arabia, including more than a thousand tombs.  He's never set foot there, doing all his work from his campus.
    
A professor from Johannesburg used Google Earth in 2010 to discover a site where a new hominid skeleton was discovered. It was more than a million years old.

Not all claims have been valid. Groups studying the sea bed off the coast of Africa once claimed the area was the site of the lost city of Atlantis. What appeared to be a street grid was later clarified as just a mapping anomaly.
    
Which brings us back to the new lost pyramids. Several notable archeologists recently said it appears the three and four-sided mounds are natural formations in the desert and not pyramids at all.