Diver reveals the truth about hollow island completely blacked out on Google Maps
An eerie island with ‘nothing on it’ on Google Maps was finally explained after a diver visited the mysterious location.
For years questions surrounded the ‘tiny, hollow island’ which can be spotted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on Google Maps, looking abandoned and barren.
In a video filmed for National Geographic back in 2009, professional diver Enric Sala visited the cryptic island looking for answers as he embarked on one of ‘best dives of his life’ exploring the spot.
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It was found that the tiny island is actually named ‘Vostok Island’, which belongs to the Republic of Kiribati. It’s unsure how many people have ever set foot there over time, due to its tricky location.
Theories have swirled around Vostok Island for years due to it being seemingly ‘blacked out’ on Google Maps, as some believe that Google manually blacks out locations that it ‘don’t want people to know about’ such as military bases, adding more mystery to the small ocean area.
However, diver Sala said ‘he loved swimming around the beautiful corals there’ as he explained what he found when he took the plunge and visit the odd location.
“Well, we just came back from a dive on Vostok Island,” Sala said in the video. “I just did the very best dive of my life.”
“There were [indistinct] sharks around us, schools of jags, barracuda and surgeon fish, everything!” he added.
“Incredible! Really unbelievable. This is the most pristine place we have dived so far. We have found it, this is it. Vostok Island.
“I cannot wait for tomorrow to get back in the water.”
It’s unclear if Sala and his team needed permission in order to visit Vostok Island, as some locations like this forbid entry, such as the abandoned island that’s connected to the New York City Tunnels, which is also shrouded in conspiracy theories.
But why is the Vostok Island blacked out if you can visit it?
Despite Sala and his team visiting the island, the fact it's still currently blacked out on Google Maps hasn’t helped the flurry of internet conspiracies surrounding it.
"My first thought was that it’s censored,” one Reddit user said. “It wouldn’t make sense for a natural formation to be black like that in such a shallow, small atoll/island.”
“What you see as black is actually very dark green, it’s a very dense forest made up of Pisonia trees,” another social media user suggested.
“Ladies and gentlemen, they have found the Island in Lost,” a third quipped.
Chelsea Connor