OT: Google Earth, Map Show Australian Island That Does Not Exist

Apple "solved" the Senkaku Islands row between Japan and China by showing two sets of islands, one for Japan and one for China, on iPhone5's ill-fated map (which also showed the USSR in Moscow, and London's Big Ben with different faces showing different times).

Now it's Google's turn to show a mystery island on its Google Earth program.

AFP reports that when Australian scientists went to look for an island that appears in Google Earth, there was no such island, and the ocean at that location is very deep (1,400 meter deep).

Google's response? Oh how dynamic the world is! (As if the island has just recently sank...)

In the age of digitized maps and navigation systems, it almost feels as if the real world should follow what's on the map and not the other way around; when it doesn't the problem is with the world, not the map.

From AFP (11/21/2012):

Aussie scientists un-discover Pacific island

SYDNEY — A South Pacific island identified on Google Earth and world maps does not exist, according to Australian scientists who went searching for the mystery landmass during a geological expedition.

The sizeable phantom island in the Coral Sea is shown as Sandy Island on Google Earth and Google maps and is supposedly midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia.

The Times Atlas of the World appears to identify it as Sable Island. Weather maps used by the Southern Surveyor, an Australian maritime research vessel, also say it exists, according to Dr Maria Seton.

But when the Southern Surveyor, which was tasked with identifying fragments of the Australian continental crust submerged in the Coral Sea, steamed to where it was supposed to be, 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," Seton, from the University of Sydney, told AFP 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."

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.

Here's Google Earth screenshot of "Sandy Island". I can understand the map may have the island, but on Google Earth? "Sandy Island" looks like a cut-out hole.

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