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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 »
Rand Flem-Ath
Leach, Shane
Shane Leach is an American writer who lives in Connecticut. He published Prehistory Explained [2007] as an ebook in May 2023 with the intention of proving ancient alien theory. I must be blunt and state that I consider the idea utter nonsense and have expressed my reasons throughout this compilation in particular in relation to Erich von Däniken, Zechariah Sitchin and ancient astronauts generally. In print, this Kindle book would fill over 700 pages offering an impressive triumph of quantity over quality.
The author’s introduction to the book tells you all you need to know about its content. “Prehistory Explained uses hundreds of pieces of irrefutable scientific evidence and hundreds of ancient writings to explain all the ancient mysteries. This book explores the following theories: Antarctica is the lost continent of Atlantis, the dinosaurs existed thousands of years ago not millions, ancient aliens left miles-high towers on the Moon, the Sapphire stone was a computer, Mars was inhabited in the ancient past, the Martian moon Phobos is an alien spacecraft, the Moon is an alien spaceship constructed by ancient aliens, ancient aliens directed panspermia by planting bacteria on the Earth, ancient aliens orchestrated the Cambrian Explosion, ancient aliens genetically-engineered us, and how the Anunnaki landed their X-Aerogel rocketships all over the Earth that have since depolymerized into stone pyramids.”
I therefore focused my attention on what is more relevant to this document, namely, Atlantis and found his offering sadly lacking.
Leach, along with regaling us with stories of ancient aliens and their spaceships also attempts to breathe new life into the Atlantis in Antarctica theory. He recycles the work of Rand Flem-Ath and Charles Hapgood and throws in the speculations of Richard Hoagland, but, for me, he fails to convince.
Overall the book is worth the $3 if only for its occasional comedic content.
Chatelain, Maurice
Maurice Chatelain is sometimes described as a French communications scientist who has worked as an engineer for a NASA sub-contractor, 
and apparently left before the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. He is the author of Our Cosmic Ancestors[1111], in which he made unsubstantiated claims about alien vehicles on our satellite(a). His UFO claims were debunked by Jim Oberg, who did work directly for NASA(b).
Chatelain also claimed that within a 450-mile radius of the Aegean island of Delos that there were 13 mystical sites, that when connected by straight lines formed a perfect Maltese Cross(c)!
He also drew attention to a huge number discovered on a Babylonian tablet discovered in the ruins of Nineveh. This number, 195,955,200,000,000, fascinated Chatelain, who went on to link it with both the Sumerian and Mayan calendars, referring to it as the Nineveh Constant. Rand Flem-Ath and Colin Wilson discuss this further in The Atlantis Blueprint [063.161].
His book also contains a chapter on Atlantis, which offers a brief overview of the subject before opting for the Bahamas as the location of Plato’s ‘island’.
(b) See Archive 3392
(c) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg28306.html
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is generally accepted to have been an Incan retreat, built in the middle of the 15th century on a barely accessible mountaintop of Peru about fifty miles northwest of Cuzco. It was apparently abandoned a century later and only brought to the attention of the outside world in 1911 when it was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956).
In 2021 the use of a more advanced dating method (accelerator mass spectrometry) has pushed back the earliest date for the site by a couple of decades to 1420 AD(j).
Mark Adams, the American writer, wrote an account of his retracing of Bingham’s journey to Machu Picchu[976]. Along with the narrative of his pilgrimage, Adams has also interwoven a valuable history of the region.
In 2013, a Polish-Peruvian team, while exploring a previously unexcavated building on the site, claimed to have discovered that the structure was astronomically aligned(a). The following year saw a newly discovered section of the Inca Road, which leads to Machu Picchu, announced by the Andina News Agency(c).
In July 2016, it was reported that what are considered pre-Inca petroglyphs were discovered in the Machu Picchu region(d)(e). Research is proceeding.
The siting of the sanctuary has been something of a mystery, Recent research suggests that the existence of geological faults that lie beneath it may offer some of the answers. Rualdo Menegat, a Brazilian geologist, presented a paper to the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting in Phoenix, in which he claims that the Incas deliberately chose to build Machu Picchu and some of their cities where tectonic faults meet!(h)
It was revealed in 2019 that work had commenced on the building of a new international airport to service Machu Picchu, a development that has been vigorously opposed as a threat to the already fragile site. It is worth noting that in 2017, 1.5 million visitors, nearly twice the limit recommended by UNESCO, came to Machu Picchu(g).
Also in 2019, it was announced that an even older Inca site was discovered 1,500 metres higher than Machu Picchu using LiDar(i).
Some pathetic attempts have been made to link Machu Picchu with Atlantis. One of them claims that “This was the (summer?) residence of the continental governor, who at the time of the destruction of Atlantis was a woman.”(b) Others, such as Rand Flem-Ath along with the late Colin Wilson[063], as well as Jim Alison, have included the Andean site in proposed global grids linking prehistoric sites.
