Google is asking millions of users to hunt for buried treasure using a new pirate-style "treasure mode" on its maps.
The company posted a video on YouTubeexplaining how Street View's "underwater team" discovered a chest containing lost maps belonging to pirate William "Captain" Kidd during an expedition to the Indian Ocean.
The video explains how hidden treasure symbols can be unearthed on the maps, which have been digitised by a special 3D nanoscanner.
Google marketing manager Mike Pegg says: "The map is rumoured to contain the clues to Captain Kidd's long lost treasure, however the map contains encrypted symbols and codes and is not readily decipherable.
"Therefore, we're introducing treasure mode on Google Maps and inviting the whole world to come together in the search for clues."
The treasure mode - accessed in the top-right corner of the Google Maps window - includes a telescope-style Street View function, with sepia-tinged images of streets across the globe.
Google claims hidden symbols can be uncovered by shining sunlight on a computer screen, by joining phone and tablet maps together like a puzzle, or even by heating a laptop over the hob.
The company's contribution to April Fools' Day follows last year's prank, when it claimed an 8-bit version of Google Mapshad been developed for Nintendo's NES games console.
Google also released a YouTube clip ahead of April 1 declaring that the world's most popular video website would shut down at the stroke of midnight.
The three-minute video, intended as a gag, described how the website would wind down as some 30,000 technicians begin to trawl through 150,000 clips to select the world's best video.
