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Sandy Island, the Undiscovered Country
Big Hairy Ian writes "A South Pacific island, shown on marine charts and world maps as well as on Google Earth and Google Maps, does not exist, Australian scientists say. The supposedly sizeable strip of land, named Sandy Island on Google maps, was positioned midway between Australia and French-governed New Caledonia. But when scientists from the University of Sydney went to the area, they found only the blue ocean of the Coral Sea."
We have to go back!
Excellent, my evil island cloaking device is functioning perfectly. They'll never know my nefarious plans until they are too late to do anything about them!
It was actually just a really really big whale.
Putting non-existent features onto published maps to provide proof of future copyright infringement is a well-known practice, after all...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumice_raft
But when scientists from the University of Sydney went to the area, they found only the blue ocean of the Coral Sea.
April Fools!
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
... The last time I visited Alderaan
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
If this is on navigational maps, it could be a serious safty issue - not in avoiding it, but if for example a ship in distress navigated to it verses a actual existing piece of land...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This is just a marketing stunt by the area's resident Dolphin community. They want to lure tourists to this patch of the sea, so they can do some backflips in return for loose change and hearty gifts of plankton.
What is stranger is that on Google maps' satellite view at that exact location there is a black area
For lands, Google Maps is displaying satellite/aerial imagery. For seas/oceans, they're displaying a seabed topology map. The black is just the color of the ocean as seen by satellites, showing through the sea/land mask.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
The funny thing is Google seems to have doctored the satellite photos to put a dark blob where this fictitious island is supposed to be.
I doesn't show up on my new iOS 6 Maps app ... and here I thought this missing island was Apple's fault.
You mean any place they think (or want you to think) there are shoals, sand banks or small island groups. If Google doesn't correct this within a few days, I'll be surprised. As of now, there's a 15-mile long virtual island out there where ships have sailed and say there's no such thing.
S 19 13' E 156 56'
Oh please. There are plenty of good reasons to prefer OSM over Google Maps and other non-free maps and I am an active contributor myself. But using this case as an argument? No. I've seen plenty of phantom cities added to OSM, either by mistake or intentionally. My favorite was a road shaped like the Batman symbol somewhere in the mountains of Washington. In addition, OSM does import a whole bunch of data (from government sources etc.) and thus it's quite possible that they could replicate someone else's mistakes.
I'll be surprised if Google doesn't announce their street view cams have been adapted and installed on board ships. That island is out there somewhere, and I trust Google to find it.
It is, a bunch of Apple fanatics with shovels actually removed the island rather than admit Apple was wrong.
My Times Atlas (big papery thing, pub. 1992) has a long thin ellipse-ish shape with a couple of small blobs on it in about the right place that might indicate something was once there.
Called 'Sable' (French for 'sand') and just to the left of the 160 line, looks like it got washed away or fell over some time in the last 20 years.
Assuming it existed - or is this the 'copyright check' glitch added? It is not a nautical chart, just a home atlas.
Times atlas of the world, concise edition, 6th ed.
ISBN: 0 7230 0493 5
They've been planning this for years. Wheelchair access is a Dalek conspiracy.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I get that an error or bad pixel matching might have misdetected the island but... who named Sandy Island?