Oronteus Finaeus

Hapgood, Charles Hutchins

Published June 8, 2010

Charles Hutchins Hapgood (1904-1982) was born in New York. He graduated from Harvard and became a Professor of the History of Science at Keene State College of the University of New Hampshire.

He has written several books of which his work on medieval maps ^[³⁶⁹^]⁺ is probably the best known. Hapgood had built on the valuable collection of ancient maps assembled by the Swedish scholar A.E. Nordenskiöld^[³⁷⁰^]. Hapgood’s book was the result of years of research in collaboration with his students that determined that the maps had been compiled from much earlier sources that included details of an ice-free coast of Antarctica. His conclusion, as the subtitle of his book states, was that these maps were evidence for the existence of an advanced Ice Age civilisation and have been seen as further support for the early date for Atlantis given to Solon. A review⁽^a⁾ of The Maps of the Ancient Sea-Kings on the Internet is worth a read.

However, Jason Colavito has pointed^(g) out that “as scholars have known for decades, the segment of the map identified by Hapgood as “Antarctica” was in fact the southern part of South America, bent to fit the shape of the skin on which it was drawn.”

According to Rand Flem-Ath and Colin Wilson^[⁰⁶³^.27], around 1958, Hapgood identified a location 1000 miles off the mouth of the Orinoco River, in South America, known as the Rocks of St. Peter & St. Paul as the site of Atlantis. These islets lie above the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and according to Hapgood are the remnants of a large island, now submerged. He attempted to persuade President Kennedy to assist with a US Navy exploration of the area around the Rocks of St. Peter and Paul, but the assassination of Kennedy put paid to any possibility of any help from the White House.

Hapgood’s second controversial offering, Earth’s Shifting Crust ^[³⁶⁸^]⁺, promoted his belief that the Earth’s crust had shifted. A revised edition of this was published in 1970 as The Path of the Pole ^[1494]⁺. Over time, Hapgood appears to have revised his view regarding the precise mechanism that caused this movement. The idea of a pole shift is far from new as it was advocated in the seventeenth century by Robert Hooke⁽ⁱ⁾.

In Voices of the Rocks ^[454.158] Robert Schoch has drawn attention to “the most glaring omission in Hapgood’s argument is his inability to come up with a mechanism for crustal shifting. He describes what happens, but he can’t say why. He himself saw the problem and spelled it out. ‘it is necessary to admit, in the first place, that at the present time, there is no satisfactory explanation of the modus operandi of displacements in the lithosphere’ Hapgood wrote.” However, Schoch does concede that Hapgood may have been on the right track, but, for the wrong reasons.

Recently, Kyle Bennett has claimed that the idea of crustal displacement was proposed as early as 1866 by Sir John Evans. Bennett has reprinted Evans’ paper in support of his accusation of plagiarism^(b). Hapgood has noted ^[1494.71] that in the 1950’s Karl A. Pauly ^[1496] and George W. Bain ^[1498] also supported a form of crustal shift, the former, building on the work of A.S. Eddington ^[1497], some decades earlier.

Hapgood also involved himself in the controversy surrounding the figurines discovered in Acámbaro, Mexico, which creationists offer as evidence that man lived at the time of the dinosaurs. The 32,000 figurines have been denounced as a hoax^(e). Hapgood’s stance supporting their authenticity does little, in my opinion, to enhance the value of his judgement.

Hapgood was also actively interested in parapsychology and spirit communication^(f) and wrote three books on the subject.

In 1953 Albert Einstein wrote to Hapgood offering support for his theory and subsequently expressed similar views in a foreword for Hapgood’s book.

Some of Hapgood’s ideas have been supported in a well-illustrated book^[⁰⁶⁵^] by the late Robert Argod, who uses both the Piri Reis and the Oronteus Finaeus maps to support his idea that the Polynesians originated in Antarctica and that their influence can be found elsewhere in the world.

