What keeps Hogwarts (or Hogsmeade, or Azkaban) from being shown in the Google Maps satellite view?

Question

As I understand, those places are not in some kind of alternate space/dimension, but physically in the real world, and the only protection is that if muggles get close, they feel an urge to go elsewhere and forget about what they've seen.

As the wizarding world has little or no ideas how computers work, how can they prevent automatic tools, like drones, satellites, etc. from seeing them, if they don't even know they exist? To make spells that effect computers and wipe specific pixels out of images would require a very good understanding of the highest muggle technology.

Or am I wrong, and there are other protections besides wiping the memory of muggles who wonder by? (like bending light, other dimensions - like how the knight express does it, etc?)

Answer 1

I don't think that it matters (in other words, they didn't really need to make Hogwarts not visible on satellite view).

Hogwarts is in Scotland, which has a gazillion of old castles - I can't tell you how much because I didn't want to wait for pages-long Wiki page to load :)

So Hogwarts wouldn't exactly stick out.

And there's no discrepancy between having an old castle on a satellite image and having an old ruin up close that says it's unsafe.

Q: Can Muggles see Hogwarts ? (Melinda, 11, CA)
A: ... When they look towards it, as a safety precaution, they see a ruin with a sign saying it's unsafe. . .they mustn't enter. They can't see it as it really is.
("World Exclusive Interview with J K Rowling," South West News Service, 8 July 2000)

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In addition, the events at Hogwarts preced wide availability of consumer grade satellite views (Google maps was started in 2005, and IIRC Satellite View wasn't there till 2007) - Harry was at Hogwarts 1991-1998

Answer 2

Hogwarts is unplottable, so it can't be put on a map. Therefore, it can't appear on Google Maps or the like.

GoF ch.11, Aboard the Hogwarts Express:

"There's traditionally been a lot of rivalry between all the magic schools. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons like to conceal their whereabouts so nobody can steal their secrets," said Hermione matter-of-factly.

"Come off it," said Ron, starting to laugh. "Durmstrang's got to be about the same size as Hogwarts — how are you going to hide a great big castle?:

"But Hogwarts is hidden," said Hermione, ...

...

"And to keep foreign wizards from finding it, they'll have made it [Durmstrang] unplottable —"

Though only Durmstrang is explicitly called out as (most likely) unplottable, it's only reasonable to assume Hogwarts is similarly enchanted.

Answer 3

If you pay attention Google already does alter some images or makes the pixels so low you cannot see it. Many rural areas uses default imagery which is very crap so likely Hogwarts would only be a tiny dot you wonder what it is when trying to zoom in.

The magic wards would not effect machines because machines will not have the urges humans have to go away especially since the aerial photography is out of range for the magic wards to produce any effects. Even if the aerial photography using drones were within range they still would not stop any drones since the spells only effect human emotions. ' Automatic drones do not think so therefore they CAN NOT have that urge to go the other way and if the onboard computer chips are well protected by the outside frame the magic EMF currents will not mess them up.

For fun a street view tour of Hogwarts would be exciting if they let someone with one of the Google 360 degree backpack cameras to hike around the castle taking in the pictures when no students are there such as in the summer time.

Maybe do it two times where one visit is in the daytime and the other at night with all the lights on showing all the common rooms empty of kids and classrooms.

Answer 4

Very good thoughts, so I'll only add that it was stated somewhere that technical stuff tends to malfunction in the presence of magic. It works not only for Hogwarts, but the other 'paranormal' sites as well.

Answer 5

As I understand it, Hogwarts is protected by both Muggle repelling spells and Unplottability. The Muggle repelling spells prevent Muggles from being able to see what Hogwarts actually looks like, instead seeing a ruin. They would also feel the need to go elsewhere if they attempted to get closer. I expect that this would also apply to a Muggle who attempted to look at Hogwarts from orbit using a telescope or a Muggle who looked at a photograph taken from space.

The Unplottable spell has some interesting possibilities though. Its original purpose was to prevent a location from being marked on a map. I think that it may have far-reaching connotations when modern technology is involved however. Modern CCD cameras, radars, and other electronic sensors all involve displays of PIXELS, which are points that are PLOTTED on a grid. I would think that any such device trying to record information about an UNPLOTTABLE location would fail.

Answer 6

The most important governments in the world are aware of the magical world and its existence, what would happen is the same with the secret military bases on Google Maps, nothing can be seen, thus protecting the secret of the magical community...