Street View Birth Scene a Hoax: Google

Camera-mounted cars didn't capture the woman on the sidewalk

A recent viral photo showing a woman giving birth on the sidewalk wasn't taken by a Street View car as many believed.

Google tweeted Tuesday that the scene in front of No. 37 Hubertusallee, Berlin is nothing but a fake.

The photo shows a woman lying down, while a man kneeling in front of her holds what appears to be a newborn baby. A nearby car is parked crookedly on the sidewalk with an open door, as if the people swerved out of traffic for the birth.

The photo also had convincing Google watermarks and a Street View navigation pane someone must've edited in.

Street View is a feature of Google Maps that allows users to navigate through real photos taken by camera-mounted cars.

The Mountain View-based company's cameras have captured some interesting sights, giving credence to the claim that the birth scene was real.

But the official Street View for that address is actually blurred out. About 244,000 privacy-concerned Germans have opted out of Street View since 2009. Those addresses are blurred.

If the pranksters were truly on it, they should have moved further away from the Martin-Luther-Krankenhaus hospital. It's just a few minutes away and a much more likely option for a birth.

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