Hapgood corresponded with Rand Flem-Ath who subsequently published^[⁰⁶²^] his theory that Atlantis had existed in the Antarctic. Argod’s book combined with the work of the Flem-Aths does offer a credible case for considering the possibility of an Atlantis-Antarctic connection. This idea was bolstered further when Graham Hancock gave the Antarctica theory additional exposure in one of his popular books, Fingerprints of the Gods^[²⁷⁵^]

An independent critical overview of both Hapgood’s theory and Hancock’s related comments by Steve Krause can be read online^(d).

Hapgood died in a tragic motor accident, which led at least one writer, Kyle Bennett, to suggest that it was murder, in an article now removed from his website.

In 1998, J. Bowles published his The Gods, Gemini and the Great Pyramid^[834]which he wrote with the encouragement of Beth Hapgood, a cousin of Charles. He intended to expand on the work of Hapgood relating to the shifting poles. He refers to Antarctica as alternating between Atlantis in the Atlantic and Moo in the Pacific. A fanciful idea, as both were reportedly submerged and at least one is imaginary. He later published a further defence of Hapgood in Issue 18 of Atlantis Rising magazine. (See Archive 7149)

Hapgood’s pole shift ideas continue to inspire researchers, an example of which is a 2018 book, Before Atlantis ^[1600], by Mark Carlotto, who claims to have “discovered that numerous sites throughout the world are aligned to what appear to have been four previous positions of the North Pole over the past 100,000 years. By virtue of their alignment to ancient poles, Carlotto proposes a new hypothesis: that the original sites were first established by a previous advanced technological civilization that existed throughout the world tens of thousands of years ago and was later co-opted by our ancestors who rebuilt and expanded over and around the older structures while preserving the layout and orientation of the site to the original pole.”

In a separate paper, Carlotto offers a more focused study that concentrates on antediluvian cities in Mesopotamia that appear to be aligned with different locations held by the North Pole in earlier times. Based on Hapgood’s theory of crustal displacement, Carlotto concluded that these cities should be dated much earlier than generally accepted^(h⁾.>>In 2019, he wrote a paper with the self-explanatory title of Toward a New Theory of Earth Crustal Displacement^(j⁾.<<

^[³⁶⁸^]+ https://archive.org/stream/eathsshiftingcru033562mbp/eathsshiftingcru033562mbp_djvu.txt

^[³⁶⁹^]+https://ia800909.us.archive.org/12/items/MapsOfTheAncientSeaKingsEvidenceOfAdvancedCivilization/maps%20of%20the%20ancient%20sea%20kings-evidence%20of%20advanced%20civilization.pdf (link broken)

^(a) Archive 3085

^(b)https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/earth-crust-displacement-and-the-british-establishment/

^(d) See: Archive 2761

^(e) https://detecting.org.uk/html/Acambaro_Figures_Famous_Fakes_and_Frauds.html

^(f) https://eduardopiperet.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/the-earth-crust-displacement-theory-by-charles-h-hapgood/

^(g) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s14e01-return-to-antarctica

^(h)Alignments of the Antediluvian Cities and Other Sites in Mesopotamia by Mark Carlotto :: SSRN

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004JRASC..98..183B

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://philpapers.org/rec/CARTAN-13 *

Tagged A. S. Eddington, Acámbaro, Albert Einstein, Antarctica, Beth Hapgood, Charles Hapgood, Colin Wilson, Flem Ath, George W. Bain, Graham Hancock, J. Bowles, Jason Colavito, Karl A. Pauly, Kyle Bennett, Mark Carlotto, Mid Atlantic Ridge, Oronteus Finaeus, Piri Reis, Pole Shift, Robert Argod, Robert Hooke, Robert Schoch, Rocks of St. Peter and St. Paul, Sir John Evans

Fisher, Doug

Published June 7, 2010

Doug Fisher is the author of a long-awaited book with the intended title of The Atlantis Maps: The Rise of Atlantis and the Fall of a Paradigm in which he identifies Atlantis as North and South America with the Plain described by Plato being the region of Mesopotamia, in northeast Argentina. The book was eventually published in 2018 as Maps, Myths and Paradigms ^[1924] with details of its contents listed on his website.^(c) Four chapters had been available online^(a) together with a few additional articles.

