According to one scientist who studies rogue waves, "two large ships sink every week on average, but the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash. It simply gets put down to 'bad weather'." Once considered mythical and lacking hard evidence for their existence, rogue waves are now proven to exist and known to be a natural ocean phenomenon. Eyewitness accounts from mariners and damages inflicted on ships have long suggested they occurred; however, their scientific measurement was only positively confirmed following measurements of the "Draupner wave", a rogue wave at the Draupner platform in the North Sea on January 1, 1995, with a maximum wave height of (peak elevation of ). During that event, minor damage was also inflicted on the platform, far above sea level, confirming that the reading was valid. Their existence has also since been confirmed by satellite imagery of the ocean surface.