This video was made possible by Skillshare. Learn with Skillshare for free for two months
by being one of the first 200 to sign up at skl.sh/hai16. The world is a big place—an absolute unit,
if you will—but there are a lot of people on the world—too many according to some
guys. Nonetheless, that high people to world ratio
means that we know what most of the world looks like. Of course the fact that we have satellites
now helps but, we’ve known for decades or even centuries more or less what the world
looks like… or so we thought. This is Sandy Island—a beautiful, warm,
and uninhabited island part of the French overseas territory of New Caledonia. It sits only about 650 miles north-east of
Australia in the Coral Sea. This island was likely first discovered in
1774 by Captain James Cook, who, fun fact, was never actually a Captain, but Sandy Island
was formally mapped in the late 19th century after being spotted by a passing whaling ship. Sandy Island, being a sunny piece of paradise,
would probably be the perfect place to live if not for one small problem—it doesn’t
exist. Now, this might be a shock because this map
is real. So is this one. In fact, you might have even heard of this
map—it’s called Google Maps. Just for kicks let’s switch to Google Maps’
satellite view and look, Sandy Island is clearly still there so what gives? All the evidence clearly points to Sandy Island
existing so what know-it-alls have the audacity to say that this 15 mile long island doesn’t
exist? Well, for one, the French Service Hydrographique
et Océanographique de la Marine. If you don’t speak francais these are the
guys that make the ocean maps for France. Someone happened to notice in the 70s that
sea depth data showed the ocean being between 5,000 and 7,000 feet deep where Sandy Island
was supposed to be which was puzzling. The French definitely wanted to figure out
whether the island the size of Paris that they assumed was part of their country actually
existed so they fired up a plane, flew over, and surprise surprise: it didn’t. I’m sure that was a bit of a bummer but
oh well, the island was removed from all official French maps in 1979 and the word was spread
about Sandy’s nonexistence but it wasn’t spread enough. It was around the time that Sandy Island was
first un-discovered that mapping organizations worldwide were converting their data from
analog to digital and one of them, then called the US National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
was doing just that but it just happened that their analog maps had sourced their information
from maps that sourced their data from the original maps that included Sandy Island and
they didn’t get the message from France. They’ve since published the beautifully
named Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Geography Database which is
essentially the definitive data-source for where the world’s coasts are since it’s
freely available. Its data is used by a good majority of modern
digital maps including Google Maps. You can even download it yourself but it’s
not very exciting. That’s why Google Maps showed the small
island on its maps. It does not, however, anymore. By the year 2012 some maps showed Sandy Island
existing and some did not depending on their data source. A team assembled by the University of Sydney
was in the area doing unrelated research on the RV Southern Surveyor when they happened
to float by Sandy Island and notice its distinct lack of existence. Having all the equipment, the Southern Surveyor
then surveyed the area, recorded the accurate data, and undiscovered Sandy Island for the
last time. After publishing their findings, Google Maps,
along with every other map, removed Sandy Island from existence. But this still leaves two big questions: why
was Sandy spotted in the first place and why could you see it on Google Maps satellite
view? The first question has a plausible but unconformable
explanation. The whaling ship that first mapped Sandy Island
probably did see what looked like land. You see, when underwater volcanoes erupt they
often spurt out pumice—a type of rock that actually floats on water. Typically this rock will float densely together
and look like land creating what’s called a pumice raft. Ocean currents have been known to bring pumice
rafts to the area of Sandy Island making it seem probable that that’s what Sandy Island’s
discoverers saw. Now for the second mystery. We’ve thoroughly established that Sandy
Island doesn’t exist so why did Google’s satellite view show this? Well, it turns out that a lot of their satellite
view isn’t actually satellite imagery. You see, when you image ocean from satellite
you don’t get something that looks like this. It looks like this. They get this texture by using bathymetric
data—surveys of the ocean floor. That’s why you’ll see these long lines. There isn’t actually a completely straight
line between Australia and New Caledonia—this is actually just a streak of higher resolution
data from one ship sailing a straight line and collecting bathymetric data. Where there’s land Google will switch to
using full satellite imagery so where Sandy Island was supposed to be their systems expected
to have ground satellite imagery but didn’t since the island didn’t exist so instead,
until Sandy Island was undiscovered definitively in 2012, the satellite map just showed this
island shaped black void instead. Now, if you believe that Sandy Island actually
does exist and that it’s where Amelia Earhart lives along with my dignity, all my left socks,
and other things that mysteriously disappeared you’ll probably want a map showing the island
but, of course, they don’t exist anymore so you’ll have to make one. Luckily for you, you can learn how to draw
maps in Photoshop using this great course on Skillshare which you can take for free
if you’re one of the first 200 to sign up at skl.sh/hai16. Skillshare, of course, has over 20,000 courses
so if there’s something you want to learn chances are they have a course on it. I’d also recommend the course by fellow
YouTuber Jordan from Business Casual on investing 101. Of course, once again, you can take any number
of these classes for free for two months by signing up at skl.sh/hai16 and start learning
skills to impress others, to get a job, or just for fun.
