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 »
Piri Reis Map
Columbus, Christopher
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) is the name usually associated with the ‘discovery’ of America in the late 15th century. However, there appear to be a number of questions now being raised about the discoverer’s identity. Manuel Rosa seems to be leading the charge with his 2016 book, Columbus: The Untold Story[1889]. In a more recent article, Rosa succinctly claimed that “Historians mixed up the noble navigator Colón with the peasant weaver Colombo, giving the wool-weaver the glory that did not belong to him.” The article describes a convoluted but fascinating story of forgery, mistaken identity and misinformation that is well-documented and deserves a read(d).
Columbus’ nationality is the subject of ongoing controversy although the majority accept him as Italian as there documentary evidence that he was born in Genoa. Pedants argue that as Italy did not exist as a state until the 19th century he cannot be called Italian. Up until then it was known as the Republic of Genoa (1099-1797). Apart from that, both Spain and Portugal have claimed that he belonged to their respective nations(f).
>Nevertheless, in 2024, it was revealed the matter of Columbus’ background to be even more complex, with the claim that based on a new DNA study on his 500-year-old remains it was found that the controversial explorer was actually a Sephardic Jew from western Europe(i). Unsurprisingly, these claims were swiftly challenged(j).<<
Ruggero Marino the author of Christopher Columbus: The Last Templar [1915], claims that he has evidence that Columbus’ first trip to the Americas was in 1485 for Pope Innocent VIII, not the better-known voyage for Ferdinand & Isabella of Spain in 1492(e)!
Columbus is not known to have made any specific statements regarding Atlantis, but some commentators have suggested that he was not only aware of Plato’s story but had consulted charts, such as Toscanelli’s(a), that depicted a mid-Atlantic island. López De Gomara was insistent that Columbus had read Plato’s Timaeus and Critias, while the historian, Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), claimed that Plato’s story inspired Columbus to embark on his voyages of discovery!
A chart created by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397-1482) is also claimed to have been used by Columbus. However, the authenticity of the chart and associated correspondence was challenged by Henry Vignaud in a 1902 book(h), The Letter and Chart of Toscanelli[2091], which, understandably, generated considerable controversy(g) .
Toscanelli’s chart shows Antillia as a halfway marker from Portugal to Cipangu (Japan), which Columbus erroneously thought could be found on the other side of the Atlantic!
In the third chapter of The Message of Atlantis[494], Roger Coghill offers a vivid account of the background to Columbus’ protracted efforts to get support for his great voyage of discovery.
It is claimed that two of Columbus’ ships were built by Basques and that a quarter of their crews were Basque(b).
Nevertheless, S. P. Kershaw[1410.163] quoting from B. Keen[1500] notes that Columbus’ son Ferdinand ”explicitly stated that his father never showed any interest in Plato’s tale.”
The Flem-Aths in their Atlantis Beneath the Ice, which is a 2012 revised version of When the Sky Fell, begin the book with a reference to a memorandum sent by Charles Hapgood to President Eisenhower. In it, Hapgood sought the president’s assistance in locating a map used by Columbus, which he believed to still exist in Spanish archives. This map(c) was apparently one of a number used by Piri to produce his famed Piri Reis Map, which allegedly depicts an ice-free Antarctica. The Columbus map was not found.
(a) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Toscanelli_map.jpg
(b) https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Ancient-Greeks-knew-about-the-existence-of-America?share=1
(c) Saudi Aramco World : Piri Reis and the Columbus Map (archive.org)
(e) Atlantis Rising magazine #29 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(f) https://www.thinkinitalian.com/was-christopher-columbus-italian/
(g) Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli – Wikisource, the free online library
(i) Christopher Columbus was secretly Jewish, new DNA study reveals (msn.com) *
Buache, Philippe
Philippe Buache (1700-1773) was a French royal geographer who produced a map of Antarctica, 
apparently ice free, showing the landmass being composed of two separate islands.>Understandably, this map was seized upon by fans of Charles Hapgood, who had suggested the existence of a highly developed ancient civilization with advanced cartographic skills(c)(d).<
In 1958 a seismic survey of Antarctica seemed to confirm that configuration. This begged a number of questions. How could Buache have known this, without having earlier maps available to him? How could man have drawn maps of territory covered by ice for hundreds of thousands of years? Some felt that this complemented the evidence for an ice-free Antarctica provided by the Piri Reis Map. In turn, this gave some further support to those that advocate an Antarctic location for Atlantis. However, the two maps contradict each other, which should not be the case if they were based on surveys carried out by an advanced prehistoric civilisation.
