ENGLISH SETTLERS who vanished in Virginia have been found…425 years later.

Explorer John White brought two groups of English colonists to a colony in modern day Virginia in 1585 and 1587. He left the island for England for more supplies but couldn’t return again until 1590 because of the war between England and Spain. When he returned two years later everyone had vanished.

A new look at a 425 year old map, which was created by White, has given a clue as to where they might have gone.

Marks on the map viewed through a light box show that one patch appears to merely correct a mistake on the map, but the other hides what appears to be a fort.

The American and British scholars believe the fort symbol could indicate where the Roanoke settlers went. The discovery was made after Brent Lane, a member of the board of the First Colony Foundation, asked a seemingly obvious question – what’s under those two patches?

The map is inexplicably accurate say researchers and was critical to Sir Walter Raleigh’s quest to attract investors in his second colony.  It was critical to his convincing Queen Elizabeth I to let him keep his charter to establish a colony in the New World.

No one knows why someone covered the symbols with a patch.

“This clue is certainly the most significant in pointing where a search should continue,” said Nicholas Luccketti, a professional archaeologist in Virginia and North Carolina for more than 35 years.

“The search for the colonists didn’t start this decade; it didn’t start this century. It started as soon as they were found to be absent from Roanoke Island … I would say every generation in the last 400 years has taken this search on.”

But none have had today’s sophisticated technology to help, he said.

Unfortunately the land where archaeologists would need to dig eventually is privately owned, and some of it could be under a golf course and residential community.

So excavating won’t begin anytime soon.