People often use Google Maps to track locations, create itineraries, and view pictures of properties. Nearly two years ago, social media users noticed a bizarre ‘black hole’ in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on Google Maps. After much speculation and research, they discovered it was an uninhabited coral island called Vostok Island. Fifteen years ago, a diver visited the island and documented his experience for National Geographic.
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Located nearly 4,000 miles east of Australia, Vostok Island looks like a “giant guitar’s pick,” a triangle with nothing visible on it in the aerial view on Google Maps, as per UNILAD. Belonging to the Republic of Kiribati, the secluded island has attracted people’s curiosity for decades. For years, people have been cooking up conspiracy and wild theories speculating about the nature of this island with densely forested terrain.
Some people on Reddit claimed it was a “censored” destination that only selected authorities knew about, while others thought it was a secret military base. According to Live Science, Google often blurs out sensitive sites such as military bases or prison yards, to avoid disclosing information about their location and structure.
In Reddit’s group r/GoogleMaps, u/the_professor64 pondered that this ‘hollow’ space could be an underground volcano. “Could maybe be an underground volcano that causes the blackness, assuming it isn’t a hole. Most likely igneous rock,” the individual wrote. u/Eternal_memory called it a “portal to Atlantis (a submerged city).” u/newportsnbeerxboxone wondered that “it’s probably part of the Russian land bridge that was destroyed long ago.” u/64G1gabyte commented, “Giant lost a guitar pick in the middle of the ocean? Relatable?” Several commented on Google Maps that it looked like a “black hole.”
However, when diver Enric Sala visited the mysterious island in 2009, he reported that “he loved swimming around the beautiful corals there.” Despite the odd location, Sala described his dive in the waters around Vostok island as “the very best dive of his life.” The cryptic island is also known to be a well-protected site where schools of sharks prowl around, as well as shoals of barracudas glide in the untouched blue waters. “There were sharks around us, schools of jags, barracuda and surgeon fish, everything,” Sala exclaimed in the footage.
The island remains mostly untouched by human presence, except for occasional divers exploring its waters, due to its remote location, according to The Sun. Covering just 1.3km in length, the island is densely jacketed with thickets of towering Pisonia trees that can grow up to 98 feet. These trees block out the Sun, and cause the island to remain dark. Apart from this, the island hosts a variety of wildlife, including seabirds, skunks, crabs, and turtles. It is appreciated for its “diverse and productive” reef as pointed out by a community ecologist, @StuartSandin, on X.
“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 to get back in the water,” Sala exclaimed with delight, concluding the dive footage. After this 2009 dive, he once again visited the island in 2021, as per an Instagram post.
Despite all this information, people remain curious why the island appears as a hole on Google Maps. According to BBC, the black appearance is probably an optical illusion, caused by Vostok’s dense forest when photographed from low orbit. The trees are dark green, but give off the appearance of black from the top, and that’s why on Google Maps, it looks like a “black hole.”
