Today we’re gonna talk about some random and useless facts about GTA 5. None of this is gonna change your life, and it’s not gonna make you any better at the game. But hey, if you’re a GTA geek like me and you love diving into everything about GTA, then stick around till the end, as I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of cool stuff. So let’s get started!
Police Spawning Portal
Okay, so have you ever wondered where the insane amount of cops come from in GTA 5 once you hit a five-star wanted level? If you’re thinking they roll out from a police station, nope—that’s not it. They spawn from a secret spot in the map. This wild detail was discovered by a Redditor named JarodJB40, and what’s crazy is that no one figured it out for like 8 years. And yeah, watching cars randomly pop out of thin air feels super weird. Honestly, even Rockstar was probably like, “Wait, how did someone find that?” Who knows, maybe in GTA 6 they’ll finally switch up how police cars spawn. I mean, if they just came out of the actual police station garage, it would feel way more realistic.
Harrier
So, in GTA 5’s story mode, there was supposed to be this mission called “Carrier.” In that, Solomon Richards tells Michael to steal a Hydra jet from an aircraft carrier so they can use it in the filming of his movie “Meltdown.” Then Michael teams up with Franklin and Trevor to pull off the heist and bring back the Hydra. But yeah, Rockstar ended up cutting that mission from the game. Although it kinda looks like they reused the concept for the third setup mission of the Humane Raid heist—’cause in that one too, we steal a Hydra from an aircraft carrier and then get into a dogfight with jets.
Stealing Michael’s Family Cars
So, if you’re playing as Franklin or Trevor, you can steal cars from Michael’s family. Like Amanda’s car or Tracey’s. Jimmy’s car? That thing’s already trashed anyway. But yeah, once you take one of their rides, Michael will text you—either yelling at you, throwing shade, or sometimes even asking you to bring it back. He’ll be like, “Do whatever you want with my car, but don’t take Amanda’s—she’ll tear me apart.”
Global Flooding In GTA 5
So there’s this theory that the GTA HD universe might’ve had some massive, apocalyptic flood. And that’s ‘cause a YouTuber named C-Ron shared a pic of a world map you can find in a bunch of barbershops in GTA 5. At first glance, it looks pretty normal. But if you look closely, a lot of the coastlines don’t match the real world. Like, entire parts look underwater. So yeah, maybe a huge flood hit and submerged a bunch of areas. Most likely though, it’s just Rockstar trolling real-life stuff again—like, “Hey, if global warming keeps going the way it is, your city’s gonna be underwater too.” Classic Rockstar sarcasm.
Purple Dinosaur With A Hot Dog
If you pull up to this one random location in the game, you’ll spot a giant purple dinosaur holding a hot dog. It’s probably something the nearby diner put up to get people to stop by. But low-key, it’s also a shoutout to Barney & Friends—you know, that kids’ show with the big purple dino named Barney? Yeah, same vibe.
Water Pressure
If you’re underwater in GTA 5 and start going way too deep, the game warns you. When you’re about 320 feet from the ocean floor, you’ll get a pressure warning. Go about 250 feet from the bottom, and your sub straight up gets crushed and you die. So yeah, maybe don’t go that deep unless you’re trying to see what pressure death looks like.
Rockstar Praising Its Games
So yeah, Rockstar doesn’t shy away from hyping up their stuff. If you head over to this one location on the map, you’ll find the Yellow Jack Inn. Inside, there’s a wall with four trophy plaques hanging up. The top two say “Best of Show 2008” and have a picture of a motorcycle—pretty sure that’s a nod to GTA 4 and its DLC, The Lost and Damned. Then another plaque says “Best of Show 2010” with a stagecoach wheel on it, which is a reference to Red Dead Redemption and the year it dropped. Rockstar is just casually flexing on the wall.
Los Santos Elementary School
So originally, GTA 5 was supposed to have a school called Los Santos Elementary. You can even spot it in some pre-release screenshots. But by the time the game launched, the building had been renamed to the University of San Andreas Training Centre. Which probably means they removed the school setting entirely—and maybe even planned to have kids in the game that also got cut. One possible reason? The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Since GTA games are all about chaos and violence, releasing a game with a school setting that close to a real-life tragedy like that would’ve been a huge risk for Rockstar. So yeah, they likely pulled it last minute to avoid major backlash.
