As Valentine’s Day approaches, you may be wondering what kind of gesture you can pull off to impress your other half. Whatever you end up doing, take a moment to appreciate the work of Steffen Schwarz, a 32-year-old part-time farmer in Germany. He decided to go all out for his marriage proposal last year and used a corn-planting machine to leave gaps in a field in the rural community of Huettenberg, central Germany.
When he prompted his girlfriend to fly a drone over the spot, the gaps spelled out the message ‘will you marry me’ in German. Mr Schwarz told local news site hessenschau.de that he and his girlfriend had spotted wild boar in the five-acre field and he urged her to use the drone to try and get a better shot of them.
‘At first she couldn’t see it [the proposal] because the drone wasn’t flying high enough. But when she realised, she said yes immediately,’ he said. The marriage proposal can still be seen on Google Maps (Google Maps) But now, a year later, it turns out the proposal has been caught by Google’s all-seeing eye and appeared on its mapping service.
Apparently, Mr Schwarz had no idea the tech giant’s satellites had recorded his stunt until an aunt in Canada sent him a screenshot. Metro.co.uk has checked, and the message is still very much visible on Google Maps as we head towards Valentine’s Day 2020. As for Mr Schwarz and his partner, they plan to marry in June this year and may well send the drone up again – this time to capture some wedding photos. (Text courtesy of Metro)