Fisher has published an illustrated paper on Graham Hancock’s website with the self-explanatory title of The Walls of Atlantis^(b). His suggestion of a huge outer wall encircling the city of Atlantis has been disputed by Jim Allen, provoking further comments^(c) from Fisher.

He has also criticised the methodology, which Allen used to place Atlantis on the Altiplano^(d), while I question the credibility of both their theories.

When Fisher’s book was finished and due for publication with its new title, he closed his old website and prepared a new site^(e⁾ to coincide with the publication of the book.

Fisher has published two other papers^(f⁾ on Hancock’s website relating to the maps of Johannes Schöner and Oronteus Finaeus.>In October 2022 he published another paper on the same site challenging the currently accepted theory of plate tectonics highlighting weaknesses in the concept and proposing a fresh look at the expanding earth hypothesis.<

⁽^a⁾ See: Archive 2865 (no images)

^(b)https://grahamhancock.com/fisherd3/

^(c) http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread646457/pg2 (halfway down the page)

^(d) http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread821281/pg1

^(e) http://www.copheetheory.com/

^(f) https://grahamhancock.com/author/doug-fisher/

^(g)Maps, Myths & Paradigms – Graham Hancock Official Website *

Tagged Altiplano, Argentina, Doug Fisher, expanding earth, Grahan Hancock, Jim Allen, Johannes Schöner, Mesopotamia, Oronteus Finaeus, Plate tectonics, Wall of Atlantis

Finaeus, Oronteus

Published June 7, 2010

Oronteus Finaeus (1494-1555) was a celebrated cartographer who produced a map in 1531 which is claimed by some that, like the Piri Reis Map, it depicts the coast of an ice-free Antarctica. Charles Hapgood rediscovered it in 1959⁽^a⁾ in the Library of Congress. This idea is then used to support the concept of the existence of a very early civilisation that was capable of sophisticated map-making. It is then just a short step to name this civilisation ‘Atlantis’. Some, such as the Flem-Aths went further and actually nominated Antarctica as the home of Atlantis.

Robert Argod has used the Oronteus Finaeus Map to support his contention that the Polynesians had originated in Antarctica.

>Christine Pellech has an article published on the Atlantisforschung website taken from her 2013 book Die Entdeckung von Amerika ^[1188] (The Discovery of America), in which she reviews the range of medieval maps displaying geographical details ‘unknown’ until centuries later!^(e⁾ Her reference to the Mark McMenamin coins can be ignored as they have since been shown to be forgeries (See: Sardinia).<

However, a contrary view has been expressed by Paul Heinrich who commenting on Graham Hancock’s assertion that the map shows an ice-free Antarctica, points out that in the case of West Antarctica, the underlying bedrock is, in the main, hundreds of feet below sea level and would not show on a real map of the region^(c).

A more recent website⁽^b⁾, although not endorsing an Antarctic Atlantis, discusses some of these old maps in very great detail and on Graham Hancock’s website. The site is based on a number of chapters from a work-in-progress, The Atlantis Maps: The Rise of Atlantis and the Fall of a Paradigm by Doug Fisher. He identifies the Plain of Mesopotamia in Northern Argentina as the location of Atlantis.

⁽^a⁾ https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/198001/piri.reis.and.the.hapgood.hypotheses.htm

⁽^b⁾ https://web.archive.org/web/20180831132132/https://www.atlantismaps.com/ ^30.10.2020^“This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.”

^(c)https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-3967/

^(d⁾ https://grahamhancock.com/author/doug-fisher/

^(e⁾ Knowledge of America, the Arctic, Antarctica and Australia on old maps – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *

Tagged Antarctica, Argentina, Atlantisforschung, Charles Hapgood, Christine Pellech, Doug Fisher, Grahan Hancock, Mark McMenamin, Mesopotamia, Oronteus Finaeus, Paul Heinrich, Piri Reis Map, Robert Argod, Sardinia

Antarctica *

Published May 31, 2010

Antarctica takes its name from the Greek Anti Arktos, which means opposite the Arctic. Edward Bransfield, an Irishman, led an expedition that discovered the northwestern shore of the Antarctic’s peninsula in January 1820^(af), just three days after a Russian expedition found what was later to be known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf. However, a recent study suggests that an earlier discovery took place over a thousand years before that by Polynesians^(ai).

