Phantom Islands
Thule Year -325 Saint Brendan Island Year 512 Saint Brendan Island First Mentioned: 512 Last Mentioned: 1772 Claimed to haveTo your top left the black & white chessball helps you to navigate home, find hints and other links. Hover in and out to show the navigation items!
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Saint Brendan Island
First Mentioned: 512Last Mentioned: 1772
Claimed to have been first visited in 512 by the monk St. Brendan and 14 others, along with later reports up to 1772.
Antillia
First Mentioned: 714Antillia (or Antilia) is a phantom island that was reputed, during the 15th-century age of exploration, to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities (Ilha das Sete Cidades in Portuguese, Isla de
Jacquet Island
First Mentioned: 1000An island just to the east of the Flemish Cap; it was believed to exist into the 19th century, during which cartographers discussed it as a possible midway point for the Transatlantic telegraph cable.
Brasil (or Hy-Brasil)
First Mentioned: 1325Said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland. Irish myths described it as cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached.
Isle of Mam
First Mentioned: 1367A crescent-shaped island in the North Atlantic that does not appear to exist; however, there is a crescent-shaped group of seamounts 120 feet deep near its described location.
Rupes Nigra
First Mentioned: 1400A magnetic, black island at the exact Magnetic north, invented as an explanation for why all compasses point north.
Satanazes
First Mentioned: 1424This island was originally noted on maps in 1424, originating from popular legend of devils and demons attacking ships that went into the area, but the island was subsequently removed because it obviously did not exist. The island, often drawn to the north of the mythical Antillia, was purportedly full
Royllo
First Mentioned: 1424A small island to the west of the mythical Antillia (see Antillia above).
Bacalao
First Mentioned: 1472Gaspar Frutuoso noted its discovery by João Vaz Corte-Real in 1472 in Saudades da Terra.
Isle of Demons
First Mentioned: 1508Probably a relocated version of the island of Satanazes (see island below).
St. Matthew Island
First Mentioned: 1516An island near the coast of Africa, roughly 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) east-northeast of Ascension Island and possibly confused with the same latitude Annobón Island.
Los Jardines
First Mentioned: 1528A pair of phantom islands to the east of the Marshall Islands.
Bermeja
First Mentioned: 1539Discovered in the early 16th century by Spain, but mysteriously vanished sometime during the 17th century. While no dominant theory holds, it is possible that the island submerged due to tectonic movements, supported by the existence of a seamount at 22°38.76′N 90°51.3′W / 22.64600°N 90.8550°W and the nearby Scorpion Reef.
Frisland
First Mentioned: 1558Another island on the Zeno map, possibly a renamed Iceland.
Estotiland
First Mentioned: 1558An island appearing on the Zeno map at the current location of Labrador.
Groclant
First Mentioned: 1569An island to the west of Greenland, perhaps a misreading of the island’s name, or Baffin Island.
Elizabeth Island
First Mentioned: 1578Described by Francis Drake, who reported harbouring there during his circumnavigation. Not found by subsequent explorers; in 1939 Felix Riesenberg suggested Pactolus Bank as a possible remnant, though recent surveys suggest the Bank may itself be a phantom feature.
Buss Island
First Mentioned: 1578Found in the waters near Greenland, in which Martin Frobisher, the leader of the island-finding expedition, probably made a mistake in dead reckoning and mistook optical effects near Greenland for a new island.
Saxemberg Island
First Mentioned: 1670Saxemberg was a phantom island believed to have existed in the South Atlantic. It appeared intermittently on charts between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Saxemberg was reportedly discovered by Dutch seafarer John Lindestz Lindeman in 1670. Lindeman reported the island’s coordinates as 30°45′S 19°40′WCoordinates: 30°45′S 19°40′W.[1][2] Lindeman made a
Pepys Island
First Mentioned: 1683In 1683, Ambrose Cowley reported an unknown island where he thought the Falklands were, but his location was 4 degrees to the north of the Falkland Islands. While it is possible that he made a mistake in seeing a nonexistent island, it is more likely he saw one of the
Davis Land
First Mentioned: 1687Last Mentioned: 1770
It was sighted in 1687 by Edward Davis, a pirate who was carrying out raids on Spanish settlements along the coast of Mexico, Peru, and Chile, while he was sailing in the Pacific Ocean southwards from the Galapagos Islands towards Cape Horn. He saw a low sandy island and in
Torca Island
First Mentioned: 1693A mythical island near Ambon in the East Indies purportedly destroyed by a volcanic eruption.
María de Lajara
First Mentioned: 1700Since the late 17th century up to the early 19th century, Pacific Ocean charts registered an island named Dona Maria de Lajara, or de Laxara, or even Maria Laxar around 27 degrees North latitude and 140 West from Greenwich longitude (that is East-northeast from Hawaii). As Gemelli wrote, such an
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Juan de Lisboa
First Mentioned: 1700Juan de Lisboa is a phantom island in the Western Indian Ocean allegedly located southeast of Madagascar. It was reported on maps and charts of the 17th and 18th centuries, sometimes depicted alongside another phantom island, dos Romeiros (or Pomeri).