A less-known Inca site is that of Choquequirao(f), sometimes referred to as the ‘sister’ of Machu Picchu. Only a third of the site has been excavated so far.
>In March 2022, it was reported that “a new academic paper argues that since its rediscovery more than a century ago, the site has been known by the wrong name. A Peruvian historian and a leading US archaeologist argue that the Unesco world heritage site was known by its Inca inhabitants as Huayna Picchu – the name of a peak overlooking the ruins – or simply Picchu.”(l)<
Charles R. Kos expressed a belief “that Macchu(sic) Picchu in Peru which is held to be ‘Inca’ is in fact, I am fairly certain, an Irish Monastery from the Dark Ages.”(k)
(a) http://web.archive.org/web/20250906155124/https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2330/
(e) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/new-rock-paintings-discovered-machu-picchu-006393?nopaging=1
(h) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190923140814.htm
(j) Machu Picchu older than expected, study reveals | YaleNews
(l) Machu Picchu: Inca site ‘has gone by wrong name for over 100 years’ | Archaeology | The Guardian *
Bennett, Kyle
Kyle Bennett is a British journalist and the author of Polar Wandering and the Cycle of Ages, which reviews the Earth Crustal Displacement (ECD) theory of Charles Hapgood. Prior to the book, he had written a number of articles about the history of ECD theory before Hapgood. One concerned Frederik Klee(a) and another was about Sir John Evans(b) the British archaeologist. He also reviews the history of ECD on Graham Hancock’s website(d). His maintains his own supporting website(e).
In case readers may feel that the subject of ECD is unrelated to Atlantis, they should keep in mind that the theory of Atlantis in the Antarctica(c), promoted by Rand Flem-Ath, is totally dependent on ECD and its occurrence within the memory of man.
(a) https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/frederik-klee-the-unsung-hero-of-earth-crust-displacement/
(b) https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/earth-crust-displacement-and-the-british-establishment/
(c) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180524185741/https://www.flem-ath.com/ (link broken)
Rengifo, Robert
Robert Rengifo was a little known Chilean professor who flourished in the early decades of the 20th century. He had an intense interest in the prehistory of America and presented 
his views in the Proceedings of the prestigious Societe Scientifique du Chili(The Scientific Society of Chile) from 1904 until 1935. He focused on the aboriginal peoples of Chile and in particular Patagonia in the extreme south. His attention was drawn even further south to Antarctica where he controversially concluded that man had originated (rather than Africa). Then following a catastrophic axial pole shift that destroyed Atlantis, which was located in Antarctica, people were forced to migrate, populating the rest of the Americas and then the world.
Rafael Videla Eissmann, who has championed Rengifo’s work has drawn attention to an excerpt from the epic poem, La Araucana, by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-1594) which translates from the original Castilian as
“Chile, fertile and known land
in the famous Antarctic region
from ancient nations respected
because of being strong, important and powerful”.
Eissmann believes that this suggests knowledge of an ancient Antarctic polar civilisation!
While many of his conclusions may now appear purely speculative, in fact, Rengifo thought his views would eventually be vindicated by archaeology. The Monte Verde site in southern Chile has since been dated to around 11,000 BC. In addition, the enormous dressed stone blocks of El Enladrillado, also in Chile, raise questions about the technological capabilities of the region’s early inhabitants.
This apparent movement of peoples from south to north was endorsed by Arthur Posnansky in his 1919 book La Hora Futura [0941] The ensuing half century saw more of his conclusions echoed by researchers such as Charles Hapgood, the Flem-Aths, Hugh Auchincloss Brown and Robert Argod.
His work has recently been highlighted in a 2008 book[792] by Rafael Videla Eissmann as well as in a series of papers on his website(a). Another overview of Rengifo’s theories is available online(b).
(a) https://obrasrafaelvidelaeissmann.blogspot.com/ (Spanish) [use search facility]
*(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20160326042154/https://www.alertaaustral.cl/articulo.php?id=190*
The Atlantis Blueprint
The Atlantis Blueprint[0063] by Rand Flem-Ath and Colin Wilson, is a follow-up to the highly controversial, When the Sky Fell by Rand Flem-Ath and his wife Rose. The focus of this book is on the claimed existence of a worldwide network that incorporates such famous sites as Giza, Machu Picchu, Easter Island etc., etc. The authors claim that these monuments were arranged in a global geometric pattern by an advanced ancient civilisation that included Plato’s Atlantis. This breathtaking idea is not one that I can subscribe to, as it seeks to tie up too many of the mysterious loose ends of ancient history at one fell swoop.
Gnomons
Donetsk sundial
Gnomons are the vertical markers of sundials that casts the sun’s shadow. The oldest known sundial is possibly the one found in a burial mound in 2011, near Donetsk in Ukraine(c). Herodotus tells us that the Greeks learned the use of dials from the Chaldeans. The first use of gnomons by the ancient Egyptians is thought to be as early as 3500 BC(d). Further afield, gnomons were widely used in ancient China(f)(g).