The earliest literary reference to a city in Antarctica seems to have come from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe in his only full novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’ ^(z). The idea of an Antarctic civilisation was also part of another novel, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder^[¹⁵³²^], by the Canadian author, James De Mille (1833-1880), published posthumously in 1888. In 1897, Jules Verne published An Antarctic Mystery^(ab), which has been described as a response to Poe’s novel.

The earliest media claim of an Antarctic location, that I have found, is in The Boston Sunday Globe of April 11 1897, which regaled its readers with the following headline – “Mouse Reveals Atlantis”. It tells the story of a small marsupial discovered in South America related to an Australian species. The ‘experts’ of the day decided that this could only be explained by a landbridge linking the two landmasses. “A direct line joining Australia with Patagonia runs through the South Pole. In all probability, then, our new-found Atlantis must have been an Antarctic continent.” If you fail to see the logic in this, you are not alone.^ca).

Antarctica first entered the Atlantis debate as far back as 1923 when René-Maurice Gattefossé maintained that Atlantis had been located in the Atlantic and culturally influenced by an even earlier civilisation that had existed on Antarctica. In the same year another Frenchman, Dominique Sévriat, published a novel with the backdrop of an Atlantean Antarctic. H.P. Lovecraft published a short novel in 1931, At the Mountains of Madness^[1522], which also used an Antarctic – Atlantis link.

Antarctica – without ice

Many other exotic claims have been made relating to Antarctica including that it was a UFO base⁽ⁱ⁾ and that a refuge for Hitler had been built there in an area that was known as Neuschwabenland^(h). An even more astounding claim was made in the title of a recent book – Earth’s First Civilization, Antarctica, 55 Million B.C.^(aj). Books like this lead me to question the wisdom of allowing unbridled free speech!

However, the earliest suggestion of Antarctica as the home of Atlantis seems to have come from a Chilean professor, Roberto Rengifo, who also proposed, in 1920, that Antarctica was the original home of modern man until a catastrophic pole shift forced migration northward into the Americas and eventually worldwide! According to R.V.Eissmann, Arthur Posnansky made a similar suggestion around the same time.

Half a century was to pass before Antarctica itself was again promoted as the probable site of Atlantis by Flavio Barbiero in his book^[⁰⁶¹^] published in Italian.

Twenty years later Rand & Rose Flem-Ath^[⁰⁶²^], supported by a well-designed website⁽^a⁾, published a similar theory that received widespread exposure in the English-speaking world. Subsequently, Rand Flem-Ath co-authored with Colin Wilson a second book^[⁰⁶³^] that added more background to the theory. Colin Wilson has more recently abandoned his support for Antarctica, as he eventually found the idea of Atlantis based here waging war against Athens,14,000 km away, untenable and then transferred his support to Robert Sarmast’s idea of Cyprus as the location of Atlantis.

Andrew Collins is another writer who was initially attracted to the Antarctica hypothesis but eventually opted for Cuba as the location of Atlantis. He later wrote a brief refutation of the Antarctic theory^(aa).

In 2005, Gernot L.Geise & Reinhard Prahl published Auf der Suche nach der Mutterkultur (In Search of the Mother Culture) ^[730], in which they also opted for Antarctica as the location of Atlantis.

In 2007, David Stewart Jnr., a prominent Mormon writer, offered support for Flem-Ath’s theory in an article on his scripture history website.

The Antarctic theory is dependent on the acceptance of a number of hotly debated fundamentals, among which are: earth crust displacement (Pole Shift), a 10,000 BC date for Atlantis, Posnansky’s dating of Tiahuanaco and a particular interpretation of the Piri Reis Map.

The late Robert Solàrion produced his own ‘pole shift’ theory of Polar Axial Displacement that he outlined on the website^(ah). The Flem-Aths have cited the Solar Typhoon Hypothesis^(y) of Jared Freedman in support of their Atlantis location theory. Nevertheless, I must point out that even if there had been some sort of Pole Shift, it does not prove that Antarctica had been home to Atlantis as it still conflicts dramatically with the geographical pointers offered by Plato.

