The new doodle is missing an "l"

Sep 15, 2009 09:34 GMT  ·  By

Google is now sporting the second doodle in the “unexplained phenomenon” series and, thanks to the few clues it has provided, the mystery seems to be solved. This second doodle depicts several crop circles spelling out the company's name, but missing the 'l.' The doodle leads to a search for crop circles, but a tweet sent out by the company seems to confirm one of the earlier theories, which claimed that the series was related to the popular science-fiction author Herbert George Wells' birthday coming next Monday.

A little over a week ago, on September 5, Google had an interesting doodle with the 'o' in the name being 'abducted' by a flying saucer. The doodle led to a Google search for “unexplained phenomenon.” Speculation ran rampant about what it could mean, but a tweet on the company's official Twitter account seemed to provide a compelling clue. The message, when decoded, spelled, “All your O are belong to us,” a reference to a popular early 2000s Internet meme saying, “All your base are belong to us.” The awkward phrase came from a very poor translation of the 1989 Japanese video game Zero Wing. The game's release date? September 5, mystery solved.

Not so fast, though, some weren't convinced, and an equally 'mysterious' post on Google's South Korean blog gave way to a new wave of speculation. The post revealed that there would be two more similar doodles and had offered some clues like the word “novel.” Some industrious individuals put two and two together and figured out that it had something to do with H. G. Wells' birthday.

The second doodle pretty much confirms that theory. The doodle is missing an 'l' this time and the name of the file is actually goog_e.gif. Interestingly, September 15 is the date when a “flying saucer” sighting was made in 1985. These types of sightings are pretty common, but what makes this one special is its location – Surrey, England. Along with the new doodle also came a new tweet saying, “51.327629, -0.5616088.” With a little help from Google Maps, the coordinates are revealed to be for Horsell, a small village in, you guessed it, Surrey, England.

But the really interesting part is that Horsell Commons, a conservation area very close to Horsell, is used by H. G. Wells as the place of the first alien landing in the popular classic sci-fi book War of the Worlds, which proves the connection between the author and the doodles. There may actually be more to it than this, but the mystery is sure to be revealed when the third and final doodle comes, most likely on September 21.

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Google has revealed the second doodle in the series
The Google homepage on September 15, 2009
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