Latest News
NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Bosnia
Pleiades, The
The Pleiades in Greek mythology is the collective name for the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, while in astronomy, it is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth and the most obvious to the naked eye in the Taurus constellation. They were identified by American researcher Frank Edge among the famous prehistoric paintings on the walls of the Lascaux Cave (16,500 BC)(h).
Pushing back much further, we now have a claim from Australia by astrophysicist Richard Norris who purports to have evidence that the Pleiades were known as ‘the seven sisters’ as far back as 100,000 years ago before Aboriginal Australians reached Australia according to their traditions!(i) Jason Colavito does not agree with this idea(g).
The Danish independent researcher, Ove Von Spaeth, has a wide-ranging article on cultural references to the Pleiades including the Nebra Sky Disc(a). He also touches on the subject of Atlantis.
David Zink in his search for Atlantis in the Bahamas recounts in The Stones of Atlantis [0178,130] that he used the services of psychic, Carol Huffstickler, who was happy to inform him that around 28,000 BC, the Gods came to Earth from the Pleiades(d)!
However, Jack Countryman has devoted his book, Atlantis and the Seven Stars[1312], to the idea that extraterrestrials from the Pleiades “had initiated human civilisation through Atlantis and the Mediterranean.” A comparable idea has been proposed by Semir Osmanagic, promoter of the Bosnian pyramids, who has suggested[0519] that the Maya were descendants of the Atlanteans who in turn arrived on Earth from the Pleiades(b)!
Frank Joseph claims that the Pleiades, ”like the kings (of Atlantis) listed by Plato, correspond, through their individual myths, to actual places within the Atlantean sphere of influence, and thereby help to illustrate the story of that vanished empire.” Joseph, concludes by associating each with particular realms within that empire, including the Azores, Morocco. Troy, Yucatan, Italy and the Canaries.[104.227]
The Cherokee Indians also have an oral tradition that tells of ‘star people’ coming to Earth from the Pleiades and settling on five islands in the Atlantic known as Elohi Mona. Following the destruction of these islands, the survivors migrated to the Americas. A Cherokee contributor to a, now offline, forum related how he always understood Elohi Mona to be a reference to Atlantis. Another site offering further ‘insights’ into the Atlantean and Cherokee linkage to the Pleiades is available(c).
Edward Alexander, in a slight twist to the tale, also claims to have been reincarnated many times on Earth, over the past 9,000 years since his arrival from his distant origins in the Pleiades.
In 2018, Frederick Dodson revealed that he had encountered blue-skinned beings from the Pleiades in his book, The Pleiades and our Secret Destiny [1658]! It would be interesting to hear Dodson and Alexander exchange notes.
>The internet is replete with nonsensical claims of Pleiadian ancestry. Just this morning, I found the following piece of b.s. that is representative of what you may encounter. This site also claims an Atlantean link(j).
“The Tarot is ancient Pleiadian communication. It is why many of those who feel a kinship with the Tarot now often also feel a kinship with the Pleiadian energy.
The Pleiadians brought these ancient technologies; these forms, these symbols to us. And at the human level, to communicate, simplified this into the cards of the Tarot. So our Pleiadian embodied allies and ancient social memory complexes continue to communicate through the Tarot, which is why humans continue to use this methodology even to this day.”<
William Henry, in a 2006, NatGeo documentary about Atlantis delighted us with the revelation that ancient aliens from the Pleiades have helped the Egyptians to build the pyramids! The incredible amount of utter b.s. that people continue to generate, ostensibly linking extraterrestrials to Atlantis or the Pyramids is, for me, quite remarkable(e). A recent episode (S15E07) of the American TV series Ancient Aliens returned to the subject of the Pleiades and visitors from there. Jason Colavito has reviewed it ‘appropriately’(f).
>Shane Leach has claimed in his 2023 book Prehistory Explained [2007] that the structures at Stonehenge correspond to the stars that form the Pleiades constellation.<
The Pleiades are known as Subaru in Japanese, giving its name to the car brand and inspiring its logo design.
