The site is famous for capturing couples in flagrante and prostitutes working the streets.
But one user thought they had come across a serious crime when they spotted a man appearing to stand over his lifeless victim.
Concerned by what they had seen, the person called the police to report a murder in Leith, Edinburgh.
But the two men in the shot were actually a pair of mischievous mechanics.
Dan Thompson, 56, and Gary Kerr, 31, staged the fake homicide as a jokewhen Google's camera car passed by their garage.
Dan, the garage boss who posed as a murder victim, said: "I recognised the Google car coming into the street from the camera tower on the top. We just thought we had to do something.
"This opportunity wasn't coming around very often so Gary grabbed a pick axe handle and we ran out into the street.
"Giles Street is in a U-shape so we had about a minute before it would pass us. We decided really quickly what to do and I lay down while Gary stood over me with a pick axe handle."
He added: "It was all we could think of in the few seconds we had. It was just devilment. We work on a backstreet in Leith - anything to liven up the day."
The pranksters staged the fake homicide last summer and almost forgot about it as several months passed before the footage went online.
Dan first heard from friends and family - including his son - who had spotted the scene, but was mortified when real cops came to the garage to investigate reports of his death.
Dan said: "It was a guy from one of our local parts supply companies who called us up and said he had seen us on Street View. But then someone else must have looked at it and thought it was a real attack and called the police.
"Then two of Lothian and Borders finest turn up with a report of a man being massacred outside a garage. They said it was hilarious and away they went."
Mechanic Gary, who posed as the axe-wielding maniac, added: "I had seen various stunts that people pulled on Street View in the paper so we thought this was our chance. It was all Dan's thinking. He was the mastermind."
Launched in 2007, Google Street View provides panoramic views of streets and roadsafter being captured by Google's car mounted cameras. Anyone caught on camera has their faces blurred due to privacy concerns.
Pranksters from all over the world have managed to get their own staged scenes onto the database, while others have been caught unsuspectingly by the Google car.
Famous images captured include a man picking his nose while driving his car and a pair of snorkellers wandering down a street.
Source: MirrorOnline
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