Thinking Sideways: Bermeja Island

episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. I am Devin, joined as usual by Joe and Steve, and not to be labor point, but this is going to be the second episode in what we're calling our summer series. Um. Briefly, if you have been listening to the show for a while, you know that we put have put out an episode at least once a week every week for three years,

and uh we're tired. Uh So instead of, you know, instead of doing like a summer break like some podcasts do, we're just doing a series of shorts and that will allow us to take some much needed recuperation time. But also, you know, we can start working on some of these bigger shows that we've been trying to work on that we're apparently promising to you guys. At the trade off

for this doing reruns Yeah, mostly reruns. If you want to, if you want to listen to a Thinking Sideway Sideways podcast rerun, just go into a catalog and click on any on any episode and it's already it's perfect. Yeah. Yeah, So, just as a heads up, these episodes are going to be shorter. There are summer series. But thanks for your understanding. Let's do this thing great. Today we're going to talk about the Bermeha Island. And this was not a suggestion. What. Yeah,

I found this myself. You went, You went on the intertubes and found a mystery on your own. Did Yeah. I can't believe you did that. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, but this is creepy. I don't know if creepy is the word. An entire island disappears. It's been interesting mystery, to be sure. Yeah. And I'm just going to go ahead and say right now that a lot of the research that I relied on is not in English, so there may be a little bit of weird translation things happening. Um,

so I apologize in advance if that happens. Ready. So Bermeja Island was first mentioned in fifteen thirty nine in the Yucatan and adjacent Islands. General is Lario of All Islands in the World by Alonso de Santa Cruz of Madrid, Spain. He was a cartographer. This publication is generally called the General Atlas of all the Islands in the World. Yes, really, I think that's the ambitious, ambitious you know, in the hundreds. Yeah, that's crazy, all of the islands of all of the world.

But there you go. This island is or was depending in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the Yucatan Peninsula, right, Okay, silently sitting there. You're not reacting, though I need reactions. Yes, yes, in Mexico. So in the Mariners Mirror by Alonso de Chaves, which is a different Alonso, who's also a Spanish cartographer. Apparently that was like a super super fun name for cartographers in Spain. Anyway, he described this island as and

this is a weird translation. So I'm gonna like try and as I go from the tip of Cape Baron Redondo, you go almost all the way to the west coast for all all, almost all the way the west, about seventy miles up and then there's this little arch to the north in this place where the y'all, thank you, and the island of the Arniss and then also Bermeha, so they're like a cluster of islands. It is. It's weird, but it's also Google Translate a fifteen hundreds Spanish different.

It was different, but it's an interesting little So you kind of go up the Yucatan and then it's like right across. I actually thought maybe it was more of a straight line from Havana, Cuba. It's further away, certainly, but I think it's a straighter line. Yeah, it's just if you imagine like the north if you mentioned the Yucatan Peninsula, the northwest corner, it's it's like pretty much like due northwest, and I don't know how many miles

miles I believe. So when we give you the core gets, write them down and then you can just enter that directly into the map. Yeah, just write this down, you're ready. Just kidding. The coordinates that you will see provided in a lot of articles are twenty two degrees in, thirty three minutes north, one degrees and twenty two minutes east. But when you actually look that up, it's a small island in Bangladesh. So that's not right. Yeah, I was choked. I I thought you were sending you a snipe hunt.

I was so confused. Well, it took me a minute too, you know. It kind of just plops you down in the middle of c and you're like, well, but there's an island there on Google Maps, so there must be this. It can't be a mystery. And you zoom at, zoom at, zoom out, and suddenly there's nothing in English. It's all in you know, Arabic text, and you're like, okay, this

is obviously the wrong place. Yeah, So it turns out that it's actually twenty two degrees thirty four minutes six seconds north and nine degrees twenty one minutes and fifty three point nine seconds west. Turns out decimal points are important when it comes to this sort of thing. So it's crazy. So go look that up. Those are the coordinates. The island was always in the same place on the maps. It was always well, well ish, I mean close enough for the time. Yeah, that it's it's well assumed that