(a) See: Archive 3363
(b) https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/
(c) https://www.tokenrock.com/explain-pleiadians-138.html
(d) https://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/legend-of-atlantis-lives-in-bimini/article_d5552245-820b-510a-bb96-c295f7947300.html (June 2018-Not available in Europe because of the GDPR)
(e) Archive 3908 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s15e07-they-came-from-the-pleiades
(g) Australian Astrophysicist Claims Pleiades Myth Is 100,000 Years Old – JASON COLAVITO
(h) Atlantis Rising magazine #25 p.13 http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
Sicily
Sicily was known in earlier times as Trinacria because of its triangular shape. The island was first inhabited by modern humans during the last Ice Age(h) when lower sea levels exposed a land bridge between it and what is now mainland Italy.
>Antoine Gigal, the French writer and explorer noted(f) that “In the Odyssey, Homer refers to Sicily as Sikania (in classical texts it is also called Sikelia) and mentions the Sicanian Mountains. This is why one of the three native peoples of Sicily was named the Sicani (Sikanoi or Sicanians). They were probably there from 3000-1600 BC, from the earlier proto-Sican period, where various Mediterranean influences reached the Neolithic population that was based more in the central and western part of the island.”
She added later “Some modern researchers think that Siculo and his people originated from even further away, from the east. Prof. Enrico Caltagirone and Prof. Alfredo Rizza have even calculated that in the modern Sicilian language there are more than 200 words that come directly from Sanskrit. Then from the Bronze Age and classical antiquity there is evidence of another Sicilian people, the Elymians, who migrated from Anatolia and may have been descended from the famous “Sea Peoples”. The west of Anatolia was then occupied by non Indo-Europeans. Thucydides said they were refugees from Troy.
Indeed a group of Trojans are supposed to have survived the defeat of Troy, having escaped by sea, and settled in Sicily and mixed with the Sicani. Virgil even writes that they were led by the hero Acestes, king of Segesta in Sicily, who gave help to Priam and Aeneas, and had Anchises buried in Erix (modern Erice).”<
Plato was quite familiar with Sicily having paid a number of visits there(i) and on one occasion was sold as a slave having offended King Dionysius with his criticism of tyrannical rulers. Many think that his time in the capital, Syracuse, inspired elements of his description of the capital of Atlantis!
The island was probably first suggested as having a link with Atlantis by Mário Saa in a 1936 book in which he has Atlantis stretching from and including Sicily and the Maltese archipelago all the way to Tunisia. It was then more than four decades before Phyllis Young Forsyth wrote her book, Atlantis: The Making of Myth [266], in which she expressed her belief that Plato wrote the Atlantis story as an anti-war allegory partly based on his own experiences with the king of Syracuse.
More recently a number of other 
writers have also put Sicily forward as a location for Atlantis. One of these was Francesco Costarella, who is an Italian researcher and the author of two books relating to Atlantis. The first [1636] puts forward the idea that Plato’s Atlantis and the biblical Deluge, are in the author’s words, ‘two sides of the same coin’, while in the second [1637], he identifies Sicily as the location of Atlantis.
In the main, it has been European investigators who have advocated such a Sicilian connection and some have gone further and proposed a land bridge with Tunisia within the memory of man.
Dr Peter Jakubowski also offers(a) Sicily and the Malta Plateau as the location of Atlantis. He proposes a cosmic impact in the Atlantic which closed the Strait of Gibraltar around 4800 BC. When the dam eventually broke, the Mediterranean to the west of Sicily began to fill. This was then followed by the breaching of the land bridge between Sicily and Africa and finally, the dam in the Bosporus broke, flooding what was a much smaller Black Sea than we have today. Jakubowski’s site is apparently a reworking of Axel Hausmann’s book. A few years ago he revamped his website but removed all the Atlantis material.
Patrick Archer has also adopted the concept of a Sicilian land bridge and promotes the idea that the breaching of it and its consequences were the inspiration for the biblical Deluge(e).
Zhirov noted that “the Mediterranean is fairly shallow between Sicily and Tunisia. There are vast sandbanks and shoals. It may be considered as beyond all doubt that this region subsided recently and that there was a broad isthmus between Sicily and Tunisia.”
Alberto Arecchi(b) has added his voice in support of this Sicilian land bridge linking Italy with Africa and places Atlantis off the coast of modern Tunisia.