Isle Phelipeaux
First Mentioned: 1744A nonexistent island in Lake Superior referenced in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
Aurora Islands
First Mentioned: 1762Discovered by Spanish merchant ship Aurora, currently thought to be just Shag Rocks.
Sandy Island
First Mentioned: 1774Another phantom, small island to the west of New Caledonia that was recorded on many maps until 2012, when a surveying ship passed by and disproved its existence. The current leading explanation is that the island was a raft of buoyant pumice from a recent nearby seamount eruption.
Sefton Reef
First Mentioned: 1808Approx. 83°W, 37°S (southwest of Robinson Crusoe Island), noted as “position doubtful” in Operational Navigation Chart[7] of the United States Department of Defense.
Sannikov Land
First Mentioned: 1809An island near the De Long Islands, north of Russia, that probably did exist but was destroyed due to coastal erosion.
Emerald Island
First Mentioned: 1821Probably fog banks and icebergs (see Dougherty Island above); the abyssal plain below it was named Emerald Plain, however, in recognition of the nonexistent island.
New South Greenland
First Mentioned: 1823Unknown odd island near Antarctica, which captain Benjamin Morrell of the ship Wasp saw while traveling north from Antarctica. He thought it to be the Antarctic Peninsula (then called New South Greenland), but his reported location during the voyage, while perfectly copying the expected path for traveling up the peninsula,
Nimrod Islands
First Mentioned: 1828A group of islands between Emerald Island and Dougherty Island, both of which are nonexistent. Probably a group of icebergs together.
Royal Company’s Islands
First Mentioned: 1840A fictional island widely believed during the 19th century to be to the southwest of Tasmania. While not found by numerous expeditions in 1840, 1889, 1902, 1909, and 1912, the island was not officially removed from nautical charts until 1904.
Dougherty Island
First Mentioned: 1841Because it is near Antarctica, it is likely that the discoverer, Captain Dougherty, and future explorers who confirmed it, saw fog banks and icebergs conveniently situated in the right place and time.
Rivadeneyra Shoal
First Mentioned: 1842A shoal in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Maria Theresa Reef
First Mentioned: 1843Another nonexistent reef in the Line Islands (in fact Line Islands are more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometres) away), slightly to the southwest-west of the phantom island, Jupiter Reef. It is a setting for Jules Verne’s book In Search of the Castaways.
Sarah Ann Island
First Mentioned: 1858Last Mentioned: 1922
Sarah Ann Island (also spelled Sarah Anne) is a vanished island, previously located at 4°0′N 154°22′WCoordinates: 4°0′N 154°22′W[1] (though sometimes listed at about 175° W[2]). It was discovered in 1858 and claimed by an American guano firm, under the Guano Islands Act (as Sarah Anne). A search in 1932 by
Petermannland
First Mentioned: 1860North of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, named after August Heinrich Petermann.
Schjetman Reef
First Mentioned: 1868To the west of the Hawaiian Islands, Schjetman Reef was originally found in 1868 to be an island 1.5 nautical miles long and 0.5 nautical miles wide. Later searches in 1880, 1923, and 1924 could not find the island.
Jupiter Reef
First Mentioned: 1878Nonexistent reef in the Line Islands (in fact Line Islands are more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometres) away), to the south of the also nonexistent Ernest Legouve Reef (see above).
Podesta
First Mentioned: 1879Podesta is a phantom island reported at 32°14′S 89°08′W Coordinates: 32°14′S 89°08′W by the Italian Captain Pinocchio of the vessel Barone Podestà (Hereward Carrington, Carrington Collection, page 21) in 1879 claiming it to be just over a kilometre in circumference located 1390 km due west of El Quisco, Chile. It
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Kantia
First Mentioned: 1884Found in 1884 by Johan Otto Polter, who, in four later expeditions through 1909, disproved the island’s existence.
Pactolus Bank
First Mentioned: 1885An oceanic bank 400 feet (120 metres) deep off the west coast of Cape Horn, suggested as the remains of Elizabeth Island: However a 1956 search of the area turned up no shallow areas in the reported location.
Filippo Reef
First Mentioned: 1886This reef, part of the Line Islands, was first seen by the ship Filippo and was seen again in 1926 when both ships saw breakers in the same area, suggesting a depth of 0.6 to 0.9 metres (2.0 to 3.0 feet). Current observations show the reported location to have a
Ganges Island
First Mentioned: 1900A nonexistent island off the coast of Japan to the southwest of the Shatsky Rise.
Ernest Legouve Reef
First Mentioned: 1902A reef supposedly found by the captain of the French ship, Ernest Legouvé, which is near the exact location of the fictional Lincoln Island, the main setting for Jules Verne’s book The Mysterious Island, also appearing in In Search of the Castaways.
Fata Morgana Land
First Mentioned: 1907J.P. Koch, together with Aage Bertelsen, was reported to have first seen Fata Morgana Land (Danish: Fata Morgana Landet) lying in the Arctic Ocean around 80°00´N 10°00´W between NE Greenland and Svalbard. This elusive land was allegedly seen as well by Lauge Koch from the air in 1933.[6]
Terra Nova Islands
First Mentioned: 1961Thought to lie off Oates Coast, East Antarctica.