there was actually an island there at that time. Yeah, but I'm looking at like, for example, that these two maps here, they're both very old, and I have to say it, but these maps are really all over the map, so different numbers of islands. Some are on this one and not on this one. You get you get a tolls and you get islands that are there and not. Yeah, and we will talk more about this in theories. Is apparently my favorite phrase to talk about ever. But we

the islands. There are not always islands visible to the naked eye that you know, cartographers would be seeing in the fifteen six dreds. So, so how big is this Meica is about? Was whichever is was a little challenging about thirty one square miles um total land, which is about eight square kilometers. So it's not nothing. It's not

a big thing, but it's not huge. But it's not like, oh, I could jump to the other side of this island and one fell swoop, you know, and you can walk across it in a day, but it would take you a full day square miles that's three three three miles by ten miles depends on I mean you could walk around it. Yeah. The jungle is I guess if there is any no, no, no, no, and it's just just sand, just say yeah, no, it's kind of rocks and sand. Never as far as I have heard, you know, as

far as I have read at least not heard. There's no it's not like trees and things like that. It's just kind of sandy sandbar ish. This island Burham was documented on maps until at which point an expedition failed to locate the island when it was out couldn't find it. I had read that it was the Mexican Navy that

was out on a fishing expedition. I don't know why that was what it was, but apparently the Mexican Navy goes out in the nineties with late nineties, they were going on fishing expeditions and they tried to swing by it and found that it wasn't there. I don't know. Yeah. Um, In reality, the last confirmed mapping of Bermeja Island was in nineteen twenty one, and that was in the Geographic Atlas of the Mexican Republic. And so that was an

atlas that was published in Mexico. Correct, yes, yeah, And then basically they just kind of they hadn't done any kind of cartographic surveys. I just made that word up cartography surveys at least for this certain publication, since that was the last survey they did to confirm that all

the islands were where they were. Uh. And then in the nineties this became more of a thing, which we're about to talk to talk about in the second but nine the last confirmed definitely they somebody saw it there time, Like I said, Um, Mexican Navy was apparently doing this fishing expedition and they yeah, yeah, and like I said, it was it wasn't populated or anything. It was just kind of the thing. So they I guess they just kind of shrugged and thought, well, maybe we're in the

wrong place or who knows what. Um, and they went on their way. They did report it. They couldn't find it, but they didn't even reported. They reported the island missing island. It's on Charlie Project. Yeah. Yeah, I think it might be a yeah, a couple of pictures. They've actually done an aging thing. How old it would yeah. Um. In two thousand nine, very much more serious search for Vermeha Island uh started and like three agencies took part of

the survey. Yeah. They can't blame them. Again, you can't blame them. Yeah. The big question here, right is, Okay, so an island went missing, who cares? Right, really? Who cares well. UM, So you probably know, but you may not know that the Gulf of Mexico is split between the United States and Mexico. UM. There's this whole treaty where it says that, you know, nations are supposed to be allowed two nautical miles out to do whatever they

want off of their shores. But obviously the Gulf of Mexico that's not necessarily feasible, so it's supposed to be. It's negotiated, and oftentimes the way that those things are negotiated is they'll say, well, this is our furthest for Mexico. They would say, this is our furthest north spot that we claim as our own land, so let's negotiate from there.

And then the US would say, okay, well this is our southernmost spot that we're claimed land, so let's negotiate ate what a good you know, actable term it difference, right, And it turns out that Bromeha was the northernmost point for Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico that they claimed that in that in that specific treaty, which was originally negotiated in eight I believe, I believe, I believe I'm pulling that number from my memory, so apologies if it's

wrong anyway. So with the loss of Bromeha, the next closest island is like seventy ish mile I mean, it's basically the uk tam Peninsula is the next closest bit of land that Mexico claims, which means that Mexico has lost a sizeable amount of their quote unquote territory within the Gulf of Mexico, which also happens to include an estimated twenty two point five billion barrels of oil. There's a lot of oil down there, so it's kind of a big Actually that Burmehan made finance Yeah, that has