Further support has come from Thomas J. Krupa in his 2014 book[1010], which proposes that the land bridge was composed of limestone which over time had been partially dissolved by rainwater and was under stress from the rising sea levels on its western side. He considers the land bridge the most likely location for Atlantis, which was destroyed when the isthmus was sundered by an earthquake.
Another exponent of a relatively recent collapse of the Gibraltar Dam is the previously mentioned Axel Hausmann[371] who locates Atlantis between Sicily and Malta.
Alfred E. Schmeck has written[542], in German, a detailed look at Sicily as the inspiration for Plato’s narrative.
Thorwald C. Franke has a well-balanced website(c), in German and English, supporting the idea of a Bronze Age Sicilian Atlantis. For topographical reasons, he places the city on the Plains of Catania on the east coast of the island. He sees that the importance of Atlantis within his hypothesis “is the transfer of culture from the eastern to the Western Mediterranean, e.g. there can be found parallels between the culture of the Etruscans, whose role in bringing eastern culture to the west is widely acknowledged.”
Sicily is also home to a number of step pyramids similar to the Canarian examples(d). Antoine Gigal offers(f) an extensively illustrated article about 23 previously unrecorded Sicilian pyramids as well as seven pyramids on Mauritius(g).
A 2020 article on the Ancient Origins website by Daniela Giordano reviews the subject of Italian pyramids and more particularly the Sicilian pyramids and their possible connection with the Shekelesh one of the Sea Peoples, an idea also advocated by Nancy K. Sanders, the British archaeologist. The article goes on to suggest some linkage with the more than controversial Bosnian pyramids, which I find overly speculative(k).
Quite recently a bronze object with a 13th century BC Sicilian connection was found off the coast of Devon in the UK, suggesting ancient trade between the Central Mediterranean and Britain(j).
(b) http://www.antikitera.net/news.asp?ID=9728
(c) http://www.thorwalds-internetseiten.de
(d) Archive 2006
(e) https://patrickofatlantis.com/
(f) https://www.gigalresearch.com/uk/pyramides-sicile.php
(g) https://www.gigalresearch.com/uk/pyramides-maurice.php
(h) http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/article00749.html
(i) https://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art407.htm
(j) https://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=5703.0;wap2
(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/sicily-pyramids-0013233
Also See: Pantelleria
Schoch, Robert M.
Robert M. Schoch is a Yale scholar, geologist and paleontologist. At the invitation of John Anthony West, he agreed to inspect 
the Sphinx and offer an opinion on the nature of the erosion to be seen on it. He found that the cause of this erosion was precipitation rather than windblown sand. As Egypt has had an arid climate for many thousands of years, Dr Schoch reached the conclusion that at least the front of the Sphinx had been carved between 7000 and 5000 BC, when the climate had been considerably wetter.
In the same book, Voices of the Rocks [454], he endorsed (p.123) the conclusions of Mary Settegast [545] who claimed that Plato’s Atlantis story was a reference to the Magdalenian culture that inhabited the coastal regions of the Western Mediterranean during the 9th millennium BC. Schoch devotes a chapter to the subject of Atlantis and interestingly lists a number of sites to which the Greeks applied the appellation ‘Pillars of Heracles‘ apart from the Strait of Gibraltar.
“The Greeks, however, used the name Pillars of Herakles to mark other sites besides Gibraltar, some outside the Mediterranean – namely, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic and the Strait of Kerch dividing the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov – and even more inside – specifically, the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, the Strait of Messina between mainland Italy and Sicily, the Greek Peloponnese, the mountainous coast of Tunisia, and the Nile Delta.” [p.87] A highly critical review of Schoch’s ‘Voices’ can be read online(n).
