Google Earth helps son locate mother after 25 years

Élyse Betters | Apr 16 2012 - 7:29 am PT

A 30-year-old man used Google Earth to literally move mountains and find his long-lost family after nearly three decades of separation.

Saroo Brierley, 5-years-old, boarded the wrong train in 1986 and accidentally arrived in Calcutta, India. The boy found himself adopted one month later and then grew up in Australia. Roughly 25 years flew by without any way of knowing where he came from or how he could find his family.

With time, came technology. Using Google Earth, coupled with basic math to find the radius of Calcutta and the length of that fateful train ride, Brierley pinpointed his birth city.

“It was just like being Superman. You are able to go over and take a photo mentally and ask, ‘Does this match?’ And when you say, ‘No’, you keep on going and going and going,” he told BBC News.

Amazingly, Brierley finally visited his native town of Khandwa about two months ago and found his mother alive. Go to BBC iPlayer to hear the full story, which publishers and film producers are allegedly pining after.