nothing on it. Yeah, totally well with that, we're on the theories. Yeah, just I told you its shorts man doing it. It's actually kind of a lot to talk about. The Yahoo out. So the first theory that we're going to talk about is um that Burmehan may have just

never existed. UM. The National Autonomous University of Mexico, which is UNAM, is one of the agencies, one of the three agencies that in two thousand nine went out and used what one article referred to as the most whiz bang technology all there, which I thought was an interesting phrase but okay attached to but I mean they were actually they did actually do a lot of investigation in

this area. You know, they sent divers down, they used all of the radio sonar, thank you sonar technology, all that stuff, and basically what they concluded was that there had never actually been an island there ever, based on their findings. Yeah, you know, one of the things they said was that just sizemologic size a malologically yeah, maybe based on the way that the Earth's cross days in that area, it didn't make sense for their to be

an island there anyway, which is fair. I mean, we've got some maps and you when you look up on Google Earth. Um, when you look this up, it shows you where the you know, the shelf is there, and it does it does make sense. You know, there's a bunch of violence kind of along the shelf, but this island is like not exactly where you would expect, and if it is, it drops off quite precipitously. It's like two down. Yeah. And then about Nuevo and Karnis the two the ones that are closest to this one are

on the escarpment. That's what's called the Yukatan Escarpment. And I've got this this map, I'll describe it. It shows to drop off into what's called the six Be Deep and and that is the deepest part of the Gulf of Mexico. And then I plotted the I plotted the island Ireland or Mayha and this right smack in the middle of six be Deep. Yeah, it doesn't make down. Yeah, the yeah, thirty six, Yeah exactly, that's the number that

I'm confusing with the other number. And bust talk. Yeah, And why they why they're saying that there couldn't have been an island for years, I don't really quite get that. It seems like that. I guess they kind of they did an analysis on the age of the sea floor and decided that in no meaningful way had this sea floor been disrupted in terms of like if there had been an island that because an island is not I'm I'm just making the assumption that you guys know this,

but I'm gonna say it anyway. And island isn't just a floating thing. It land that comes up, and so it would I don't know necessarily where they're coming from. The fifty three hundred years necessarily, I would assume that they just they were able to say that that's what the age surrounding. Yeah, they gave that number, and so I assumed that they just an analysis of the ocean floor and said, Okay, this ocean floor was that undred

years ago. There's not been any major disruption before after that time, so there couldn't have ever been an island here,

which is a fair assumption. Was reasonable. Yeah, you know, actually, um, the way the way maps were done, especially in the old days, is they relied on accounts from sailors and explorers and people like that, and and so somebody could have described an island to this to the map makers back in Spain being at this particular spot, you know, they scribbed a very seriously series and said, oh, it's it's about this shape, it's about this size, you know, and that's and that's all they had to go with.

That's how map making work back and then it was copy paste, yeah, and that they were copied over and stuff, and then and of course one another map was aid. Then obviously they took that information off the previous map, even though it was erroneous. Probably, and it turns out sometimes they put disinformation in the maps back in the old days too, Yeah, more than sometimes. Actually that was

an intentional ling. Yeah, because if you see this cluster, right, So if if Spain's enemies, for instance, see this cluster of islands in the middle of the Gulf Mexico, they're going to think, okay, well there's no way we can navigate that because it's really dangerous, so we're not going to go over there, which means they're not going to challenge Spain's claim to the land around that, which obviously

