ISLAND HISTORY: The mysterious lost Hawaiian island and two amazing sightings
After English Captain Cook was killed by Hawaiians at Kealakekua, Hawaii, on Feb. 14, 1779, Captain Clerke took command of Cook’s ships Resolution and Discovery and prepared to resume Cook’s third Pacific voyage by searching for the Northwest Passage, a sea route linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans via the Arctic.
But, Clerke first planned to visit an island named Mokupapapa, the only Hawaiian island the Englishmen hadn’t seen, a sandy, low-lying island that Hawaiians on Niihau, Kauai and Maui had informed several of Cook’s men was located near Kaula.
While looking for Mokupapapa at sea southwest of Niihau on March 16, 1779, the Discovery came alongside several Hawaiians aboard a canoe who said they were sailing to Kaula, after which they planned to sail to Mokupapapa.
However, the Englishmen neglected to track these Hawaiians, and after a two-day search, which took them 70 miles from Kaula, they failed to locate Mokupapapa and sailed north to Canada.
Mokupapapa hasn’t been sighted since.
Incidentally, Kure Atoll is also known as Mokupapapa, but its location is 55 miles west-northwest of Midway Atoll, far from Kaula.
On June 21, 1902, the atmosphere of the Hawaiian Islands was extraordinarily clear, so clear, in fact, that astonished passengers and crew aboard the steamer Kinau cruising off Kaunakakai, Molokai, reported observing all of the Hawaiian Islands simultaneously, except Niihau.
A similar report had been made years earlier by inter-island schooner captain Ezra Crane, who reported seeing Kauai while aboard a ship off Lahaina, Maui.
Yet, Professor A.B. Lyons, the Oahu College meteorologist in 1902, claimed the Kauai that Kinau’s observers had seen was actually a mirage.
At 10:29 p.m., Oct. 19, 1962, several Kauai residents were amazed to observe a brilliant, green-rimmed, orange fireball that appeared low over Kauai’s southwest horizon, remained visible for about 10 seconds, and then faded into a reddish glow before disappearing.
What they’d witnessed was a glimpse of a nuclear bomb explosion in the atmosphere about 80 miles above Johnston Island, situated 750 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Elsewhere, only a faint white flash resembling lightning was seen on Oahu and Maui.