Mystery solved: Here's why strange circles have appeared on streets in Prince George

Karen Richardson wasn't sure what to think when she noticed a painted circle on the residential road in front of her house in Prince George on Tuesday morning.

"I thought it was a piece of garbage," she said. 

But closer inspection revealed what seemed to be some sort of code — white paint containing a black circle surrounded by three black dashes.

A few houses away, she saw another white circle painted in the middle of the street, containing a different pattern of black markings. She found two more walking around the block, and several others on a nearby corridor.

She called the city and was told the markings had nothing to do with them. She reached out to BC Hydro and was told the same thing.

She also posted the images to a community Facebook group, hoping someone had the answer.

Instead, a bevy of theories appeared.

Pokémon Go?

Google experimenting with satellites?

An Apple Maps car had been seen driving around the city. Maybe it had something to do with them?

FortisBC, which provides gas to the community said they weren't involved.

So did Telus.

"I'm a little concerned," Richardson said. "What is it for?"

With none of the major utility operators in the city claiming responsibility, CBC reached out to a local mapping specialist for help.

'Maybe we're on the scavenger hunt without even knowing about it'

Will Cadell runs SparkGeo, a mapping and technology company in Prince George.

He said the markings seemed to contain some sort of information, similar to a barcode, but the patterns weren't anything he was familiar with.

He was, however, able to eliminate some of the suggested possibilities, including the notion the markings were directions for self-driving cars.

"You can't base an automated vehicle program off of painting stuff on the road," he explained. "They have radars ... It just wouldn't make any sense."

He said drones could be a possibility, but it seemed unlikely as he worked closely with everyone in the local aerial mapping community.

"Maybe we're on the scavenger hunt without even knowing about it," he said. "This kind of reminds me of The Goonies. It's brilliant."

Chance encounter

After taking geotagged photographs of half a dozen of the markings, Cadell thought he could put together a map revealing some sort of pattern.

But on the drive back to his office, he spotted a simpler way to solve the mystery: a man on the side of the road wearing a reflective vest.

Emmanuel Richard said he worked for Vancouver-based Kadtech Systems, and they were using the markings to help create maps for another company, Ledcor, which would use them to install high-speed fibre internet cables on behalf of: Telus.

The marks were being used to measure distances, as Kadtech created a detailed 3D map to help the installation process. 

So why had Telus not known about the project?

"It's a subcontractor of a subcontractor," Cadell explained.

And, he said, as location-based technology becomes more lucrative, strange markings on city streets will become more common as new companies build their own mapping systems.

"Geospatial's hot these days," he said.

"It's always interesting when high technology meets physical space. "And it meets it with paint on the road."

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