In his Voyages of the Pyramid Builders [455], he reiterates his conviction “that Plato’s story is, at least in part, a fictionalized account of a great Mediterranean war at a time of intense climatic change between the tenth and eighth millennia BC.” A critique by William P Eigles tackles ‘Voyages’ in Atlantis Rising magazine # 37, where Schoch endeavours to link the global presence of pyramids as a possible expression of hyperdiffusion. Eigles comments that Schoch “may simply be trying to prove too much here. Many of the motivations, reasons and interpretations he offers for the various activities and actions on the part of the ancients are clearly speculative in nature.(ad)”
This 1990 declaration regarding the Sphinx generated an international reputation for Schoch. Such a controversial conclusion was obviously greeted warmly by the supporters of the 9,000-year-old date for Atlantis allegedly given by the Egyptian priests to Solon. This accidental intervention by Schoch in the debate regarding the dating of Atlantis has unfortunately done nothing to resolve the issue. Fierce debate continues regarding the date of the Sphinx. However, there appears to be a gradual acceptance of Schoch’s views by other professional geologists such as David Coxhill. Another geologist, Colin Reader, while not accepting all of Schoch’s conclusions, believes that the Sphinx predates King Khufu, the father of Khafre, who has been traditionally accepted as the builder of the Sphinx, with the monument bearing his image(v)(w)(x).
Schoch subsequently pushed the date of the Sphinx as far back as circa 10,000 BCE and he now suggests that the monument was carved in the shape of a lioness.(ae)
>>It appears that Schoch’s experiences regarding the Sphinx have whetted his appetite for prehistorical controversies and then wrote two further books, again with R.A. McNally, about the origins of the pyramid builders in Voyages of the Pyramid Builders[455] and Pyramid Quest [456], both of which were met with mixed reviews1. The authors “trace the many pyramid-building cultures back to what may be their ultimate source: Sundaland, a continent-sized stretch of land in Southeast Asia (located under the current southern reach of the South China Sea) that was inundated by rising sea levels after the end of the last ice age, a catastrophic event that may have been connected to cometary activity in the skies observed by the inhabitants of Sundaland.
As we argue in our book, pyramids are symbolically connected with comets, and the Sundalanders may well have originated the ancient pyramid tradition, then carried it with them as they fled the rising waters. Those who went northwest contributed to the cultural mélange that gave rise first to the pyramid cultures of Sumeria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia and later to those in India, Southeast Asia, and China. Sundalanders heading east may have gotten as far as Peru, where pyramids rose at Aspero at the end of the fourth millennium B.C. The American pyramid tradition died out until it was reinvigorated, from the twelfth century B.C. on, by Pacific Rim mariners, primarily Chinese. This contact contributed to the pyramid building of the Olmecs, which spread across Mesoamerica and later into the Andes.” (aj)<<
Unfortunately, he includes a reference to Ireland’s Newgrange as a form of ‘pyramid building’, an idea I reject, since it shares neither form nor function with the Egyptian pyramids. The goodreads.com website offers a very critical review of this book(a) as has the late Professor Garrett Fagan(ag).
Schoch and McNally have recently dared to enter into the highly charged debate regarding the dating of the Great Pyramid at Giza[456][457].
Schoch seems to be venturing further and further from his natural comfort zone of geology. In 2007, he wrote an article on Telepathy(d) and was later due to address the Electric Universe Conference in Las Vegas in 2012(c) and deliver a paper entitled The Catastrophic Termination of the Last Ice Age. In it, he will claim that around 10,000 BC the Earth underwent ‘dramatic catastrophic changes’ as a result of ‘our unstable Sun erupting at the end of the last Ice Age, melting the extensive glaciers and triggering climate warming. The full paper should be an interesting read. He continues to argue against the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis(r).
His retreat from conventional science may be now complete as he delves into the strange world of lycanthropy (the study of werewolves)(o).
Schoch’s work is now promoted through his own website(b), which includes a wide range of articles. On it, both he and his associate, Colette Dowell, have been very critical of the Bosnian pyramid claims of Semir Osmanagic following a visit there in 2006. However, in what appears to be an article(l) written in 2011 or 2012, Osmanagic responds with scathing criticism of Schoch’s work. His attack on Schoch was later added to by an assault from Jock Doubleday in a very lengthy article(y) in which, among other matters, he accuses Schoch of a series of thirteen lies! I should perhaps mention that Doubleday has been featured for some years now in the burgeoning Encyclopedia of American Loons(z). As well as that, elsewhere, a very personal attack has also been made on Collette Dowell(aa). Support for Schoch’s claim of a Bosnian pyramid hoax is also available(ab).
