I don’t want anyone to be confused by the title here, as I am not saying that scientists have found some uncharted island. These days, we have pretty much sailed the entire Earth and have satellites that view it 24/7. I don’t think you can find any convenient deserted island to live on, so forget your Cast Away stories.

What I am talking about is a 16-mile island west of New Caledonia known simply as Sandy island. It has been appearing on sea-charts for years, and it will even show up on Google Earth. However, University of Sydney scientists have discovered that it does not exist. Not only that, the ocean is quit deep at almost a mile (4,620 feet), which means that the island couldn’t have sunk, at least not recently.

So how in the world could this have happened? Some of speculated it is some interesting mapping company error, as some travel guidebook publishers deliberately include some small errors on city maps, just to protect their own copyright. Is it just me, or does that sound f**ked up? Sorry, but I couldn’t think of any better way of saying that other than a vulgar f-word. I could say “messed up” or “stupid”, but I just don’t feel that it cuts it, really.

When I first heard of this, I thought this was some sort of conspiracy, but wouldn’t you want to remove an island from maps to keep it secret? I don’t see any point in adding an island unless you want ships to deliberately steer around it. Now I am really curious.

I guess it just shows how much of life is lived on faith. I’ve never been to New York, but too many people tell me that they have visited it personally for me to deny that such a big dot on the map isn’t an actual city. I think I stole that illustration from C. S. Lewis, and I think it applies here.

Source 1 and Source 2