Spain claimed that land. And that was a thing that was common just across the board everybody whenever they mapped anything, they would just say, also, there's like this weird, I don't know, coral reef thing here. It's crazy. I know, it doesn't make sense that it's in the middle of the ocean, but it's there. Don't try to get through it. And that's the other part that it rei Jeff said

on account second hand account. So somebody could have gotten you could have thought, oh, yeah, you know, there was there was three of them in that area. There was three island e things in that area. Wond In fact, there was only two. And then when press. Uh, it was. It was And it's like throwing a dart at a map. It was right there and there was shaped like this. Yeah,

navigational tools and all that stuff. And but also an interesting thing I found out just yesterday because I happen to be reading a book about maps at the moment, and that modern day map makers actually put disinformation in also. You know that what they do is like say, when we do this thing called trap streets, which is what

you do. If you're ACME map company and you're doing a map of say London, what you do is you put in somewhere in that map, you put a totally fictitious street on your map, and you give it, give it a unique name. You might name it after your dog or something. That's a totally fake street that doesn't exist in the real world. And that way, if your competitors rip you off, then you have proof of a copyright violation. And so that's why everybody they still they

still are putting disinformation in the apps even today. Do they do that on Google? Um, I don't know. It's a good question. I would have to imagine that Google had worked out some kind of agreement with people at least in the beginning. Google is mapping everything on their freaking own at this point, so they probably aren't as reliant anymore on those old maps. But but I mean, yeah,

it's it's well, hell, you remember map Quest. That thing used to be wrong all the time, And now it makes me wonder if it wasn't that they were taking it way too far because the Internet was scary, or if they just really were that crappy. Yeah, it's hard to tell. I'm probably crappy. Google is. I mean they are literally mapping everything. And there's this game called Geo Guesser, which is super awesome. They just PLoP you down in street view in Google and you have to guess where

in the world you are. Really do you get to do you get to move around? You can move around, yeah, but you know, all the signs are mostly blurred out. But you know the I was playing the other day and they ploted me to out in the middle of literally a dirt road in like Spain, and I was like clicking through and you're just like, there's nothing there. It's just a dirt road. There's not even houses or anything, and you're just like, well, I guess I'm just I

have to guess, but they're mapping stuff like that. It's insane. That sounds like a fun game. I want to pay fun. Yeah, yeah, well they're doing all kinds of crazy stuff, like with street view. Joe and I before you got here today, we're looking at a map of here in Portland, and as Joe was panning around the Streetview's like wait, wait, wait, go back, go back, And I can actually see the reflection of the person who has had the camera, and they were on a bicycle. You couldn't get a car

into the area. And they're like, okay, we'll figure out how to bike mount a bunch of cameras and makes somebody ride them through there. And it just happened to catch it in the image they have they have people once.

I mean there's yeah, they're called ostriches anyway, we kind of So I just wanted to say one other thing about the history of maps, and then that is back in the old old days, um maps were hot property, was incredibly valuable intelligence, and so in the countries went do great lengths to keep them, keep their all their maps secret. And they were they weren't cheap to make. It wasn't like you just made a thousand copies because

what the hell. Yeah, you know, it was a scribe or a cryptographer sitting there hand creating these things over and over. And I mean that's where inaccuracies come from. It was part of an old manuscripts. Letters are changed, drawings are wrong. It happens, yeah, absolutely, yeah. But so yeah, the whole story of maps is interesting. I mean but back in the day they were they were considered more worth their weight in gold and some Yeah, absolutely accurate. Yeah.

So I mean it's it is totally possible in my mind that I just never existed. I'm pretty sure it didn't. Well, okay, but we have talked about their to the theory. There's some other really interesting ones. Our next one is that it just migrated, which is just like the yeah, and it'll be back back. I mean, winters here, it's gonna be a long winter, h didn't. I mean they sent the white ravens, so I know, winters here, it's gonna be a while and then it'll come back and it'll

be fine. Right. Yeah, So we're just saying that it migrated due to like continental shelf shifting. It's dumb, Okay, it's uh sank or global warming, which is which is a fair thing to say. I mean, based on the evidence that we've already presented, there's not an island just you know, hanging out a couple hundred feet under water. But during these renegotiations of the marine border, um, that happened. They happened in I believe between Mexico and the United States.

