The Phantom Island of Google Maps

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"I've just read a Wikipedia summary of this incredibly boring book" was far more relatable than it should have been honestly.

You talked about terrifying pictures of floating boats, but I'd like to argue that it's more terrifying if the boats dont float.

google maps is the scariest yet best place

4:05 Love how that marker line stayed in for the rest of the video.

9:35 As a descendant of the captain who discovered Dougherty Island I should probably add that another large factor to all the island mishaps as that the majority of the crew were rather drunk, as the captain furthermore went to mistake another six nonexistent islands!

The VFX of the hand at 8:41 is an abnormal amount of work for a one-off joke. This is why I love this series so much. Map men!!!!!!!!!

Also as a side note, Brazil (that one!) was first thought to be an island when Portuguese colonizers arrived, it was called “Ilha de Vera Cruz” or “Island of The True Cross”, later the name was changed to “Terra de Santa Cruz” or “Land of The True Cross” when they found out it was a bit bigger than an island

I'm reminded of the scene in "The Detectorists" where they find what appears to be the vague outline of an iron-age burial mound on Google Earth, only to discover that they are looking at the letter "G" of Google.

1:27 "Because as it turns out, Sandy Island has never, and never has, existed." I love these guys.

The most unbelievable thing about Pepys Island is that Cowley found anything nice to say about the Falklands

My favorite Google Maps error: Long Lake, in Nanaimo, British Columbia, originally flowed north, but was rerouted by mining activity in the 1890s. For some reason, google maps still shows the outlet creek flowing along its original course, which is now a large highway and a McDonald's.

Hang on, this video just got meta: In the article at 11:16 if you pause and read (which I did, as any article that has that many "nope"s in a quote is one I want to read)... at the very bottom is a quote that reads "... like in that episode of Map Men about trap streets from 2019." I love it. Full circle journalism there lads!

R.I.P Flying Head and singing Intro Map man #2

A phantom island once helped me to establish the antiquity of an old Bible passed down in my family. For some reason it had lots of maps in it, including a world map. To my surprise the world map contained the island of 'Frisland' somewhere between Scotland, Norway and Iceland. I thought maybe it's an old name for the Faroe islands or something, but actually when I looked it up on the internet wikipedia said it was a phantom island that disappeared from most of the maps in the late 17th century and when we got the Bible properly dated it turned out to be from the mid 17th century.

There is also another reason here. Many cartographers placed a small, false island on their maps for copyright purposes. If someone copied their map, it would be easy for the original creator to provide evidence of the copyright by stating the false island, yet the person in question would not. It also happens a lot in books. The author will deliberately spell one word wrong, so if it came into question, they would be able to say exactly which word is incorrect, and the person who stole their material would not.

where would we be without a Wikipedia summary 🤣

Can confirm Jersey is indeed a phantom island. Flew over it once, it wasn't there. I'm reasonably certain I wasn't off course at all as France was exactly where I was expecting it to be, although someone had shifted it about 50 miles to the East

11:04 "and this was a part of the world where fish don't even have dial-up" See it's funny because most atlantic fish have cable broadband these days.

9:23 I am very impressed with the call-back to Emerald island as it was indeed discussed 5 minutes and 49 seconds ago at 3:34