An ice core, 3 km long, which was recently recovered from Antarctica, has shown a continuous record stretching back 740,000 years. This would appear to indicate that the region was never without ice cover during that period, fatally weakening the Flem-Ath theory of Plato’s Atlantis being in Antarctica. This argument is tackled in Appendix 6 of The Atlantis Blueprint.

Another author who claims that the Antarctic ice sheet is not more than 6,000 years old is the Australian archaeologist Peter ‘Mungo’ Jupp. He has expanded on his views in a DVD^(d). His principal claim is that ice core data has been misinterpreted as it is based on a false assumption that there is a layer per year, while there is evidence that more than one layer has been created annually^(e). He does not directly enter the Atlantis debate but the evidence he adduces to support his thesis is more usually employed to support the Atlantis in Antarctica viewpoint.

Two German writers, Fritz Nestke & Thomas Reimer, have also supported the idea of Atlantis in Antarctica with their own 1988 book^[⁰⁶⁴^]. Patrick Geryl & Gino Ratinckx have predicted^[⁰⁶⁶^] a catastrophic pole reversal in 2012 and are ‘certain’ that an earlier pole change resulted in Atlantis being situated under the ice of the South Pole.

The controversial Nigel Appleby in his Hall of the Gods^[0076] expressed the view that there had been a previous worldwide civilisation and “that a major portion of this civilisation still remains practically intact beneath the ice of Antarctica.“

Although not directly connected to the Antarctic-Atlantis debate, the late French mariner Robert Argod has given us a fascinating book^[⁰⁶⁵^] that supports the idea that the Polynesians originated in Antarctica and that their influence is to be found further afield.

The French science-fiction writer, René Barjavel, used the Antarctic Atlantis location in his 1968 novel, La Nuit des temps.

Arguments against the idea of ‘Atlantis in Antarctica’, by Paul V. Heinrich, can be found on the Internet⁽^c⁾.

Those that still have the temerity to support the concept of an Antarctican Atlantis may find this recent (March 2013) image of the continent ice-free^(f)published by Scientific American^(f) interesting. An overview of the Antarctic Hypothesis published in July 2014^(g) may be of use for anyone new to the idea.

2013 also saw the publication of The Three Ages of Atlantis^[972]by Marin, Minella & Schievenin , in which they proposed the existence of three Atlantises, with the original Atlantis situated in Antarctica and destroyed 15,000 years ago!

Around the same time, there was a media report claiming the discovery of three pyramids in Antarctica! Naturally, the story did not stand up to scrutiny^(k⁾ and slowly melted away.

In 2015, Britt du Fournet published an extensive blog reviewing the range of Atlantis theories on offer. In conclusion, she found the Antarctic location the most credible^(j). 2016 saw two French researchers, Jean Seimple^(l) and Fabien Pardo^(v) join the Antarctic Supporters Club and thrill us with the even more bizarre claim that an Antarctic Atlantis is ‘clearly’ indicated by the features and the dimensions in the Great Pyramid^(r)!

Another ‘off the wall’ suggestion is that Atlantis = Aztlan = Antarctica’^(t).

In June 2016, an anonymous article^(m) also supporting the Atlantis in Antarctica idea was being recycled around the Internet. It trotted out the usual ambiguous ‘evidence’ – the Piri Reis and the Oronteus Finaeus maps, fine-grained sediments, ancients forests, combined with a huge dollop of speculation. The purveyors of this nonsense know that they will be long dead before the icecap melts, if ever, and the irrationality of their claims are finally exposed. Apart from that, an Antarctic location seriously conflicts with Plato’s description of Atlantis, which he describes as extending from Libya (North Africa) to central Italy.

Conspiracy theorist David Wilcock has managed to weave the Atlantis in Antarctica story into his twisted idea that the world is controlled by a cabal of evil aliens and human conspirators. Jason Colavito has highlighted that Wilcock has even tried to charge for his particular brand of male cow effluent^(s⁾. There is also the report that Wilcock claimed to be the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce and wished to have a position in A.R.E., where he would also be offering ‘readings’. He was questioned by Cayce’s son and grandson “for a little over an hour and quickly realized that he couldn’t answer a single question. They felt he was full of crap within minutes but to give him a fair chance they entertained him by asking him the questions that Cayce prepared while still alive to test the people who would come forward claiming to be his reincarnation.”^(ae)

An overview, including a video, of the origins of Antarctica commencing when it was part of the Gondwana, the supercontinent, can be viewed online⁽ⁿ⁾.

