Case file · High strangeness
Emerald Island, the phantom of the Southern Ocean
In December 1821 the sealer Emerald under Captain William Elliot reported a high, mountainous island south of New Zealand; it stayed on charts for nearly a century though it does not exist.
1821 CE · -57.50, 162.20 · status: explained
The account
Another captain claimed to have seen it before 1890, but Shackleton's ship Nimrod sailed over the spot in 1909 and found open sea. Emerald Island belongs to a family of Southern Ocean phantoms (with the Nimrod Islands and Dougherty Island) reported along the same sealing routes.
The sceptical view
Fog banks, icebergs, polar mirages and poor longitude reckoning explain most phantom islands of the high southern latitudes.
Connections in the atlas
- The Nimrod Islands
- San Borondón, the phantom island
- Dougherty Island, which 'has melted'
- Morrell's 'New South Greenland'