Johnny Klebitz On Newspapers
After Trevor kills Johnny Klebitz in GTA 5, you can find newspapers scattered around the map with his picture on them. One headline even says, “Love’s hate relationship with taxes.” You’ll also find some of these papers at the house of Merle Abrahams, the serial killer who committed the Infinity Murders. So yeah, the papers are kinda covering both Johnny’s death and throwing shade at Donald Love for not paying taxes. It’s Rockstar doing what they do best—tying lore together while roasting corrupt elites.
A Literal Easter Egg
Gamers are always digging for easter eggs in GTA, so Rockstar said, “Fine, here’s a real one.” Like in Vice City, if you jump into a window in the VCN building, you’ll land in a room with a literal easter egg just sitting there. And in the Cayo Perico Heist, they did it again—there’s another literal easter egg you can find. This one’s kind of creepy-looking, though, glowing in weird, neon green colours. Some people think it’s supposed to be an alien egg, especially since that same colour palette pops up during Michael’s drug hallucination scenes. Either way, it’s Rockstar being super meta.
Rochell’le Reference In GTA 5
You probably didn’t know this, but the girl on the cover of GTA San Andreas has a name. She’s Rochell’le, a fictional famous hip-hop artist. And if you go to the Yellow Jack Inn in GTA 5, look behind the counter, and you’ll spot some $69 bills with her face on them. There’s even a date on the bills—10.12.2004 at 6 PM, which is exactly 14 days before San Andreas officially dropped. Just Rockstar sneaking in another cool little callback.
A Reference To Smuggler’s Run
So in GTA 5, Trevor can do these arms trafficking missions for Oscar Guzman, and they might be a reference to Rockstar’s old-school game series Smuggler’s Run. You might’ve never heard of it—it came out way back in 2000. But yeah, these missions require you to use a dune buggy that looks super similar to the ones from Smuggler’s Run. It’s a subtle shoutout to one of Rockstar’s forgotten classics.
Norman Bates and His Mother
You’ve probably heard of Psycho, the novel by Robert Bloch that got turned into that iconic horror movie. It’s about Norman and his mom doing some creepy stuff—including hiding bodies, even his dad’s. In GTA 5, there’s a poster that reads “Norman Bates: For the mother of all catches.” It’s a twisted little easter egg that fits right into the game’s dark humour.
Al Capone References
GTA Online even has an easter egg for Al Capone, the infamous gangster from the 1930s. There was a DLC called the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which is based on the real massacre that happened on February 14, 1929. Along with that update, Rockstar added a car called the Albany Roosevelt, which is probably a double reference—both to the gangster era and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in office around that time.
Reference to Devil May Cry
Inside GTA 5, there’s this bizarre in-game website called toiletcleaneronline.com. Sounds like some weird plumbing service, right? Nah—it’s actually a drug website in the game that sells a fictional drug called “Toilet Cleaner.” And one of the items listed is “Demon Trigger,” which is most likely a nod to Devil May Cry’s “Devil Trigger.” Leave it to Rockstar to hide video game references in the weirdest places.
Jimmy Games
You already know that Jimmy from GTA 5 is a total gamer, just like some of us. If you pay close attention to the games he’s playing, you’ll see he’s into a first-person shooter called Righteous Slaughter. The name itself is hilarious—and yeah, it’s 100% a parody of Call of Duty. It’s Rockstar throwing shade in the most Rockstar way possible.
Reference to L.A. Noire
Franklin’s got a tattoo on his neck that shows two hands shaking with a cross in the background. That’s actually a sneaky reference to L.A. Noire. In the Silk Stocking Murder case, that same design was on a necklace worn by the victim. The game’s protagonist finds it in a grocery store during the investigation. Just another little connection Rockstar threw in between their games.
Ghost Train
There’s this rare but real glitch in GTA 5 and Online that people call the Ghost Train. Basically, you’ll see 3 to 5 train cars just cruising down the tracks—with no engine pulling them. It’s straight-up creepy because the cars move by themselves, then slowly come to a stop. This happens when the game forgets to spawn the locomotive, but the rest of the train still runs. It’s a total horror movie vibe.
A Lot of Number 8s
Out in the Sandy Shores desert, there are some rocks with a ton of number 8s carved into them. Around them, there’s also a weird poem that goes: “One is done, two was fun, three tried to run…” and ends with “8 won’t wait.” It’s inspired by the Freddy Krueger rhyme from A Nightmare on Elm Street. And it’s probably written by the Infinity Killer, GTA 5’s serial killer, who was seriously obsessed with the number 8.