However, the weight of the present ice cap has depressed the land to such an extent that if removed, it has been calculated that the isostatic rebound would be as much as 500 metres, which would give us a single landmass. This casts doubt on the possibility that a two-
island ice-free Antarctica ever existed and consequently that the Buache Map is only speculative.
This is reinforced by the fact that “the French legends that cover the Buache Map also provide a clue as to the way the map may be read and understood. For example, the words conjecturée (conjectured) and soupçonnée (suspected) can be found on parts of the southern continent, indicating that this landmass was not copied from some ancient map, but was a hypothesis by Buache.”(b)
Another critical review of the Buache Antarctic map is to be found on the bad archaeology website(a).
(a) Philippe Buache’s map – Bad Archaeology (archive.org) *
(d) Buache Map (archive.org) *
Neel, Jesse
Jesse Neel promotes the idea that Atlantis had existed on what was an extended Yucatan Peninsula before the ending of the last Ice Age(a). He bases this idea 
on a review of the Piri Reis Map. He contends that famous Chicxulub impact crater had concentric features that were later incorporated into the topography of the city of Atlantis and subsequently submerged as the Ice Age glaciers melted. However, any such features would have had dimension far in excess of what Plato describe’.
Pole Shift *
Pole Shift is a term used to describe a range of theories that includes an alteration to or even the complete reversal of the magnetic poles, a change to the axis of rotation of the entire planet as well as a possible sudden movement of the outer crust of the Earth relative to its axis.
The magnetic poles are always on the move and well documented, while their complete reversal is a much slower process, previous reversals have left us with geological ‘fingerprints’. It is suggested that another reversal is imminent, while some ‘prophets of doom’ have nominated late 2013 for the event, with dire consequences for mankind(f).
The latest data shows drift of about 40 miles a year, with a recent movement of 161 miles in just six months, creating navigation problems and the re-designation of airport runways which are named after their compass orientation(i).
Jason Colavito has unearthed an early reference to some form of an axial pole shift, proposed as early 1883 in a book [1595] by the somewhat eccentric Australian, John Wood Beilby (1818-1903)(q). However, according to Colavito, there was an even earlier reference to a Pole Shift by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his Historical Chronology of the Mexicans of 1873(r). He also linked this event to the destruction of Atlantis(n). However, it seems that Robert Hooke controversially suggested the idea of pole shift as early as the seventeenth century(z).
David Hatcher Childress recently (2023) offered another 19th-century reference to pole shift when he wrote that “About 1885, (James)Churchward found his way to Siberia and the valley of the Lena River. He was now looking for evidence of ancient cataclysms, which, if it could be found, would lend credence to the idea that an ancient, advanced civilization such as Mu could disappear. Churchward wanted to see the piles of mammoth bones and tusks washed up in tidal waves on the Lackoff Islands (The Islands of Bones) just beyond the mouth of the Lena. He was convinced by these giant piles of ivory and bones that a ‘pole shift’ phenomenon had occurred in the past, where the earth’s crust slipped several degrees toward the equator causing massive tidal waves to wash over portions of the earth and ultimately cause the sinking of entire continents such as Mu.” (y).
The suggestion that an ancient axial pole shift was the consequence of plate tectonics has been disputed by William Sager & Anthony Koppers of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Although conceding that plate tectonics may have played a part they describe the 16-21 degree change, 84 million years ago as “an odd event.”(t)
The idea of wandering (magnetic) Poles was first proposed by the German priest Damian Kreichgauer(1859-1940)(g) in 1902[513], although at the time he found little support for the concept. The late Terrence Aym was of the opinion(l) that a magnetic pole reversal was a sign that the next Ice Age was beginning! Today, NASA provides us with a more sober view of the phenomenon of magnetic pole shifts(k).
