Sandy Island, shown on maps since the late 1800s, was searched for by Australian scientists in 2012 but was not found. It is now believed to have never existed and was likely a mistake made by the crew of the whaler Velocity in 1876.
Beginning in the late 1800s, maps of the area between Australia and the French territory of New Caledonia showed a place called Sandy Island. In 2012, a group of Australian scientists aboard the Southern Surveyor research vessel went in search of the mysterious island in the eastern Coral Sea, but failed to find it. Thus, despite having existed on charts and nautical charts for over a hundred years, the island had ceased to exist. Researchers now think it never existed at all.
When an island is not an island:
The Sandy Island mistake was attributed to the crew of the whaler Velocity, who originally recorded the landmass in 1876.
Shaun Higgins of the Auckland Museum says the whaler’s crew reported a number of “heavy surf” and some “sand islets” on a nautical chart. Over time, these areas have become an island on official maps.
“My guess is that they just registered danger at that moment,” Higgins said. “They may have recorded a shallow reef or thought they saw a coral reef. They could be in the wrong place.”
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