Pacific Island is "missing"

Where did it go? Scientists 'undiscover' Pacific island

Most explorers dream of discovering uncharted territory, but a team of Australian scientists have done the exact opposite.
They have found an island that doesn't exist.
The island, named Sandy Island on Google Earth, also exists on marine charts and world maps and allegedly sits between Australia and New Caledonia in the south Pacific.
But when the voyage's chief scientist, Maria Seton, and her crew sailed past where the island should be, they found nothing but blue ocean.

"We became suspicious when the navigation charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1400 metres in an area where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the existence of a large island," Dr Maria Seton, a geologist from the University of Sydney, said.
"Somehow this error has propagated through to the world coastline database from which a lot of maps are made."

The missing island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least 2000.
The Sydney Morning Herald

This is weird, did the island ever existed or was it just misinformation. Or the island did like Atlantis and sank to depths. Sea level rise doesn't explain this.

I took it, I stole it fair and square, and I'm not giving it back .


Seriously,
That's pretty interesting. It could be any number of things.
Possibly an error in the mapping code? Or some action of tectonics, volcanism?

Hmmm... Very interesting. If you watch the video with Dr Micklethwaite speaking (from about 1:54), he mentions that one of the supposed sources of the coastal maps is... the CIA...

Can't help but think "DHARMA Initiative". Probably a simple answer - but still strange. An island, with a name, mapped but not there. The stuff movies are made of.

the question to ask - is was it on WWII charts from the USN and RN - if not why not

Topic already being discussed. Enjoy.

Undiscovered Island

reply to post by MmmPie


Rules still allow for one thread in "Breaking Alternative News" and one thread in an appropriate forum.

I hope this leads to a revival of "Australia is in the wrong spot on the map, I'm in an alternate universe" threads.


I'd hope this is just a GPS error of some kind, people are going to freak out when Europe goes missing

From Wiki (updated today)

It has been suggested that the island first appeared on a map as a copyright trap, but has remained, unchallenged, ever since. It is normal practice in cartography to place a fictitious "trap street" on a map for the purpose of "trapping" potential copyright violators; however, the Australian Hydrographic Service, a department of the Royal Australian Navy, opined that this would not have been standard practice with nautical charts

The navigational chart in use on the vessel that discovered this anomaly did not have Sandy Island on it but on the vessels weather chart it did exist!

The fact that the World Sector Coastline Database has the CIA mentioned as one of its sources is very interesting indeed.

Hmm.....what else has occurred recently that has the name "Sandy"?

Geez I LOVE a good conspiracy!!!

Good video interview by University of Western Australia representative here

reply to post by Thebel


The island that use to be there was actually just a giant UFO stationed there. It was using it's cloaking device to show up looking like an island, until eventually it took off.

I bet that's where they probably filmed "Lost". It only appears when it wants to appear. Fly a plane over it and crash it into the coordinates and see if appears. Worked in the movies so I don't see why it can't work now.

Could be like the Bermuda Triangle too..Or a time warp portal.

If you look the location, its black in satellite map. Not sure when it was blacked out.
Satellite Image

Its even in USGS map.

Sounds like the making of a really scary sci fi film.

I don't think that map feature ever really existed.. it's hypothesized that it's a map maker's watermark...false features have been added in the past to identify someone who's copied another person's map... some of those false features still exist in modern maps because they weren't removed over time..

I think the location of the "island" was blotted out just to reflect this recent news... it's not even in all maps currently .. it's not on landsat for example ( landsatlook.usgs.gov... )

Wikipedia also has some updated information

Sandy Island is a phantom island that was supposedly located between Australia and New Caledonia in the Coral Sea. The island appears on some world maps, including Google Maps.[1] On Google Earth's default view the island area is covered by black pixels, but the program's historical imagery feature has a satellite image of the southern portion taken by DigitalGlobe on 3 March 2009 showing nothing but sea. It also appeared in some editions of the Times Atlas of the World (there labelled Ile de Sable, the French equivalent of Sandy Island).

so older map data on google earth shows the location.... with absolutely nothing there.

Maybe it tipped over and sank.

why would google earth black out water.

maybe google took artistic license when developing it's earth program to save time and money and just added the island based on incorrect maps and charts expecting nobody to go to the middle of the pacific to look for it.

they were wrong.

now you have to question what else they are omitting.

Already posted here www.abovetopsecret.com...

Has 4 pages of comments.

P

Target for full-power testing with the Proteus weapon system.

At least this time there weren't any native islanders to worry about, like with Bikini Atoll.

They moved the island ...they did it on LOST.....think the TV show LOST was tyring to tell us something??????

reply to post by Alexjustme


Or they have cloaked it for reason of national security......