Schoch has now turned his attention to the emergence and demise of very early civilisations, before that of dynastic Egypt or Sumeria. When he combined his early date for the Sphinx with other discoveries such as that of Nabta Playa and Göbekli Tepe and Gunung Padang(m), he concluded that the origins of civilisation go back much further than generally accepted. He then looked at the bigger and perhaps more important question of the cause of their collapse. In a 2009 special edition (N0.8) of New Dawn magazine, he speculated on the possibility that the ending of such early civilisations was caused by the earth’s encounter with one or more asteroids or comets.
In his book(f), Forgotten Civilization[867], Schoch claims that coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun around 9700 BC devastated our planet with electrical discharges, triggering seismic and volcanic activity as well as ending the Ice Age with its consequent floods. All this ‘eradicated the civilisation of the time and set humanity back thousands of years, only to re-emerge around 3500 BC with scattered memories and nascent abilities.’ In an article written(g) in March 2012, Schoch wrote about the ‘Carrington Event’ of 1859 which resulted from a massive solar event that year.
Schoch’s paper had the somewhat disturbing title of ‘Death Star’ and perhaps even more unsettling was the revelation in March 2019 that evidence of at least three major solar ‘proton attacks’ over the past 3,000 years. The suggestion is that these episodes are to be expected with some degree of regularity, which may create ever-increasing disruption as our dependency on electricity expands. The recent report(q) indicates that the most powerful event identified so far took place around 610 BC. Without a power grid to damage at the time, we are unaware of what effect it had on the people of that time and I would hope that a review of the literature of that era might reveal some corroboration.
A video clip from his recent Las Vegas lecture is now available on YouTube(h). His talk is based on an article(i) in the July-August 2010 edition of New Dawn magazine, which is now available online and will play a large part in his Forgotten Civilization. He highlights some fascinating similarities between the Rongorongo script of Easter Island, the Nasca petroglyphs and the plasma figures of Dr Anthony L. Peratt together with their possible association with the ending of the last Ice Age.
For me, the most disturbing aspect of Schoch’s book is his apocalyptic vision of global catastrophes that he anticipates may again turn the few survivors back into troglodytes!
“The revised and expanded edition of Forgotten Civilization, which bears a new subtitle, was released in March of 2021. It includes everything in the first edition plus a new final chapter and various updates to other chapters throughout the book. Thus, the new edition is approximately 150 pages longer, including over 40 new/additional photographs. As I detail in this revision, a number of new discoveries made since the first edition was published reinforce my contention that true civilization existed prior to the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago, and that civilization was decimated by the solar outburst(s) that occurred then, throwing humanity into a Solar-Induced Dark Age for some 6,000 years before the reemergence of civilization around 4000–3000 BCE.”(ai)
However, Jason Colavito has reviewed Schoch’s claims relating to both the Rongorongo script(j) and Göbekli Tepe(k) and has found his ideas wanting. Colavito found further ammunition in the forthcoming book, Origins of the Sphinx[1374], which Schoch co-authored with Robert Bauval, describing it as ‘a virtual rewriting of’ Keeper of Genesis(p). In 2019, Schoch expanded further on his opinions regarding the importance of Göbekli Tepe with a claim that its builders possessed some level of literacy(s), provoking further criticism from Colavito(r). Schoch expanded on this claim in a subsequent post(ac), but for me, I find this proposed literacy at Göbekli Tepe a push too far.
One of the great mysteries of Göbekli Tepe is that it was deliberately reburied but fortunately for us, this left it in perfect condition for us to study. Schoch has suggested that this was done to protect it from damage by CME’s such as occurred around 9700 BC (see above). This sounds like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. He then takes this idea further and proposes in a lengthy article that the Egyptians did something similar(ah), but uncovered them later for the pharaohs to develop. I’m not convinced.
