But while those efforts were pretty well known, the studios also played a much more covert role in keeping America safe -by disguising some of the nation’s largest aircraft plants to look like residential neighborhoods. The images featured here are all from The Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant in Burbank (seen at left before the camouflage was applied and below afterwards), although these techniques were used on multiple military locations.

It all started when Colonel  John F Ohmer, a leader in camouflage technology, suggested that the U.S. create a protective cover on a major air base outside of Pearl Harbor. His superior officers ignored his idea, but when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, his camouflage concept suddenly seemed like a really great idea.

Of course, one man with a great plan couldn’t handle this type of task on his own, but the plan was made possible when Hollywood studios, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Universal Pictures all volunteered their services.

Scenic designers, painters, art directors, landscape artists, animators, carpenters, lighting experts and prop men were suddenly using their unique talents not to create movie sets, but whole imaginary towns on top of existing military installations.

Entire suburbs were painted on canvas and adorned with rubber cars and feather trees to provide a more realistic look. Factory air ducts that stuck out of the canvas were disguised to look like fire hydrants.

Of course, a real suburb would never stay still all the time, so to add even more realism to the scene, workers would climb along support beams and move the cars up and down the imaginary streets. They would take laundry off of the clothes lines and then put them back up later.

If these installations were put up anywhere aside from Southern California, they would not only suffer without the skill of the Hollywood effects teams that helped create them, but they would likely also fall victim to the weather. Southern California, known for its moderate climate, provided an environment free from snow and heavy-rain, that would have otherwise destroyed these clever camo designs.

Unbeknownst to the U.S. at the time though, by the time these elaborate designs were completed in October 1942, Japan was already too weak to launch an attack against mainland America, so in the end, these elaborate ruses served little purpose in the actual war effort. Even so, they are an amazing part of military history, showing just how convincing camouflage can be in the right hands.

Of course, these techniques wouldn’t serve much purpose these days with all of our modern detection devices. But at the time, clever illusions were able to play an important role in the protection of the Allied forces. Be sure to follow the mentioned link for more military-used optical illusion tactics.

Google Street View Illusion

Apart from playing with design, I’m obsessed with new internet trends and emerging technologies. As much as I love sharing original illusions with you, I’m even more thrilled when I get the opportunity to introduce you with something you probably never  thought of using when searching for optical illusions. Hope you approve my style, where I try to fuse our illusion topic as much as I can with modern options.

I think it’s refreshing to see our standard content, using different approach occasionally. Our friend, João Marques took his time to introduce us to Google Street View. By now, all of you used Google Maps at some point of your life. Well, at some major cities Google’s mobile crew took high res photos of surrounding areas, while cruising down the local streets. This caused a lot of controversy, as sometimes citizen privacy was invaded, but on the other hand – it helped cops catch crooks in Netherlands.

João has been a daily follower of MOI for some months, and decided to give something back. Before presenting us with the illusion, he thanked us for managing this website with wisdom, “posting only very interesting stuff.” Move around this interactive window, and try to spot what João found so interesting…

I was spending some time in Google Street View, when I saw some guys doing something strange in an window. I zoomed more and found that it was a mural painting, and was completely tricked. – João

Rachel Creed: “This is a pretty amazing shot of a relief map just outside Medicine Hat, Ab Canada. It looks like an Indian with an ear bud in. Here is the Google Map photo”

James Roseborough: “You probably have seen this one, but I first heard about it on CBC Radio show “As It Happens”. They were trying to figure out a name for this formation. It’s an image straight out of Google Maps, and looks like an Indian chief wearing an iPod!”

Well, anyway – back to the topic. Images you see below were found somewhere in England, and it was said they just popped out over night. What we know for a fact is that they were created using large hay formations, and can be seen from the distance (above) with help of a helicopter or some other flying device. There were speculations about alien species, and their effort to send their messagge. How they created these formations in spirit of communication with us earthlings… I don’t really believe in them conspiracy-alien-government stories, but have to admit there is something mysterious behind it. If someone has more background on the story, please post your findings. One more thing – I am not definitely sure about the location these were taken on, nor am secure it’s England at all. Hope someone spots them in Google Earth and posts the sight! Never the less, photos are magnificent and you will enjoy them.

This is what Joseph wrote: “I haven’t seen this anywhere else yet, maybe I’m the first to spot it. Sure looks like a dragon to me.” Few more dragon-reminders: Dragon Illusion no.2 and St. George vs Dragon