The island that isn't.

Now and again, Google Earth related stories occur in the mainstream  media. Sometimes, I'll take the time to post here about them.

Today, there's an article on the BBC's Website about an island that's listed on various maps and charts, and also on google maps/ google earth, but at that location, there is only salt water, to a depth of over a kilometre. The BBC even included a graphic that showed the wrong bit of ocean along with the caption,

"Sandy Island can be seen as the shaded area due west of New Caledonia"

So there's a nice irony there. In attempting to show where something isn't, they've shown the wrong place.

Sandy Island isn't over 200 miles to the west of where the picture above thinks it isn't.

And here it isn't.

According to GE, there's a big hole in the world at this point although I had my mouse hovering over the location when I took this snapshot, and it reckons that the ground is 2 feet above seal level, rather than 4,500 feet below sea level. So it looks like some hasty revisionism is going on here.

There is an earlier, historical image, dating from early in 2009.

And it's still not an island, sandy or otherwise. Just clouds and ocean.

driving lessons in Wallasey? learn to drive in Wirral? driving instructor in Birkenhead?

Update: There's been some revising going on on the BBC's page too. They now have updated their photograph to show where the island actually isn't insead of where nobody thought it wasn't.