This reminds me of an article written for the April (first) edition of Scientific American many years ago... 1988.

The key thing to look for is the word 'Apraphul' which is the name of the island this was 'discovered' in. The part of the text of the article can be seen at Google Books [1] (many of the articles are behind a paywall)... though finely digging enough, I found it in a forum with part of the article [2]. Still, searching on 'Apraphul Pully' can take you to a number of other interesting pages (including one discussing the article's system).

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=0Rb5jBg6sJwC&pg=PA117&lpg=P...

[2] http://s10.zetaboards.com/The_New_Coffee_Room/topic/7132776/...