This 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 depth of 3.3 miles (5.3 kilometres), and the nearest shallow seamount is about 2.9 miles (4.7 kilometres) deep, disproving the existence of the island.
J.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]
An island appearing on the Zeno map at the current location of Labrador.
A 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.
Probably fog banks and icebergs (see Dougherty Island above); the abyssal plain below it was named Emerald Plain, however, in recognition of the nonexistent island.
Described 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.
Because 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.
Probably a relocated version of the island of Satanazes (see island below).
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 the distance, hills extending to the northeast. Davis made no attempt to investigate any further, more interested in continuing his voyage home.
Davis’s supposed discovery was along the southern latitude of 27 to 28 degrees, which was on the same latitude as the Spanish-controlled gold mines of Copiago. At the time, it was believed that gold could be found elsewhere along this latitude so on learning of the news of Davis Land, several navigators were instructed to seek it out on their voyages. In 1767, the French explorer Jean-François-Marie de Surville set out from Pondicherry in French India on an exploration and trading voyage with one of its objectives being to locate Davis Land and set up a trading post there. He was encouraged by rumours of the recent discovery by Samuel Wallis, of HMS Dolphin, of a rich island, inhabited by Jews. In actual fact, this was Tahiti, but the French conflated the discovery of “Wallis’s Land” with Davis Land. Surville ended up rediscovering the Solomon Islands, made his way to the northern coast of New Zealand and then onto Peru, where he drowned seeking help for his ailing crew.
Never found, Davis Land was also believed by William Dampier, who had sailed with Davis for a time, to possibly be the coast of Terra Australis Incognita.[1] By the 1770s, with the Pacific now much better known, cartographers began to remove Davis Land from their maps. Dunmore notes that it is likely that Davis had sighted the islands of San Ambrosio and San Felix, part of the Desventuradas group of islands.
Found 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.