Gnomons are also used to cast the shadows, by which means latitude can be calculated. Furthermore, the earth’s tilt (obliquity-of-the-ecliptic) may also be calculated using gnomon data and it was this feature that created problems for the Australian astronomer G.F. Dodwell, who carried out a study of gnomons around the world over the past 4,000 years. It is generally accepted that the tilt of the earth’s axis varies cyclically between 22 and 24.5°, over a period of some 40,000 years, due to a number of factors. Dodwell’s difficulty was that his investigations revealed a distinct deviation from the expected, around 2345 BC. The only conclusion that Dodwell could arrive at was that either ancient observations were systematically in error all over the world, or the earth’s tilt angle had been altered during historical times.
Dodwell was convinced that this date of 2345 BC, was the date of Noah’s Flood, when the obliquity-of-the-ecliptic was altered from 5° to its present 23.5°. Although Dodwell was a scientist, he was also fundamentalist in his Christian beliefs. It would appear, therefore, that his conclusions regarding the date of the Flood may have been an amalgam of his religious views and his scientific investigations.
Amy Smith of Flippin, Arkansas, has a website(b) relating to Atlantis, in which she highlights two references that indicate a prehistoric change in the earth’s axial tilt, one from the Book of Noah (65.1) and the other from Plato.
Colin Wilson refers[335] to the view of Rand Flem-Ath who maintains that many Mexican temples, which one would expect to be aligned with true north, and in the case of at least 50 of them, are consistently 15.5º adrift of this orientation, providing evidence for the crustal slippage suggested by Charles Hapgood. Although Hapgood proposed a date of 9500 BC for such slippage, long before the present temples were constructed, Wilson points out that religious edifices were frequently erected on the foundations of earlier sacred structures. Many Christian churches have been built astride pagan sites. Whether Rand’s ideas and Dodwell’s discoveries are in any way related, will require further investigation.
The idea of a global catastrophe around 2300 BC has gained support in a number of quarters including advocates such as Moe M. Mandelkehr, an ardent catastrophist[337] and Barry Setterfield a dedicated creationist(a). Further support for an axial shift came from Malcolm Bowden, of the Creation Science Movement[590].
For those interested in constructing their own gnomon, there are a number of sites giving clear useful instructions(e).
(a) Barry Setterfield Papers (archive.org)
(b) https://old.world-mysteries.com/mpl_10_atlantis_asmith.htm
(c) https://www.livescience.com/40220-album-ancient-bronze-age-sundial.html
(d) http://historyofsciences.blogspot.ie/2015/11/around-3500-bc-ancient-egyptian-develop.html
(e) Horizontal and Vertical Sundials (archive.org)
From Atlantis to the Sphinx
From Atlantis to the Sphinx: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of the Ancient World [335] by Colin Wilson, presents the idea that the inhabitants of Atlantis were the precursors of the ancient Egyptians, as well as the Maya and Aztecs. He perceives Atlantis as a seafaring nation with worldwide reach. He contends that Atlantis was originally located in Antarctica and was destroyed in a worldwide catastrophe. This theme is developed further in a second book[063] that Wilson co-authored with Rand Flem-Ath. More recently, Wilson has altered his views and supported Robert Sarmast’s claim for Atlantis being located off Cyprus.
To support an extended antiquity for Egypt, he outlines evidence for a 10500 BC construction date for the legendary Sphinx. Unfortunately, most of his ‘evidence’ is a re-working of information to be found elsewhere.
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
Allegory
An Allegory is the most common description of Plato’s Atlantis story offered by sceptics, eager to deny any historical value in the narrative. Parallels have been drawn with the Persian wars; Plato’s experiences in Syracuse and even more opaquely by Alan Alford, who proposed that “Atlantis – was an allegory for the myth of the creation of the Universe.”
Rand Flem-Ath quite reasonably argues that the idea of Atlantis as an allegory makes sense only if there is no realistic geographic explanation for Plato’s description of the site of the lost land. Consequently if an interpretation of the story can indicate a credible location and time for the destruction of Atlantis, then the allegory theory is considerably weakened.
Last year (2023) Nikos Mavrakis from the UK’s University of Birmingham, School of Metallurgy and Materials, published a paper(a) offering a new allegorical interpretation of Plato’s Atlantis story. He “argues that Plato’s account can be seen as a reply to the Greeks’ views, partly influenced by Herodotus’s Histories, that the Egyptian civilization was superior to theirs.” Mavrakis infers that Herodotus was in effect an Egyptian propagandist, a view he incorporates in the title of his paper.
If the Atlantis mystery is ever finally resolved, I am inclined to think it will be found that Plato used the actual prehistoric destruction of a powerful civilisation as the core for his story and wrapped it in the details of events closer to his own time, presenting the entire account as a morality tale.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that Plato’s ‘ideal state’ of Atlantis is claimed as the inspiration for both Sir Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ and St. Augustine’s ‘City of God’ among many others.