ORACUL – The Organization for the Research of Ancient Cultures is a not-for-profit body, co-founded by Schoch “dedicated to the scientific study of civilization’s origins. It is our hope that through research advocacy, publishing, and educational outreach, further evidence for mankind’s remote and forgotten past will be uncovered.”(af)
(a) Greg’s review of Voyages of the Pyramid Builders (goodreads.com)
(c) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/
(f) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forgotten-Civilization-Solar-Outbursts-Future/dp/1594774978
(g) https://dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2012/3/Death-Star
(h) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUqdYBxbbck
(j) https://robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html
(n) https://anamericaninbosnia.blogspot.ie/2013/03/witchcraft-cartography-and-clairvoyant.html
(o) https://www.dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2016/10/The-Werewolf
(q) https://www.livescience.com/64964-huge-ancient-solar-storm-hit-earth.html
(t) New Dawn Magazine -July August 2010
(u) New Dawn Magazine- Special Issue No.8 2009)
(v) https://www.academia.edu/21651229/Giza_Before_The_Fourth_Dynasty
(w) (99+) (PDF) Khufu Knew the Sphinx | Colin Reader – Academia.edu
(y) An American in Bosnia: The Mysterious Anti-Scientific Agenda of Robert Schoch
(z) https://americanloons.blogspot.com/2015/12/1555-jock-doubleday.html
(ab) Heavy Futz: Don’t bother making a pligrimage to the “Bosnian Pyramids”
(ac) https://www.robertschoch.com/gobekli_tepe_writing.html
(ad) Atlantis Rising magazine #37 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(ae) https://www.robertschoch.com/sphinx.html
(af) Robert M. Schoch: ORACUL (robertschoch.com)
(ag) https://www.hallofmaat.com/lostciv/review-of-voyages-of-the-pyramid-builders/
(ah) https://www.robertschoch.com/ancient_burial_of_egypt.html
(ai) https://www.robertschoch.com/publications.html
(aj) https://www.hnn.us/article/a-theory-about-pyramids-that-could-change-the-way- *
Heinrich, Paul V.
Paul V. Heinrich is a geologist and archaeologist at Louisiana State University and described by some as a professional sceptic. He has an interesting website(a) where he discusses what he describes as the ‘wild side of geoarchaeology’ and elsewhere(b) attacks Charles Hapgood’s interpretation of ancient maps that seem to support the idea of an ice-free Antarctic.>Similarly, he wrote a critique(f) of the American TV show, The Mysterious Origins of Man, fronted by Charlton Heston, which also dealt with the Antarctica question.<
He has also heavily criticised(c) Andrew Collins’ Gateway to Atlantis. Furthermore, Heinrich denounced what he describes as ‘old-time cosmic catastrophism’ including an attack on Emilio Spedicato, apparently intent on shooting both message and messenger. Among his other targets were the Bosnian pyramid claims of Samir Osmanagich, which he pointed out are natural geological features that are “called ‘flatirons’ in the United States and you see a lot of them out West.”(e)
(a) https://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/wildside.shtml
(b) https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/oronteus.html
(c) See: https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2040/
(d) https://theepistlesofpaul.blogspot.ie/2009/12/old-time-cosmic-catastrophism-is-alive.html
(e) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-mystery-of-bosnias-ancient-pyramids-148990462/
Nationalism
Nationalism was clearly the motivation behind some of the Atlantis theories that have been proposed over recent centuries. Olaf Rudbeck audaciously promoted his native Sweden in the 17th century, just as the eccentric William Comyns Beaumont claimed that Britain was Atlantis in the early 20th century and some Albanians, Azoreans, Maltese and Sardinians make comparable claims today. However, the most sinister manifestation of Atlantis based nationalism was the attempt to hijack it as the original homeland of the Aryan predecessors of the Nazis, probably borrowing the idea from Blavatsky. This was partly to replace the Abrahamic cultural lineage claimed by so many western nations. Today elements of modern Russian nationalism also look to an Aryan ancestry based in the Arctic.
*The linking of nationalism with (pseudo)archaeology is exemplified by the Bosnian pyramid claims of Samir Osmanagich and the manner in which the local media and politicians have used them to boost national pride, in spite of the contrary views expressed by qualified geologists and archaeologists(b).*
Vanessa Ward gives a good overview of the Atlantis based nationalism of both Rudbeck and the Nazis(a).
(a) https://pseudoarchaeology.org/a10-ward.html
*(b) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-mystery-of-bosnias-ancient-pyramids-148990462/*
Costa Rica
Costa Rica is home to one of the great megalithic mysteries of Mesoamerica, namely its enigmatic stone spheres measuring up to 10 
feet in diameter and 30 tons in weight. The spheres were discovered in the Disquis Delta region of the country but unfortunately few, perhaps six remain in their original positions. They number in excess of 300 and it is claimed that they are perfectly spherical to within a couple of millimetres.