Another theory suggests that a severe reduction in sunspot activity may herald the imminent return of another ‘little ice age’ such as was experienced in the 17th century and known as the Maunder Minimum. During that period only 50 sunspots were recorded instead of the usual 40-50 thousand(w). NASA has denied that there is any such impending cooling and that the possible effect of any reduced solar activity would be more than offset by the warming caused by human activity(x).
There are a number of variations on the basic concept of an axial change and an array of suggestions for the date of the last displacement. Generally speaking, the mechanism required to cause such a catastrophe is believed to be an impact by or close encounter with a large asteroid or comet. The continuing discovery of huge impact craters around the globe reinforces this possibility. However, recent studies have identified other processes that may have led to polar changes in the past(e).
The suggestion of an Antarctic location for Atlantis, as proposed by Rose and Rand Flem-Ath[062], is totally dependent on a pole shift. The Flem-Aths have interpreted the characteristics of our present icecaps as strong evidence for a number of previous pole shifts. This idea was inspired by the work of Charles Hapgood[369], who was convinced by such evidence as the Piri Reis Map and other ancient maps that seemed to indicate the existence of an Ice Age civilisation now partly covered by the Antarctic icecap. 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] of some decades earlier.
Nevertheless, a more critical look at Hapgood’s theory reveals a number of flaws(s), which should be considered in the light of the fact that Hapgood was a professor of history and not a geologist and Graham Hancock, who heavily endorsed Hapgood’s ideas is neither.
‘Project Atlantis’ is the title of an assignment(p) given to first-year geology students at Malaspina University-College in British Columbia. It was set by lecturer Professor Steven Earle with the intention of developing the critical thinking of his students. The objective of the task is to investigate the Crustal Displacement theory of the Flem-Aths, whose ‘Atlantis in the Antarctic’ hypothesis is totally dependent on the occurrence of a pole shift resulting from some form of earth crustal displacement. Kyle Bennett has written a book and a number of papers on the subject.
Pole Shift [0795] by John White, frequently associates the destruction of Atlantis with a pole shift and anticipates another one in the near future, but unfortunately, most of the ‘evidence’ he offers in support of this contention comes from psychic sources, which cannot be accepted as reliable. However, it seems that some years later White completely revised his opinions according to a 1996 report(m).
Although the majority opinion is that pole shifts occurred as a result of encounters with extraterrestrial bodies, Hapgood contended that only the outer crust of the earth shifted and that this was the result of a build-up of ice at the Poles causing instability. However, it has since been calculated that the polar ice constitutes such a small percentage of the mass of the crust that it could not possibly have caused the slippage proposed by Hapgood. This idea and others are discussed on the Pole Shift Forum(o).
Another researcher, S.F.Wells, was prompted by Flem-Ath’s work to examine the Avebury stone circle to see if there was any evidence of a pole shift there. To his surprise, he did discover at Avebury and at other ancient monuments in the locality clear evidence of a pole change of up to 30° in the past. In 2003, he wrote a paper outlining his observations(c).
Flavio Barbiero has written a paper proposing that an impact with an asteroid as small as half a kilometre in diameter could result in a rapid pole shift(aa).
A number of facts are proposed to support the idea of a pole shift. One of the most popular is the extermination of the mammoth, which once again was central to a recent book by Charles Ginenthal, The Extinction of the Mammoth [0514]+, which dates the last pole shift to around 1500 BC. Perhaps the most impressive evidence came from Sweden in November 2009(b) when settlements dating to 9000 BC were discovered in the north of the country in a region that according to accepted theory should have been covered by ice at that time.