Snapmatic Reality
Snapmatic, the in-game photo app in GTA 5 and Online, is Rockstar’s take on Instagram. At launch, it was all about photo sharing—just like early Instagram. The name itself even sounds like a mix of Snapchat and automatic camera stuff. Snapchat launched in 2011, and GTA 5’s first trailer came out the same year. Plus, Snapchat was created in LA—and Los Santos, GTA’s main city, is based on Los Angeles. So yeah, Snapmatic is 100% Rockstar parodying real-life social media.
Orange Grove Shirt
So yeah, GTA 5 has no shortage of outfits, and Michael can pick up all kinds of clothes from different stores. One of them is this shirt called the Orange Grove Shirt. Just from the name, you can probably guess—it’s a reference to Grove Street. Back in early development for GTA San Andreas, the gang we know today as the Grove Street Families (CJ’s crew—the guys in green) were originally going to be called the Orange Grove Families. Their colour was gonna be orange instead of green. Rockstar eventually changed it, but this shirt in GTA 5 is a little nod to what could’ve been.
Trevor’s Car
In the game, Trevor’s main vehicle is called the Canis Bodhi. What’s cool is that it’s named after the voice actor’s son. Yeah, Steven Ogg—the guy who voices Trevor—has a son named Bodhi Ogg. So chances are, Rockstar named the car as a tribute to him. Kinda sweet, right?
Trevor’s Teddy
If you’ve ever looked closely at Trevor’s truck, you’ve probably noticed that little teddy bear strapped to the front. It’s kinda weird, especially for a dude like Trevor, who’s violent, chaotic, and pretty unhinged. So what’s up with the teddy? Well, it’s a reference to the Gang Burrito van from earlier GTA games. In Vice City, that van would sometimes have a teddy bear on it, too. So this is just another one of Rockstar’s little throwbacks—this time, attached to Trevor’s murdermobile.
Alamo Sea Baphomet
If you look at the Alamo Sea on the GTA 5 map—that’s the same place where Trevor crashes a plane—you might notice something wild. The surface of the water sometimes forms the face of Baphomet, this creepy occult figure that’s half-human, half-goat. Baphomet’s usually tied to satanic imagery and Illuminati conspiracies. In the game, the face appears through wave patterns and kinda shifts depending on how the water moves. It’s eerie, and exactly the kind of secret Rockstar loves sneaking into their maps.
Bishop’s WTF!
There’s a museum in GTA 5 called Bishop’s WTF, and it’s inspired by the real-life Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museums. The “Bishop” part is a clever nod to the character Bishop from the Alien movies, where the main character, ironically, was named Ripley. Outside the museum, there’s a UFO half-crashed into the building. You can’t go inside, but if you stand near it, you’ll hear a low humming noise that sounds like some kind of alien tech. Classic Rockstar weirdness.
OG Loc in GTA 5
So what happened to OG Loc after San Andreas? Nobody knows. But GTA 5 does sneak in a reference—there’s an album called OG Loc Original, which shows he managed to drop new music and maybe even got famous again. What we don’t know is whether he wrote the lyrics this time… or just jacked someone else’s bars again. Either way, man’s still hustling.
Lost Party Guest
During the Cayo Perico Heist in GTA Online, you can come across a skeleton lying near a fence. Judging by the clothes and the bag next to him, it looks like he came to the party. Maybe he went a little too hard, got wasted, stumbled into the fence, and just… fell to his death. The ultimate “partied too hard” story.
Mario Reference
In GTA 5’s story, Franklin crashes at his Aunt Denise’s house for a while. If you head into the backyard, you’ll spot two mushrooms—one red and small, and one green and a bit taller. It’s a subtle but clear reference to Super Mario Bros. Mario’s the short one in red, and Luigi’s the taller one in green. Just another little easter egg tucked into the background.
Female Cops
GTA 5 is the first GTA game to include female cops. Yeah, seriously. None of the earlier games had them—not even GTA 4. It’s one of those small details that most people probably didn’t notice, but once you realise it, it’s kinda wild. Took Rockstar a while, but they finally added some representation to the police force.
Dark Net
GTA Online also has its version of the dark web. In one of the setup missions for the Humane Raids Heist, Agent 14 casually drops a line saying he found info about the EMP on the dark net. It’s a small line, but it shows Rockstar once again pulling real-world concepts into the game world—this time giving the dark web a shady, in-game twist.
Also Read: 10 Crazy GTA 6 Fan Theories That Change Everything
With that said, I hope you had fun reading about some of these interesting facts about GTA 5! Let us know about more facts, if you have any! Don’t forget to check out our website for even more informative posts and guides. For more tips and tricks and the latest updates related to GTA and Rockstar Games, make sure you follow us on our X and Instagram pages.
