Environmental Art Installation Desert Breath
Environmental Art Installation Desert BreathGoogle Maps Screenshot

The mysterious Egyptian spiral located in the eastern Sahara desert, which was earlier thought to be an alient spacecraft or an ancient monument, is actually an environmental art installation.

Desert Breath, the art piece was constructed in March 1997 by Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou and Stella Constantinides, who worked as a team to build the huge 1 million square foot artwork. It is located close to the shores of Red Sea, Sahara desert.

Desert Breath, constructed with two interconnected spirals - one spiral with vertical cones and the other with pointed depressions and a small lake at the center of the spirals. But the recent google map images show that the lake has no water and the entire structure is slowly collapsing as the sand that forms the structure is blowing off with the wind.

"In our mind's eye, the desert was a place where one experiences infinity. We were addressing the desert as a state of mind, a landscape of the mind. The point of departure was the conical form, the natural formation of the sand as a material," Danae Stratou stated in a blog.

"With the gradual disintegration of the art piece, Desert Breath has become an instrument to measure the passage of time. Located at the point where the immensity of the sea meets the immensity of the desert, the work functions on two different levels in terms of viewpoint: from above as a visual image, and from the ground, walking the spiral pathway, a physical experience," Stratou writes.

Desert Breath is not the only strange piece of art found on Google Earth. There are other strange sights on it including the mysterious Phantom Island in South Pacific Australia, Lake of blood in Sadr city, Iraq and many more.

To look at images of other strange sights, click here.