The Island That Only Disappeared When Someone Finally Looked

For 150 years, an island called Sandy Island sat in the Coral Sea on naval charts, scientific databases, and eventually Google Maps. In November 2012, a research ship sailed to its exact coordinates to settle a disagreement between two maps. The water was 1,400 metres deep. The island was not there. It had never been there. This is the story of how the entire world agreed on something that was not real, and kept agreeing on it for a century and a half, long after the tools existed to prove it false. It is not a story about a mistake. It is a story about trust, about how an error becomes a fact, and about how many other "islands" might still be sitting on the maps we have all agreed not to question. CHAPTERS 0:00 — The Island On Every Map 1:05 — Why A Single Mistake Can't Survive 150 Years 2:05 — 1876: The Whaling Ship 3:05 — How An Error Becomes A Fact 4:05 — The Black Hole On Google Maps 5:05 — The Ship That Went To Look 6:10 — Each Link Was Reasonable. The Chain Was Wrong. 7:00 — How Many Other Islands Are Still On The Map? New stories every week. Subscribe if you like the quiet ones. #truestory