Foreign Ministry legal advisor told senators that Vermeha Island was actually just like a hundred and fifty feet or underwater. Um. I don't think the oceans have been rising that fast. I don't think so either. UM. I think that was obviously a lie to try to convince senators that it was okay to continue negotiating based on that land claim. You know, again it was it was important because it did reinforce the claim to that area, which contains a

bunch of oil. But there are things though. There there are things what they're called disappearing islands. There's one actually, there's one island in that area that's literally named disappearing island because they're so low. They just sit right on the surface, so they're really only seen when the tide is really really low or you know, kind of low. But when it's high tide, the islands disappear completely. But those islands are all on the Yukatanas scarp. They are yeah,

and they are much smaller. They're not, you know, thirty one square miles. So the thing that I wondered about with this, because we're we're on this you know, the island sank. We're back to Atlantis, by the way, but we found Atlantis. It's at twenty two degrees no um. But the thing is is that what I was looking at is when I was looking at the escarpment and zooming in, these coordinates may are based on a very old map that is, as we've already said, probably fraught

with inaccuracies. But what I'm wondering is if that island might have actually existed, was farther south, so it was closer to just the the edge. Let's say that that area does collapse, because that if you look at that map, you can see how there's areas where it's very it's a very subtle slope, and then there's very steep slopes.

So it could have been that there was some kind of seismic activity and it just sort of flaked off and over the course of the next two hundred years, crap is stacked up on top of it, and so it's not as obvious. Because I don't know that this that the you name actually sent divers down along that entire thing. I have to believe they probably didn't. So that makes me think that they may not have seen

the signs of something that had, based on a seismic event, collapsed. Yeah, although that's, uh, that's a pretty huge chunk of land to have just sort of like flake off and go tumbling down the hillside. I mean, I said, but I see your theory. I mean, that occurred to me too well. But but then again, we're all you're saying, that's a huge chunk of land, but again we're also basing the size of this thing on a very old, potentially incorrect an. Absolutely,

you know, I have to I choose to believe. I guess that you now did their due diligence and wasn't you know, just saying well whatever, Yeah, it doesn't look like things were disturbed. It's probably fine. I mean, I would assume that they sent divers down, and I think I think if they would would have been biased in one direction or the other, it would have been towards

the other way. I would agree with that. Yeah, I mean that it's strongly a Mexican national sentiment is that Burmeha existed and something else happened to it, so it would be more it would be more in their favor and more in their nature maybe to say, yeah, there was an island there and it just something happened. Um, or there's still an island there. It's probably still an island there. Yeah, yeah, it's it's just invisibility cloak. Yeah,

freaking aquaman again, isn't it. Yeah it is. Yeah. So our next and last theory is the one, Okay, my last is the one that I think is the most interesting, um and maybe even like second most likely even in my mind. Uh. And it's that either the CIA or the Mexican government or both colluded just blew the heck out of Burmeha Island and obliterated it. We never like that stupid island. Let's just get rid of it. Yeah, you know. And I don't know, I'll be honest, I

don't know why. The theory is that the CIA did it, because the CIA is evil and does everything. Yeah, that's why. And this theory does seem a little insane until you

actually start talking about some vaguely interested related details. Understandably, Mexico was not super stoked to find out that their quote unquote north most claim was gone, so they decided that an investigation needed to take place, which is fair because realistically, either one party was lying, right, either the USA blew the island to pieces, or the island never existed, right, I mean those are the two tech kind of right, okay, okay, based based on So either Mexico was lying about it

ever having existed, or the USA was lying about blowing it up. Yeah, because we love to blow of islance. We do. Actually, we're really good at it. And I don't think I don't think I could say that Mexico was lying. I mean, that's the the island goes back hundreds of years in plants that I was like, before the existence of Mexico, people were putting an island in

that spot. But that it could have been a really convenient that the Mexican government would have said, Okay, we know this island doesn't actually exist, but it's on the map, so we're just going to say it exists to extend our claim. What you're saying, it might have been what you're saying about lying then, Okay, yeah, apparently, um, some senators did discuss for about ten minutes UM in two thousands from Mexico. Yeah, yeah, there was some congressional hearing