>>The spheres were rediscovered in the 1930s by the United Fruit Company while clearing the jungle to make way for banana plantations. Wikipedia informs us that “The first scientific investigation of the spheres was undertaken shortly after their discovery by Doris Stone, a daughter of a United Fruit executive. These were published in 1943 in American Antiquity, attracting the attention of Samuel Kirkland Lothrop of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. In 1948, he and his wife attempted to excavate an unrelated archaeological site in the northern region of Costa Rica. In San José he met Doris Stone, who directed the group toward the Diquís Delta region in the southwest.”
Some years later Nothrop’s wife, Eleanor, wrote an account of their research in Costa Rica(h) including the discovery that “Some of the pottery under one of the stone platforms turned out to be of classical Chiriqui type, best known in western Panama. We already knew from other evidence that this pottery was still being made at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Thus, by the same token, the stone ball found above it must also have been made at approximately the same period. The majority of the stone balls were probably considerably older, but it is safe to say that, although their date of origin is open to speculation, the cult of making stone balls was a late one, continuing into the sixteenth century.”<<
Ivar Zapp and George Erikson have linked [0244] these spheres with ancient navigational systems in a worldwide culture that included Atlantis. At best their suggested connection with Atlantis is somewhat tenuous. Zapp gave a talk in 2005 in which he identified a location in southwest Costa Rica as the site of Plato’s Atlantis(b).
A more objective review by professor John W. Hoopes of the University of Kansas, of the Costa Rican stone sphere ‘mystery’ can be found on the World-Mysteries website(a).
In 1974, a paper entitled Atlantis – The Seat of Man(g) also written by Hoopes was published in support of an Atlantic location for Atlantis. The author quotes a number of mesoamerican traditions in support of this idea.
A 2022 report describes recent excavations Disquis Delta region aimed at conserving badly weathered spheres there, “the team focused on the Finca 6 archaeological site located in the canton of Osa in the Puntarenas Province, in which stone spheres have deteriorated due to alterations derived from the constitution of the rock, damage caused by humidity, and floods resulting from hurricanes and tropical storms.”(c)
>>Some year ago Marisol & José Antonio Roldán offered an overview of the background to the Costa Rica stones which included some additional peripheral details(f).<<
In 2024, Ancient Aliens S20E recycled some of their earlier output relating to the srone spheres of Costa Rica. Jason Colavito, once again, offers a debunking of the many ridiculous claims that have been made about the stones, starting with the untrue claims of having ‘perfect’ sphericity. The show also included segments regarding the so-called stone spheres in Bosnia and the Neolithic round stones found in Scotland(e).
To end on a lighter note, I find that some years ago Doug Yurchey suggested that the Costa Rican spheres might have been some sort of power receivers(d)! This particular piece of nonsense was later removed.
(a) KU researcher investigates mysterious stone spheres in Costa Rica – KU News (archive.org)
(b) See: https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2537/
(c) Archaeologists excavate giant stone spheres in Costa Rica – HeritageDaily – Archaeology News
(d) https://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_crb_doug.htm (link broken)
(e) Review of Ancient Aliens S20E10 “Mystery of the Stone Spheres” – JASON COLAVITO
(f) ESFERAS DE COSTA RICA (oocities.org) *
(g) (94) Atlantis – The Seat of Man (1974) | John W Hoopes – Academia.edu *
(h) Prehistoric Stone Balls–a Mystery | Natural History Magazine *
Bosnia
Bosnia was dragged into the Atlantis debate in 2006 when a self-styled archaeologist, Semir Osmanagic, claimed that he had discovered five pyramids in his ancestral Bosnia near the town of Visoko. His claim received widespread media coverage and sparked a debate that continues today.
