For 22 years, Florida man William Moldt was listed as missing—until a casual search on Google Earth revealed his location.
Google Earth is known for showing unusual sights, from blurred-out locations to unexplained objects. While it can feel eerie to view nearly any spot on the planet, it’s also often used for fun, like revisiting childhood neighborhoods or old hangouts.
It was during one of these casual searches in 2019 that a user noticed something odd in Moon Bay Circle, Wellington, Florida—leading to the discovery of Moldt’s remains more than two decades after his disappearance in 1997.
Moldt had last been seen leaving a nightclub and calling his girlfriend around 9:30 p.m. to say he’d be home soon. When he never arrived, his disappearance became a mystery that baffled police for years.
Fast forward to 2019: A Google Earth user spotted what appeared to be a car submerged in a pond at Moon Bay Circle. After reporting it, police investigated and indeed found a vehicle underwater. When the car was pulled out, skeletal remains were discovered inside.
A week later, authorities confirmed that the remains belonged to William Moldt. While the discovery finally brought closure to the case, it also revealed a chilling detail—the submerged car had been visible on Google Earth since 2007, but no one had noticed it until 2019.
The Charley Project, an online database of cold cases, noted that the car had been “plainly visible” on satellite images for over a decade.
In 2019, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office told the BBC that it appeared Moldt lost control of his vehicle and drove into the pond while returning home from the nightclub. However, during the initial investigation, there was no clear evidence of the crash. The authorities suggested that shifting water may have obscured the car from view.