The prank at a Hamilton school has been caught by satellite and immortalised on an internet map potentially seen by millions around the world.

The satellite picture, taken in May 2009, shows six phallic shapes etched into the grass at Fairfield College, with two by the car park particularly gigantic.

The Fairfield phalluses would no doubt have eventually passed into the twilight of sniggering schoolboy folklore had they not been snapped from space and used to compile the Google map used by millions of web browsers daily.

David McQuoid was searching for a property when he came across the surprising snaps.

"At first I thought it was a large piece of art work," he said.

But acting principal Gerhard van Dyk was not amused and said he would like to have caught the culprits.

Unfortunately, the incident had happened on a weekend.

By Monday, Mr van Dyk said the caretaker became aware of some of the grass dying, as the X-rated crop circles popped up around the school.

It was the prank that kept growing as the grass completely died away and the crude creations of the "artists" were revealed.

"There's not really much we could do about it," he said. "The caretaker took some more weedkiller and tried to camouflage it a bit."

The rest of the grass was killed, but it was a few months before the rude renderings disappeared. But by then an eye in the sky had snapped these images. Mr van Dyk said he would contact Google.

A spokesperson for the internet giant said the images came directly from satellite pictures, unlike the Google Street View shots, which could be blurred for privacy reasons.

Netsafe executive director Martin Cocker said he had heard about similar instances of people trying to find infamy but things hung around a lot longer on the web.

Waikato Times