Update | 12:17 p.m. Response from Google included below.  Ever since Google began deploying a roving fleet of cars to capture panoramic, street-level views as a function of the company’s Maps service, a gallery of unusual and occasionally controversial finds have been discovered through the feature.  But nothing quite this mystical.  An image, first highlighted by the blog Buzzfeed, shows a spot radiating with light, blurring the image of a residential, tree-lined street. The strange shimmery patch has prompted some readers to offer their own interpretations of the blazing spectacle.  “It’s not heaven,” said a commenter on Buzzfeed who went by the name Chopped. “The Google cars can reach warp speed. That’s how they are mapping the planet so quickly.”  Another commenter named Billy had a slightly different take on the glowing image. “I think it’s just as likely that it’s some sort of hellgate.”  But most echoed the sentiment of one reader named Ryan, who doubted that the luminous finding was anything extraordinary because of the geographical location — a neighborhood in Brooklyn called Carroll Gardens.  “It’s Brooklyn,” he wrote. “Trust me that that isn’t Heaven.”  Google Earth already allows people to explore the galaxy and Mars. Recently, the service began allowing armchair explorers the opportunity to take a virtual trip to the moon.  Earlier this year, the watery discovery of a bizarre gridlike pattern off the coast of Africa caused many virtual globetrotters to wonder if Google Earth had unearthed the fabled sunken city of Atlantis. Google debunked the mystery, saying the criss-cross markings were remnants of sonar-equipped boats collecting data from the ocean floor.  A spokeswoman for Google, Elaine Filadelfo, said that this latest aberration was nothing more than a glimmering lens flare, created when the street-view camera caught a glimpse of the sun.  “If you spin around in the panorama, you can see the shadow of the car which indicates that the sun was pretty direct on that front lens,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “These are not uncommon in Street View imagery, but they’re usually much less dramatic!”
Since its launch, Google's Street View service has captured a number of odd images, but perhaps nothing quite as out-of-this-world as the mystical glow illuminating one block in Brooklyn.