- Sandy Island shows up on a range of maps and online services
- Its existence in an area of deep sea would have been geological oddity
- But when researchers went in search of it they found nothing there
- It could be a deliberate mistake entered as mapmaker's 'watermark'
By Damien Gayle and Mark Duell
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It's a mystery worthy of James Bond. A tiny island in the Pacific which appears on a range of maps seems to have disappeared without a trace.
Australian scientists who went in search of Sandy Island - which appears midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia on Google Earth among other world maps - found nothing but sea when they arrived.
The Times Atlas of the World appears to identify the sizeable phantom island in the Coral Sea as Sable Island, and weather maps used by the Southern Surveyor, an Australian maritime research vessel also say it exists.
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Phantom island: Sandy Island as it appears on Google's satellite maps service. A team of Australian geologists went in search of the island, and discovered it wasn't there
WHEN AND WHERE DID SANDY FIRST APPEAR... AND WHO SPOTTED IT?
The first recorded instance of the phantom island was believed to be on a map in 2000, when it was claimed to have been seen on National Geographic maps based on data from U.S. satellite images.
The N4GN group of amateur radio enthusiasts, run by Tim Totten, from Louisville, Kentucky, claimed in April 2000 that they had seen the images on the National Geographic website - but there was open water in other sources, such as the 1999 edition of the Times Atlas.
A National Geographic expert reportedly told the group that the maps in that area were by WorldSat International and known to contain problems.
The British Society of Cartographers said today that human error was most likely to have caused the mistake.
The society’s president Danny Dorling told the Guardian that it is still possible the island does exist nearby - and that someone may have found an island but ‘put it in the wrong location’.
But when the ship, which was tasked with identifying fragments of the Australian continental crust submerged in the Coral Sea, steamed to where it was supposed to be there was nothing there.
The island supposedly sits in an area of very deep sea, making its existence something of a geological oddity that researchers wanted to investigate.
However, when they got there, it was nowhere to be found.
'We wanted to check it out because the navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 1,400 metres (4,620 feet) in that area - very deep,' said Dr Maria Seton, of the University of Sydney, after the 25-day voyage.
'It's on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We're really puzzled. It's quite bizarre.
'How did it find its way onto the maps? We just don't know, but we plan to follow up and find out.'
The island's appearance on Google perhaps should have sparked suspicions. Compared with nearby islands on which the undulations of ground are visible, Sandy Island appears merely as a dark blob.
Look for yourself: This map embedded from Google maps shows the location of the phantom island
WHERE DOES GOOGLE GET THE DATA FOR ITS SATELLITE MAPS?
Google Maps satellite images are not updated in real time and in most cases they are several months or years old
Although the service provides high-resolution aerial or satellite images for most urban areas all over the world, most of the world's publicly current satellite imagery is over 5 years old.
Because of this, many areas where there have been recent changes are not accurately covered. And not all areas on the satellite images are covered in the same resolution - less populated areas usually get less detail.
With the introduction of an easily pannable and searchable mapping and satellite imagery tool, Google's mapping engine prompted a surge of interest in satellite imagery.
Although Google uses the word satellite, most of the high-resolution imagery of cities is aerial photography taken from aircraft flying at 800–1500 feet rather than from satellites; most of the rest of the imagery is in fact from satellites
News of the invisible island sparked debate on social media, with tweeter Charlie Loyd outpointing that Sandy Island is also on Yahoo Maps as well as Bing Maps 'but it disappears up close'.
On www.abovetopsecret.com, discussions were robust with one poster claiming he had confirmed with the French hydrographic office that it was indeed a phantom island and was supposed to have been removed from charts in 1979.
Another claimed: 'Many mapmakers put in deliberate but unobtrusive and non-obvious "mistakes" into their maps so that they can know when somebody steals the map data.'
Google was not immediately available for comment. But the Google Maps product manager for Australia and New Zealand told the Sydney Morning Herald a variety of authoritative public and commercial sources were used in building maps.
'The world is a constantly changing place, and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavour,' Nabil Naghdy told the newspaper.
The closest landmass to the invisible island is the Chesterfields, a French archipelago of uninhabited coral sand cays.
Mission: Dr Maria Seton, of the University of Sydney, said after a 25-day voyage that 'navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 1,400 metres (4,620 feet) in that area - very deep'
VIDEO:Geo scientist Sabin Zahirovic talks about the quest to find the mysterious island
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