Wolter Smit points out that the orientation of some Mayan Temples is apparently out by around 17 degrees from what would be expected. A structural feature at the 4,000-year-old temple of Saar in Bahrain is believed to have been used to record the summer solstice is now out by 10 degrees. Similar anomalies were noted by G.F. Dodwell during his study of ancient gnomons. A further indication that our present knowledge of polar changes may be flawed is highlighted by the fact that on April 15th 136 BC we have a record of an eclipse that completely darkened Babylon that should have had its zone of totality over the Balearic Islands in the Western Mediterranean. This is a difference of nearly 50 degrees and implies that either the Earth has slowed or the polar axis has shifted.
The idea that Pole Shift(s) can be linked to the location and orientation of many ancient sites is explored by Mark Carlotto in his new book, Before Atlantis [1600].
Amy Smith also claims that the Earth ‘tilted’ around 10,000 BC(d) referring to two ancient quotations that may support the reality of this Pole Shift – one from Plato (Tim.22d) and the other from the Book of Enoch/Noah (65.1).
The Hutton Commentaries(a) contain many articles relating to an impending pole shift based on the readings of Edgar Cayce.
In October 2004, Alexander Chechelnitsky, a Russian astrophysicist claimed that Atlantis was located in the Yukon River valley in Alaska[515]. This, he believes, was the result of a pole shift although he admits that scientific evidence is lacking for this theory!
A recent overview of the Pole Shift theory was published in July 2014(h).
[0514]+ Available online: Free Electric Universe theory ebooks and related research papers (archive.org)
(a) Hutton Commentaries – Archives
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20091130170746/https://www.thelocal.se/23546/20091129/
(c) https://grahamhancock.com/wellssf1/
(d) https://www.angelfire.com/ar/josephus/Atlantis.html#Support
(e) See Archive 3029
(f) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztaWff0TtHU
(g) https://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf
(h) Antartica, Atlantis, and the Earth crustal displacement theory | CanadaNewsLibre (archive.org)
(i) See {2268}
(j) https://endtimesand2019.wordpress.com/my-newest-magazine-article-pole-shifts/
(k) https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html
(m) NHNE: Pole Shift Torpedoed by Author (archive.org)
(o) https://www.poleshift.org/index.html
(r) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/historical-chronology-of-the-mexicans.html
(s) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_earthchanges33.htm
(t) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000125053438.htm
(u) https://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/pole-shift.pdf
(v) https://en.was-this-atlantis.info/deplacer-poles.html
(w) https://q-mag.org/a-new-little-ice-age-by-2030.html
(x) https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/2953/there-is-no-impending-mini-ice-age/
Finaeus, Oronteus
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/
Blair, Nigel
Nigel Blair (1946-2005) was a British researcher who among other matters was a keen student of the Atlantis enigma. He was a founder of the Wessex Research Group(d), which appears to have aimed at producing a synthesis of the spiritual truths underlying all the major religious and philosophical movements. His interest in Atlantis led him to gather material for publication on the subject but death at a relatively early age has thwarted this. Some of his opinions are to be found on the Internet(a)(c).
Blair supported an early date for Atlantis with an Atlantic location and has drawn his views from such writers as Egerton Sykes, Otto Muck and Christian O’Brien. He also wrote a review(b) of Allan & Delair’s book Cataclysm that advocates the idea of a near collision of the Earth with a celestial body, which in turn triggered worldwide catastrophes.
>In a paper entitled Plato’s Atlantis(e), Blair was greatly influenced by Michael Baigent‘s Ancient Traces [141] and the Piri Reis Map, which convinced him that the Azores had held the location of Atlantis at the end of the last Ice Age.
(b) http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2412/
(c) http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/articles1.html
(d) http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/
(e) http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/download/pdf_platos_atlantis.pdf<
Márquez, Manuel Gómez (L)
Manuel Gómez Márquez is the author of a volume[599], which from its title would appear to be an attempt to link Atlantis with the Piri Reis Map.
The sub-title claims that ‘The Enigma of the Lost Continent (is) Finally Revealed’. In fact, the author promotes the Canaries as the location of Atlantis, which was ‘revealed’ long ago!
Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings
Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings [369] by Charles H. Hapgood, is frequently quoted as evidence of an Antarctic location for Atlantis. Hapgood’s study of ancient maps and in particular the Piri Reis Map convinced him that it showed an ice-free Antarctic. It took the Flem-Aths to combine this map with their idea of crustal displacement to develop their theory of an Antarctic Atlantis[062].
Although Hapgood gives no personal opinion regarding the existence of Atlantis and in fact he only mentions it fleetingly in a single short paragraph, he was convinced that his extensive investigation offered evidence of advanced civilisation during the Ice Age.
Hapgood was also actively interested in parapsychology and spirit communication(a) and wrote three books on the subject.
Also See: The Rocks of St. Peter & St. Paul
(a) https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1500
Antarctica *
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/
(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)
(p) https://sputniknews.com/world/201612131048479535-theorists-say-atlantis-in-antarctica/
(q) Ancient Olmecs: Survivors of the city-continent of Atlantis (archive.org)
(r) https://www.poureuxlelivre.fr/welcome/atlantis Link broken see text only (English) at Archive 3287 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(t) Was Aztlan –the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec people—Atlantis? | Ancient Code (archive.org)
(u) Has The Location Of Atlantis Just Been Discovered? – LADbible (archive.org)
(v) Jean Seimple & Fabien Pardo – Hym.media (archive.org) (French) Slow loading
(x) See: https://www.darkjournalist.com/s-farrell19.php
(y) http://www.solartyphoon.com/default.htm
(z) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51060
(aa) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/interactive/antartica.htm
(ab) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10339
(ac) https://archive.org/details/mouserevealsatla00unse/page/n2
(ae) https://www.quora.com/Is-David-Wilcock-really-the-reincarnation-of-Edgar-Cayce
(af) https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2020/0126/1111022-edward-bransfield-explorer/
(ag) Antarctica’s Long Atlantis Has Been Located Through Google Images (archive.org)
(ah)http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cosmic_tree/atlantis.htm
(ai) Archive 6533 | (atlantipedia.ie)
Piri Reis Map
The Piri Reis Map (1513)(c) was a world map drawn on a gazelle skin of which only the left-hand side still exists. It was a composite of detail gleaned from a large collection of maps, including one allegedly captured from Christopher Columbus(i), that were collected by Piri Ibn Haji Mehmed (1465/70–1553), an admiral or ‘reis’ in the Ottoman navy and noted by Rand Flem-Ath as a former pirate. Flem-Ath wrote a lengthy article for Atlantis Rising magazine #38, which I have used here(k) and which contains a lot of interesting background information.
It was discovered in 1929 in the Topkapi Palace Library in Istanbul by Gustav Deissmann (sometimes attributed to Library director Halil Edhem).
Ferdinand Speidel has written an interesting article for Atlantisforschung on the background of Piri Reis as well as a translation of the handwritten notes on the map itself(l).
Apart from a Conference in 1931, the general public was not made aware of the map until the following year.
Piri Reis wrote on the map “It is the only chart of its kind existing now. I, personally, drew and prepared it. In preparing the map I used about twenty old charts and eight ‘Mappa Monde’ (i.e., the charts called ‘Jaferiye’ by the Arabs, and prepared at the time of Alexander the Great, in which the whole inhabited world is shown); the charts of the West Indies; and the new maps made by four Portuguese, showing the Sind, Indian, and Chinese Seas geometrically represented. I also studied the chart that Christopher Columbus drew for the West. By reducing all these charts to a single scale, I compiled the present map.”
In 1956 a Turkish naval officer presented the map to the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office. From there, it was first fully investigated by Captain Arlington H. Mallery, who had spent years studying ancient maps. He is now better remembered as a controversial amateur archaeologist[666]. Mallery concluded that the map accurately depicted an ice-free Antarctica.
This map has become one of the controversial elements in the theory of an Antarctic Atlantis so strongly promoted by Rose and Rand Flem-Ath[062]. They followed the views of Charles Hapgood[369], who, having studied a range of ancient maps, were convinced that they showed parts of Antarctica as ice-free. However, the principal argument against this idea is that the removal of the massive Antarctic ice cap would have had two effects:
(i) The consequent isostatic rebound would have altered the coastline dramatically and unpredictably.
