--- title: "An Entire Forested Island Appeared and Disappeared So Inexplicably That Officials Thought It Was AI" description: "An entire island thickly covered in mature trees seemingly appeared out of thin air in a Canadian lake, before disappearing again." date: "2026-09-02" modified: "2026-09-02" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/science-energy/entire-island-appears-disappears" categories: - "Environment" - "Science & Energy" --- # An Entire Forested Island Appeared and Disappeared So Inexplicably That Officials Thought It Was AI ![A picture of a floating island with a question mark overlaid.]() *Rocky Avery / Futurism* In a lake in northern British Columbia, an island suddenly appeared, almost out of thin air, thickly covered in fully-grown trees. When a boater [posted footage]() of the new island on social media, incredulous officials thought the video was AI-generated, [according to the *New York Times*]()*.* But it was no hoax. Satellite imagery of Williston Lake, an artificial reservoir and Canada's largest body of freshwater, confirmed that the nearly two-and-a-half acre island was real. "This is a first for us, for this reservoir," Bob Gammer, a spokesman for BC Hydro, the government-owned utility that operates the reservoir, told the *NYT*. Speaking [to *The Guardian*](), he added: "In the days of AI, you really needed another form of verification or evidence like a corroborating eyewitness account. And soon, we got that." https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/2094192458875683076 The island was floating roughly 60 miles west of the reservoir's WAC Bennett dam. BC Hydro believes the island is a chunk of the reservoir that broke off from a sheltered piece of shoreline due to water levels that are the highest in 14 years. Over the course of several years, logs and woody debris could have accumulated in this area, Gammer explained, forming a sort of raft on which trees can grow — and embark on naval expeditions, apparently. "We could easily see that a mass of woody debris with live vegetation on top of it rises up, floats and breaks free from the shoreline," Gammer told the *NYT*. "Then the winds in the reservoir carry it out into open water. So that's our best guess at how this all came to be." Just as experts began coming to terms with the new island, it showed it had another trick up its sleeve. Sometime around August 5, the island disappeared, [according to *Scientific American*](). Then on August 15, fresh satellite imagery showed that it had reappeared again — some 20 miles northwest of where it was first spotted, hugging the shore. Did the island swink, swim, or — we find ourselves asking because of its incredible powers — turn invisible? It's likely that it temporarily drifted to shore, blending in with the shoreline before drifting out to the water again. **More on the environment:** [*Freak Landslide Completely Swallows Entire Mountain Village*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()