5 Mysterious Islands with Fascinating Stories

5 Mysterious Islands with Fascinating Stories

5 Mysterious Islands with Fascinating Stories
Image Credits: Bloomberg

Most of the islands in existence were discovered a long while ago and most of their secrets followed shortly. There are, however, mysterious islands in existence, that exhibit strange behavior. Moreover, there are islands that straight up vanish as if they never existed in the first place! Following is a list of 5 mysterious islands along with their fascinating stories.

Vozrozhdeniya Island

Vozrozhdeniya Island - Mysterious Islands

During the 1920s, Soviet Union officials were looking for an area with very specific characteristics. It had to be isolated, surrounded by a desert, and be within the boundaries of the Soviet Empire. Two islands fit the bill. The Soviets chose Vozrozhdeniya, which is situated in the Aral Sea. Basically, they were looking for a place to set up a top-secret biological weapons laboratory to modify the genes of plague, anthrax, smallpox, brucellosis, tularemia, botulinum, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis pathogens so that they could resist medical treatment.

The plan was to test biological weaponry on 300 caged monkeys. As the Aral Sea dried up, the island simply became part of the surrounding desert, and the facility was abandoned. Since then, all the pathogens except anthrax have been destroyed by the area’s high temperatures and harsh conditions. When they left, the Soviets buried the laboratory’s anthrax spores to conceal the project’s violation of the 1972 treaty banning biological weapons. Scientists believe the pathogens are no longer a threat, except for anthrax, which can remain untouched for centuries.

Earthquake Island

Earthquake Island - Mysterious Islands

The powerful earthquake that toppled homes in Pakistan in 2013 also created an island. According to the Pakistan’s chief meteorologist, Mohammed Riaz, the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.7. Recently, the mud island that burst from the waters disappeared beneath the waves. Pakistani officials acknowledged the possibility of  buckled land under the sea that created the island. Having said that, they believe that further investigations would be needed  to determine the cause. The 7.7-magnitude earthquake that produced the island was cataclysmic, killing more than 320 people and displacing thousands. That same energy produced Zalzala Koh, but the quick-moving sediment didn’t form an island built to last.

Floating Eye Island

Floating Eye Island

This island is shaped nearly like a perfect circle with a diameter of about 120 meters. It is located in the Parana Delta, between the cities of Campana and Zarate (in Buenos Aires Province) in Argentina. It is surrounded by a channel that also forms a nearly perfect circle. Thanks to the presence of the round landmass inside it, the channel looks much like a crescent moon. The island and the channel resemble an eye, hence the nickname.

“The Eye” floats and rotates on its own axes. A filmmaker, Sergio Neuspiller, discovered the Eye in 2016, while he was scouting locations for a science fiction movie.  He decided to make a crowd-funded documentary about the Eye, instead of filming the science fiction movie.

Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia is a U-shaped tropical island with white sandy beaches in the Indian Ocean. The British government forcibly relocated 2000 natives to build a naval base due to the strategic importance of this region. It’s located between East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, allowing the US to strike locations in both Asia and the Middle East. Diego Garcia was used for staging air support operations during the 1991 Gulf War, the 2001 Afghanistan war, and the 2003 Iraq war. The remote, restricted island is also believed to be the site of a secret US prison camp. However, American authorities deny the truth of such speculations.

Easter Island

Easter Island

No list of mysterious islands could be complete without mentioning Easter Island. A team of researchers  used paleogenomic research to determine the genetic history of the Rapa Nui, the lost people of Easter Island. The burning question was “How did the natives farm land that was thousands of miles from any continent?” It was believed that the Rapa Nui interbred with South Americans well before Europeans arrived on Easter Island in 1772.

If the results of their research prove to be correct, it’s clear that the Rapa Nui didn’t have help from South Americans in creating and moving the island’s heavy moai. Unaided, the Rapa Nui carved and moved them themselves. However, much about the island and its statues is still shrouded in mystery, waiting to be uncovered.

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