Hamad From Space

If you were a billionaire what would you spend your money on? What extravagances would tickle your fancy?

Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan has decided to write his name in the sand on an island he owns in the Persian Gulf – so large that it can be seen from space. Yep, you read that right FROM SPACE.

If you don't believe these pictures included here you can even look it up for yourself by typing in “Al Futaysi, Abu Dhabi” in googlemaps!

Spelling out his first name “HAMAD”, these letters stand half a mile tall and two miles long and instead of just being written in the sand like any other doodle on the beach, these letters are dug out to form waterways that absorb the encroaching tide, with the waters flowing in up to the ‘M’.



How much do you think it cost? No one really knows, as it has never been officially stated – although being one of the richest men in the world I am sure he’s no that bothered. It remains to be seen if he will follow through with the rest of his name in full although that may be slightly overkill.

Did Hamad just want his legacy to live on forever by etching out his name on our planet’s surface? Did he want aliens to know his name? Whilst his motivations are not that clear, it has been revealed that he has a penchant for big things – one report stating that he had a custom truck built – the world’s largest, so big that it had four bedrooms inside the cabin. And I somehow can’t imagine them to be small bedrooms either.

Other reported extravagances include the ownership of around 200 cars, including seven Mercedes 500 SELs painted in the different colours of the rainbow, apparently stored within a giant pyramid.

Despite these ridiculous spendings, he is also said to be a well-known philanthropist in medicine and continues to donate funds to that cause, so I guess that kind of balances out his lavish splashing of cash.

What do you think?

If you were in his shoes would you do the same? I probably would have leant towards a more universal (rather than personal) sign. A smiley face perhaps? Nah, that's already been done on Mars. A universal sign of silliness it is then – a cartoon penis two miles long? Done!


6 Sep 2011