Osmanagic maintains that the largest one is bigger than the Great Pyramid at Giza and that the Bosnian pyramids date to 12,000 B.C. In response, Archaeology Magazine noted that “Construction of massive pyramids in Bosnia at that period is not believable. Curtis Runnels, a specialist in the prehistory of Greece and the Balkans at Boston University, notes that “Between 27,000 and 12,000 years ago, the Balkans were locked in the last Glacial maximum, a period of very cold and dry climate with glaciers in some of the mountain ranges. The only occupants were Upper Paleolithic hunters and gatherers who left behind open-air camp sites and traces of occupation in caves.”(j)
The Atlantis connection emerged from the belief of Osmanagic that the original ancestors of the Maya, Basques and other ancient peoples were descended from the peoples of Atlantis and Lemuria whose founders arrived on earth from the Pleiades. According to Osmanagic’s strange logic this gives the ‘pyramids’ of Bosnia an Atlantean pedigree.
Fortunately, Mark Rose, editor of Archaeology, who published a critical review(a) of Osmanagic’s weird ideas in Archaeology magazine, was also widely quoted, adding some balance to the debate. The same magazine carried a brief but highly critical review of Osmanagic’s theories from Zahi Hawass(h).
In 2006, Robert Schoch visited the Bosnian ‘pyramid’ and subsequently wrote a highly critical assessment of Osmanagic and his theories. However, sometime later, Osmanagic responded with a scathing review(c) of Schoch’s work!>I have included here the opening paragraph of Schoch’s comments which may explain Osmanagic’s reaction. “I have seen the corrupting effects of money in Bosnia. I am referring to the so-called Bosnian pyramids located in the Visoko region. Initially, I was excited by the expectation of very old pyramids (claims circulated that they were 10,000 years or older). Upon visiting the site, I discovered a massive money, power, influence, and nepotism driven swindle.”(n).
In 2013, Dominique Görlitz published a report of his investigation of the Bosnian pyramids in which he concluded “that at least the Great Pyramid of the Sun and the lesser Pyramid of the Moon are not the archaeological remains of an unknown civilization” (o).<
In September 2014 the Science Channel aired an episode of The Unexplained Files series in the US, which attempted to justify Osmanagic’s claims. However, Jason Colavito has highlighted the many flaws in the program’s content(d).
A more sober attempt to link the Bosnian region with Atlantis has been made by Fatih Hodzic(b). Part of his theory attempts to identify the thousands of stone blocks or ‘stecaks’, spread widely in Bosnia, as remnants of Atlantean buildings. His ideas are interesting but unconvincing.
Not content with having Atlantis in Bosnia, Roberto Salinas Price, in 1985 [1544], also proposed Bosnia as the location of Homer’s Troy.
In 2014, Paul A. LaViolette visited the Visko pyramid in Bosnia and published an extensive illustrated article in which he expressed his amazement at what he saw there and concluded(g) that he considers “this to be one of the most important archaeological excavations going on at this time on our planet.”
Philip Coppens has also defended the reality of Osmanagic’s pyramids in The Lost Civilization Enigma[1275.39], nevertheless, the debate is still open as can be seen in a February 2016 blog(f), in which many reasonable questions relating to the construction of the ‘pyramids are still unresolved. For my part, I find Osmanagic’s personal credibility questionable, considering his previous claims regarding Atlantis and ancient aliens, which are not, in my view, the conclusions of a person with his critical faculties intact.
Another claim from Osmanagic emerged in April 2016, when he claimed that huge stone spheres that exist in Bosnia ‘prove’ the existence of an advanced civilisation more than 1,500 years ago(e)!
Atlantisforschung published an article by Osmanagi? in which he highlighted the Bosnian spheres while also referencing other spheres discovered in the Adriatic region as well as in various countries around the world(l). Conventional geology describes most spheres outside of Costa Rica as natural concretions(m).
Nevertheless, a pretty vigorous defence of the reality of the Bosnia pyramids was published by Richard Hoyle on the Ancient Origins website in January 2020(k).
Late 2018 saw the UK’s Express tabloid’s online edition entertain us with the headline(I) – Bosnian pyramid SHOCK: ancient civilisation received knowledge from SPACE.
(a) https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/
(b) http://en.atlantida.spletnestrani.com/atlantida
(c) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(f) See: Archive 3187
(g) https://www.sarajevotimes.com/?p=72522
(h) https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/zahi_hawass.pdf
(j) https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/
(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/bosnian-pyramid-0013212
(l) News about the Bosnian stone balls – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)