Quirpon Island, off the northern coast of Newfoundland, has a 500-year-old reputation for being the home of demonic spirits. Indeed, sailors still call it the Isle of Demons. But the history of the island is murky, and even today people find it quite unsettling. An island in the area that was actually named the Isle of Demons appeared on early maps of the New World, but then disappeared because cartographers found the island didn't exist. Or did it? The Isle of Demons was omitted from maps for hundreds of years, and Quirpon Island took on that reputation. Or maybe it was the same island all along. It was the site where a man stranded his niece over a shipboard affair in 1542, along with her lover and servant. She survived two years alone there, although her companions did not. That, along with numerous shipwrecks, made the island notorious for its demonic spirits.
Today, Quirpon Island has only the lighthouse keeper as a permanent resident, although it also has a lighthouse inn, where tourists sometimes stay, but not for long. Atlas Obscura takes a look at the haunted history of Quirpon Island and the phenomena of "phantom islands" that were discovered, then lost, and may have been apparitions all along.