(ii) The melting of the icecap would have raised sea levels, producing further changes to the coastline of the exposed continent.
However, Jason Colavito has pointed out(h) 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.”!
Nevertheless, the late Robert Argod[065] supported the antiquity of the original maps upon which the Piri Reis Maps and other medieval charts were based and he also supported the idea of an inhabited ice-free Antarctica.
A view contrary to the Flem-Aths can be found in a recent book by Gregory McIntosh[510]. Professor Steve Dutch of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay offers a paper(b) debunking the value of the Piri Reis map, which should be read to get a more balanced view of the controversy. Paul V.Heinrich has also added a highly critical paper with many references(a).>Paul Lunde was equally critical in the Jan-Feb 1980 edition of Aramco World Magazine(n).<
Professor Steven Earle uses an assignment entitled ‘Project Atlantis‘(g) for his geology students in order to hone their critical thinking, which focuses on the Flem-Ath’s preferred variant of Pole Shift Theory known as Crustal Displacement.
>Diego Cuoghi has produced a four-part paper on the Piri Reis Map that is highly critical of those authors who have apparently rushed to adopt Hapgood’s interpretation of the chart without proper investigation with the following comments –
“But what mystery lovers are most enthusiastic about is the bottom edge of the map, which is said to represent Antarctica. Some claim that Queen Maud Land and other features of Antarctica are clearly recognizable on the map, even though that continent was not explored but many centuries later. Unfortunately, these people, including Hancock, claim the above hypothesis without making any cartographic comparison or first-hand check: they just accept Charles Hapgood’s statements as true. Hancock in particular does not mention any book about the history of cartography within the notes of the first two chapters of his book “Fingerprints of the Gods” (the very chapters about geographic charts). He just quotes Hapgood’s work, thus clearly showing that he didn’t even make an attempt to learn on the subject.”
Cuoghi also tackles the Oronteus Finaeus Map (Part 2), the Philippe Bauche Map (Part 3) and Atlantis (Part 4)(m).<
What the Piri Reis Map has done for Antarctica, the Nicolo Zeno Map of 1380 has done for Greenland which appears to show a deglaciated landmass. Features, hidden by ice but confirmed by modern seismic soundings, are shown. However, controversy has dogged the Nicolo Zeno Map as much as the Piri Reis chart.
Phillipe Buache the renowned French geographer also published a map of ice-free Antarctica in 1737, long before its recorded discovery and centuries before seismic surveys revealed the topography of the sub-glacial landmass. The source of the data for this map is so far unexplained.
In 2004, Jean-Pierre Lacroix & Robert Bywater presented a paper(d) to the International Piri Reis Symposium in which they made the radical claim that the western part of the Piri Reis map was a depiction of the outline of east and southeast Asia, rather than the Caribbean.
The ancient-origins website(e) has several papers relating to the Piri Reis Map.
The most recent studies(f) include a map showing the effects of just a partial retreat of the ice sheet, showing exposed coastlines, during the Pliocene era, which again indicates an outline of the landmass at variance with the Piri Reis Map.
A 2021 study(j) of the Map urges caution when interpreting its details.
(a) Piri Reis Map (archive.org) *
(b) https://old.world-mysteries.com/steven_dutch1.htm
(c) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_atlantida_23.htm
(d) https://www.ancientcartography.net/PiriReis/PiriReis.pdf
(g) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(h) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s14e01-return-to-Antarctica
(i) Saudi Aramco World : Piri Reis and the Columbus Map (archive.org)
(j) Pîrî Reis Map of 1513 · Dubious History
(k) Atlantis Rising magazine #38 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(l) What the Piri Reis card reports – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)
(m) https://www.diegocuoghi.com/Piri_Reis/PiriReis_eng.htm *
(n) https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/198001/piri.reis.and.the.hapgood.hypotheses.htm *