The enigmatic Es Vedrà: Ibiza’s limestone legend

It’s been said, Es Vedrà is the third most magnetic place on earth behind the North Pole and the Bermuda Triangle. Geologists say no. Hippies and spiritual sorts say yes. They claim the concentration of high energy and healing properties people experience stem from bursts of positive forces radiating from large amounts of limestone, comparable with that of Easter Island, the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Two more circulating beliefs trace its DNA back to being the tip of the Lost City of Atlantis, and secondly, they say it was the birthplace of Tanit, the Phoenician goddess.

The next mystery arose when all navigational instruments would suddenly go astray whilst in close proximity to the islet and strange flashes of rapidly moving lights – as in UFOs – were repeatedly reported. Although it started happening during the trippy hedonistic era of the 1970s… the theory holds definite credence from countless testimonies by local fisherman and extensive evidence provided from pilots. A case in point is the highly public 1979 Manises UFO Incident when neither the control tower nor military radar could identify a series of red beams hitting a Transportes Aéreos Españoles aircraft, ultimately forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Valencia on the peninsula.

Other more concrete connections exist linking Es Vedrà from historical Greek mythology to Hollywood. First, it was claimed to be home to the mythical sirens luring sailors to their death in Homer’s Odyssey, and “just recently” in 1958, visual shots of the silhouette surfaced in the musical South Pacific where it stood in for the volcanic island Bali Hai.