about this whole thing. They discussed it for ten minutes. And there's a claim that all of the audio from that hearing has just disappeared, doesn't in the again, Yeah, I think they probably just taped over the tapes. Well, the reason that they were talking about in two thousand is because they were finishing up renegotiations on this whole land claim thing, and Congress did fail to speak up about the fact that their navy had apparently discovered that

the island didn't exist anymore. I mean, they knew in um, and so the tape disappearing would maybe suggest that they said, Okay, we know that the island isn't there anymore, but we should just keep saying the islands there because the oil, right, I mean, I mean the negotiations started in so even when they started these renegotiations, they the navy had said this island isn't here anymore, but they started pretending to believe this still was. Yeah, they seemed to with with

like one exception, there's one. There was one senator his name was it was Jose angel Um French Jello, and he was the chair of the Foreign Relations committee at

the time in in the Mexican parliament. So negotiations, negotiations started to renegotiate this whole border thing, and Concello said that there was a secret plan for the Mexican government to give a ton of exploration rights to S oil companies, which only makes sense, which only makes sense, right of course, yeah, and that the island disappearing was probably part of that

plan he was going to give. They were going to give the rights to the U S oil companies to explore, and once they found oil, the US would say, well, it turns out that Mexico doesn't even have this island, so we should renegotiate, and oh, by the way, are our people found oil there, so it's our oil, so ha ha, Mexico, you don't have claim to any of

this is apparently his thinking. Essentially, Mexican officials were bribed by US oil companies and that you know, eventually that the island was decimated and that eventually the U S would be able to swoop in and say your land claim is bogus, and also we're going to have all the oil go big oil. Yeah oil. Well, and you know, this kind of seems like the ramblings of a crazy person. And tel you find out that Concello actually died in August of in a car crash um in which his

driver wasn't even injured. Mm hmm, that can happen. What about the bullet holes? So yeah, I mean, I mean the so, what happened is a truck turned left in front of his car, the car collided. It killed him as the passenger, but his driver was reportedly totally uninjured. He was probably in the back seat, he was, Yeah, Concello was in the back sea Yeah, so probably point I probably the passenger side, which would explain why this

man was not but okay, totally. But it's it's a little I mean, you have to admit there's at least a tiny voice in your brain that says, okay, but it's a little weird that the one person who spoke out about this. Yeah, it's it's weird that he did. He died, But as far as his driver surviving, that's not that that weird. Because if you're if you're gonna, like, if you're gonna like have this guy whacked via an auto accident, you don't really care about his driver, you know,

So that's that was just a flu wasn't hit. But it's still kind of It's one of those things where it's like, I don't want to believe that this is actually happening, but a little bit in my brain, I think it's really convenient timing. Well, that's probably it's convenient. It's okay, I don't think that this is some kind of conspiracy, but I can see why people do that.

I mean, it's the same thing. What was it, Princess die and the driver, you know, he was the first one to die, and everybody of course pointed out that he was the man who had done it. But if he hit threw some fluke survived, then the conspiracy would have just been on fire. But that's the same thinging. It's like the guy who is quote unquote responsible for

the vehicle somehow survived. It's an accident happens, uh Well, and then I guess the little icing on the cake on this theory is that obviously an island of that size does not get a glitter rated without both parties being aware of it. So either Mexico bombed the crap out of their own island and the you know, and the US knew that that had happened, or the US bombed the crap out of Mexico's island and Mexico obviously new too, because that's not the sort of thing that

just happened. No, it's it's hard, it's it's definitely hard to keep something like that secret. Yeah, how far how far away from the coast is this island? Again? It was hundred miles seventy I mean that that would be a really really really far south for a US warship to be just without Mexico. Yeah, and so that's why people say it had to have been a conspiracy between the two governments. Well, and here, but here's the reason

