From FarOutMag by Sam Farley
Today, we know more about the world around us and our history than we ever have before.
Social media and the internet has shown us countries and communities from around the globe.
You no longer need an expensive plane ticket to go and explore distant cities; now you just need a YouTube or TikTok account.
That’s given us a wealth of information and increased understanding of other cultures.
However, despite us learning more about the world around us, there’s a growing obsession with places that don’t even fucking exist.
Over recent years, there’s been a growing interest in what we’ll politely call alternative history.
Self-proclaimed historians such as Graham Hancock have detailed their views on The Joe Rogan Experience and in Netflix documentaries, despite having no credible evidence.
More concerning has been Hancock’s claims that real archaeologists are trying to cover up the truth, echoing the language that we’ve heard in medical and vaccine scientism over recent years.
For hundreds of years, there’s been interest in Atlantis.
This powerful, island nation was described by Plato in Timaeus and Critias, before being sunk into the depths of the ocean following a natural disaster.
Historians are yet to find any evidence that Atlantis existed, and the likelihood is that it was a fictional device used as an allegory to warn against greed.
That hasn’t stopped people from looking for it ever since, and our obsession with places that don’t exist has only continued to grow.
There are recent examples too, with Sandy Island being one of the most fascinating.
This small island was situation in the Coral Sea, to the northeast of Australia.
The first recorded mention was from the famous explorer Captain James Cook, who charted a “Sandy I” in September 1774, which was included in a map called the Chart of Discoveries made in the South Pacific Ocean just two years later.
A full 100 years later, the island was reported against by the whaling ship Velocity, which led to it being included on a number of maps, both in Germany and the UK, as well as being listed in the Australian maritime directory in 1879.
Self-proclaimed historians such as Graham Hancock have detailed their views on The Joe Rogan Experience and in Netflix documentaries, despite having no credible evidence.
More concerning has been Hancock’s claims that real archaeologists are trying to cover up the truth, echoing the language that we’ve heard in medical and vaccine scientism over recent years.
For hundreds of years, there’s been interest in Atlantis.
This powerful, island nation was described by Plato in Timaeus and Critias, before being sunk into the depths of the ocean following a natural disaster.
Historians are yet to find any evidence that Atlantis existed, and the likelihood is that it was a fictional device used as an allegory to warn against greed.
That hasn’t stopped people from looking for it ever since, and our obsession with places that don’t exist has only continued to grow.
There are recent examples too, with Sandy Island being one of the most fascinating.
This small island was situation in the Coral Sea, to the northeast of Australia.
The first recorded mention was from the famous explorer Captain James Cook, who charted a “Sandy I” in September 1774, which was included in a map called the Chart of Discoveries made in the South Pacific Ocean just two years later.
A full 100 years later, the island was reported against by the whaling ship Velocity, which led to it being included on a number of maps, both in Germany and the UK, as well as being listed in the Australian maritime directory in 1879.
(Credits: Far Out / Giacomo Gastaldi / Library of Congress)The island then appeared on maps until 1974, which saw its initial removal from the French Naval and Oceanographic Service on their nautical charts.
However, it wasn’t until as recently as 2012 that the island was truly undiscovered by Australian scientists studying plate tectonics in the area, aboard R/V Southern Surveyor.
They’d realised that the various maps they had had discrepancies around the island, so went to check it out for themselves, before discovering that the island didn’t exist and the depths in the area were never less than 1,300 metres.
At this point, Sandy Island was quickly removed from maps across the globe, including Google Maps, and now serves as a reminder that some errors charted early in world exploration have continued to be mapped wrong since.
It’s when phantom islands and conspiracy theories meet that the real fun begins, as is the case with Bermeja, which was said to lie off the Yucatan Peninsula’s north coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
Bermeja appeared on maps as early as the 16th century and has been an ever-present for around 500 years.
That was until the 1970s and 1980s, when all eyes turned to the island, with Bermeja’s location meaning that Mexico could extend their exclusive economic zone, which would give it precious oil rights.
The Mexican authorities, excited at the potential windfall, tried to locate the island but couldn’t, with aerial surveys and satellite imagery all drawing a blank.
The consensus view is that, much like Sandy Island, this was a cartographic error that had never been picked up.
The evidence shows that this was far more likely than alternative theories such as erosion, rising sea levels or a shift in the sea bed.
It also bore a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theorists, with some speculation that the CIA had somehow destroyed the entire island in order to protect the United States’ exclusive economic zone.
There are plenty more examples in history, such as the Rochefort Islands, which were again reported by Captain Cook, Thule, which was described by Pytheas in the fourth century and the Isle of Demons, a monster-filled island that was believed to be near Newfoundland.
While we now know so much about the past and our history, there’s always fascination in finding out something new, something that’s been hidden from us.
The intrigue and mystery of a Sandy Island or a Bermeja and the CIA conspiracy are captivating and considerably more interesting than the reality that they are simply the result of hundreds of years-old human errors.
Or maybe that’s what the New World Order want us to think, I’ll see you in Atlantis.
Links :
- GeoGarage blog : South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist' / How a fake island landed on Google Earth / These imaginary islands only existed on maps / Ancient maps show islands that don't really exist / Exploration mysteries: Phantom islands / 'The Phantom Atlas' book review: paps with gaps / Mystery of the phantom islands solved: Lands that ... / The mysterious disappearance of Jeannette Island ...
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