By Tim Binnall
A mysterious forested island recently appeared floating atop a Canadian reservoir before disappearing in an equally confounding fashion. According to a local media report, the wondrous world was spotted in early August on British Columbia's massive Williston Lake. Area resident Rocky Avery, who shared a boater's photos and video of the phantom island on social media, marveled that "it was a pretty amazing sight to see, never seen anything like that in my 40 years in this country." The astonishing images and footage subsequently spread like wildfire online and soon caught the attention of officials at B.C. Hydro, the government agency that oversees the reservoir, who initially thought that the phantom island was an AI-generated tall tale.
"It's certainly something we've not heard of before," agency spokesperson Bob Gammer explained, "and with not very many people reporting it, it was difficult to locate." However, they managed to do just that, using satellite images from earlier in the summer. The photos revealed that not only did the mysterious world exist, but that it was rather sizeable. Based on the images, the phantom island is believed to measure 460 feet long and 230 feet wide with a staggering surface area of approximately 105,000 square feet. Eerily, while the satellite spotted the phantom island floating atop Williston Lake on July 21st, it was nowhere to be found in the following photo on August 5th.
As for how the phantom island came to be, setting aside the possibility that it has a fantastic origin story akin to the TV show 'Lost,' Gammer suggested it formed atop driftwood and other debris long ago. With Williston Lake being completely full for the first time in 14 years, the high water levels this summer likely jostled the land mass just enough to cause it to break free and float away. Although one might like to imagine that the mysterious island vanished into a mist that led into another dimension, Gammer indicated that its disappearance was likely far more prosaic, either crumbling apart into the reservoir or simply floating back to "a more sheltered area along the shoreline."