I don't buy it. And again this is this is another map holding my hot little hand of the Gulf of Mexico, and it shows the six be deep there. Again, I say, as I said earlier, down or almost twelve thou feet, So the island would have had to have been an underwater mountain, almost as big as Mount Hood. And you see if you look here, the sea floor there is pretty much flat, um, which means that's a hell of a lot of earth and rock to move. Yeah. I've been an amazing amount and do it covertly. You

got again. I mean, it's like not possible. Really, I agree with you. Duh. Have you never been to the carnival and seen somebody on stilt? It was an island on stilt. So it just fell over, Okay, I fall down, go boom. Yeah, okay, I told you buy that. Okay, honestly, I gotta tell you my theory. Yeah, you have a theory, and Steve as a theory. Okay, well, okay, Mexico just displaced it. It'll turn up one of these days. Yeah, yeah,

it'll show up. Yeah yeah, they'll they'll find at the back of a drawer or maybe in the back of the refrigerator spring cleaning. Yeah. Um. So my theory is kind of a civil one, and that is that this island. Island has been mapped twice. Okay. So here's what I the problem with this whole thing when I was looking at it is like we've talked about the escarpment, that there's no way that an island can be sported there. But if you go about twenty to five miles due east,

you'll run into Scorpion Reef. And Scorpion Reef is a is literally a reef, but there is one kind of small island dish land mass in it. And I'm guessing this thing is at the most like four or five miles across, but it's roughly shaped like our island is.

So I'm wondering if it got found and then somebody else recounted that reef but recounted the size wrong and moved it, which is why the damn thing never shows up, because if you look at that thing, it kind of the old maps are hard to tell the shape of the island with. I get that it's kind of kid To me, it's almost kind of like kidney shaped. But it could be that that's why, is that it was somebody called this one little bit of rock or sand in Scorpion Reef, that island, and then when they went

to look forward for reels, just kidding there. Well, I guess there's the other possibility is that they saw it on a super low tide. I don't know what Scorpion Reef really looks like on a super low tide with a slightly lower water table. I wonder if it's all connected underneath, so it looks like it's very shallow between them.

So I wonder if it looks like one larger mass, because I mean Burmeha is solidly the largest island in that area according to the maps um, So I guess it would be possible if Scorpion Island, Reef whatever were to be seen as an entire and an extremely low tie. Yeah. But here's the other problem with this whole. They were blowing the island up to to pull Mexico's back claim to the sea back. This island is this reef with

this little island on. It is twenty miles away and only a tad bit farther south, like maybe a couple of miles further south, and it's owned by Mexico. I mean, I know they didn't lose anything. I know that you are saying that, but I also have like read the actual treaty documents, and for whatever reason, this is like a huge deal. So I don't know how they're maybe okay, you know, maybe the treaty has a minimum land mass requirement or something like that, and that's why this island

is so important. And what's at the reef doesn't count. But well I didn't even I don't even know, because I mean, it probably has to be solid land and not just a reef. Yeah, well there is there's one bit of solid land there that I mean, I guess in my estimation, it would mean that you would have to have land that was settle able, right, but mayhow wasn't settleable? It could have been. It was enough. It was a it was a hook of sand. I mean,

you said there was nothing on it, So that's not settleable. Well, you can build a house there. It's just not going to stay standing. But there it's a big enough that's it. I'm moving to Scorpion reef. Yeah, so, I mean it's I think it probably just never existed. It was a mapping air. You think it is just you know, somebody dripped ink on the on the map. But it is

interesting next to it. It is interesting that it happened to coincide with you know, twenty two point five billion barrels of oil disputed between Mexico and the United States. That's a lucky break happen. Well, we've got better used for that oil. Anyway. You guys have any other theories you're done already, already did mine. Let's see the island ran away to join the circus. Let's just yeah, I've

got a new the island ordered a new social Security card. Okay, So if you want to see some of the links, we'll try I'll try to post only English one. Um, if you want to see some of the links to some of our research, you can find that on our website. That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can also listen to the episode there if you want. If you don't want to listen to it through our super cool website, UM, you probably are listening to it on iTunes.

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content like some other people do. Um that all having been said, we're going to go ahead and balm on out of here. I don't have any good bad puns, so it's just bye bye. I'm gonna go have a Mexican beer. Bye, guys.