The British tabloid The Daily Star^(o)and many others^(q) offered further recycling of the Atlantis in the Antarctic theory in December 2016 in a pathetic attempt to breathe new life into it. One site^(p) in particular, demonstrates its lack of research, describing this theory, with a near century-old pedigree, as the “newest” Atlantis location.

Further claims emerged in May 2017 that “some scientists think that they’ve found Atlantis, and it’s underneath Antarctica. They’ve discovered a series of gigantic structures buried underneath this South Pole ice cap”.^(u) Fake News!

This recent flurry of media interest in Antarctica and Atlantis has been milked by attention-seeking ‘researchers’ such as Joseph P. Farrell, who went further and managed to tie it all in with flying saucers, Edgar Cayce and the Kennedy assassination^(w)^(x). Farrell has studied Patristics, which is concerned with the study of the early church Fathers and, in my opinion, he should have stuck with that subject.

As I have alluded to above, it seems to me that those who promote the daft idea of an Antarctic Atlantis, do so in the knowledge that the icecap there is unlikely to disappear within their lifetime, which might reveal evidence for or against the proposition. However, the most telling argument against this polar location is the nonsensical idea that any civilisation situated there would launch an attack on Athens and/or Egypt, situated over 14,000 km away. It was the realisation of this, however belatedly, by the late Colin Wilson that led him to withdraw his support for the Antarctic location.

My view on the subject is, that even if the controversial degree of axial shift advocated by the likes of the Flem-Aths was proven correct and then if the remains of an ancient civilisation were to be found in the Antarctic, it could not be the Atlantis of Plato which attacked Athens and Egypt, as they were 14,000 km away from Antarctica – not within what you could call an ‘easy striking distance’. I prefer to accept the words of Plato, who unambiguously noted on two occasions that Atlantean territory stretched from southern Italy to North Africa, providing more rational launching pads for attacks on Greece and Egypt.

Late February 2020 saw a further attempt to breathe life into the silly ‘Atlantis in Antarctica’ idea. An Indian commentator, Piyush Gupta, on seeing some anomalous features on Google Earth proceeded to link them to Plato’s Atlantis^(ag). This impetuous suggestion leaves me wondering if unfettered free speech is such a good idea after all.

Also in 2020, Barbiero published A Frozen Civilisation: Atlantis in Antarctica ^[1746] and The Bible without Secrets ^[1745], both in English, which appear to be translations of earlier works. As an engineer, he takes a scientific approach to the question of Atlantis’ location and where necessary throws in a formula or two to support his thesis.

Shane Leach added his support to the idea of an Antarctic Atlantis in his 2023 Kindle book, Prehistory Explained ^[2007], in which he recycles many of the ideas of Charles Hapgood and Rand Flem-Ath. The entire book is contaminated with lots of nonsense about ancient astronauts á la Erich von Däniken, Zechariah Sitchin and Richard Hoagland.

⁽^a⁾https://web.archive.org/web/20171115013204/https://www.flem-ath.com/nn

^(c)http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/atlantis.html

^(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA73tcg5yYc

^(e) Antarctica — Once a Tropical Paradise – The Thunderbolts Project™ (archive.org)

^(f)https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-antarctica-looked-like/

^(g) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/07/christopher-condon/was-there-an-ancient-civilization-on-antarctica/

^(h) https://atlanteangardens.blogspot.ie/2014/05/antarctica-and-lost-land-of-thule.html

⁽ⁱ⁾https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/antarctica/antartica11.htm

^(j) https://brittnearfm.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/atlantis-re-investigated-atlantis-defrosted/

^(k) https://hubpages.com/education/Debunking-the-Pyramids-of-Antarctica-myth

^(l) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spVVCMC8szM

^(m) See ^(q)