An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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  • NEWS September 2023

    NEWS September 2023

    September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]Read More »
  • Joining The Dots

    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 »
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Rand & Rose Flem-Ath

Wilcock, David

David Wilcock (1963- ) is best known, particularly in the United States, as a producer of The History Channel’s ‘eccentric’ Ancient Aliens TV series, which is appropriate as Wilcock appears to be rather eccentric himself. There is a 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 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.”(a)

Wilcock’s Atlantis theories are equally bizarre offering a cocktail of Edgar Cayce mixed with Erich Von Däniken blended with Graham Hancock and an added pinch of Rand Flem-Ath(b). This enable him to weave the ‘Atlantis in Antarctica‘ story into his twisted idea that the world is controlled by a cabal of evil alien and human conspirators.

(a) https://www.quora.com/Is-David-Wilcock-really-the-reincarnation-of-Edgar-Cayce

(b) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_atlanteanheritage.htm

Columbus, Christopher

ColumbusChristopher 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. Apart from that, both Spain and Portugal have claimed that he belonged to their respective nations(f).<

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. 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!

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)

(d) Columbus’s Identity Crisis and the Ongoing Spread of False Columbus News | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(e) Atlantis Rising magazine #29   http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At 

(f) https://www.thinkinitalian.com/was-christopher-columbus-italian/ *

 

Expanding Earth Hypothesis, The

The Expanding Earth Hypothesis.

For thousands of years, it was accepted that the surface of the earth was in a static state. This belief persisted until the rediscovery of America in 1492 and the cartographic improvements during the following century before Abraham Ortelius in his 1596 Thesaurus Geographicus[1225]  proposed that the Americas had once been joined to Europe and Africa. It is often claimed that in 1620 Francis Bacon commented on the close fit of eastern South America with the west coast of Africa, however, this, according to G.L. Herries Davies, is an exaggerated interpretation of what he actually said(o).

A number of others concurred with the jig-saw suggestion until 1858 when the French geographer Antonio Snider-Pellegrini offered[0555] a theory of crustal movement that was more fully developed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener, which he came to label ‘continental drift’(e). Snider-Pellegrini also thought that the Earth had been much smaller at the time of the biblical Genesis(ac)! The big objection to the theory was a lack of a convincing mechanism to explain it(f).

Tectonic PlatesA number of writers have attempted to bring the theory of Continental Drift (CD) into the Atlantis debate. They seem to overlook the fact CD was proposed as a very very slow process, while Plato describes the demise of Atlantis as occurring in a single day and a night.

Wegener’s theory was debated until the late 1950’s when it morphed into the theory of Plate Tectonics (PT) following new developments in earth sciences in particular the recognition of seafloor spreading at mid-ocean ridges. However, PT as we know it demands subduction(z), which in itself has created new problems(aa)(ab).

The theory divides the lithosphere into a number of plates that are constantly moving in various directions at rates of a few centimetres a year. Competing with PT in the early years was the theory of Earth Crustal Displacement advocated by Charles Hapgood which claims that the entire crust of the earth moved as a unit. Endorsed by Albert Einstein it is fundamental to the theory of an Antarctic location for Atlantis proposed by Rose & Rand Flem-Ath.

Unfortunately, Plate Tectonics does not explain everything and ever since it gained the pre-eminence it currently enjoys, various writers have questioned what they perceive as its shortcomings(g)(h)(i).

A totally different proposal is that the earth is expanding. Although the concept did not get much attention until the 1980’s there are antecedents stretching back to 1888(a), when the earliest suggestion was made by the Russian, Ivan Yarkovsky (1844-1902). A year later the Italian geologist (and violinist) Roberto Montovani (1854-1933) proposed(I) a similar mechanism. In 1933, Ott Christoph

 Hilgenberg

Hilgenberg

Hilgenberg(t) published  Vom wachsenden Erdbal (The Expanding Earth) [1328].

In 1963, a Russian lady, Kamilla Abaturova, wrote to Egerton Sykes expressing the view that although her theory of an expanding Earth involved a ‘slow’ process, she proposed that at the time of Atlantis’ the radius of the Earth was 600 km shorter(af). In geological terms, this is far from ‘slow’!

The leading proponent of the theory today is arguably the, now retired, geologist Dr James Maxlow(b). A detailed outline of the theory is also offered on his website(c). For laymen like myself, a series of YouTube clips(d) are probably more informative. I have stated elsewhere that I am sympathetic towards the idea of earth expansion finding it somewhat more credible than plate tectonics. The truth of the matter is that since Ortelius first suggested that the continents of our planet had moved, all that has emerged since is a refinement of that basic idea leading to CD which became PT and as the latter still does not answer all the questions it raises, it is clear that further modification will be required.> In December 2021, Maxlow published an overview of his current thinking on Expansion Tectonics(ag).<

The Expanding Earth Hypothesis may, as its proponents claim, supply all those answers. Others do not think so, which brings me to J. Marvin Herndon who has ‘married’ the theory of an expanding earth with the idea of crustal plates(j) , naming his 2005 concept Whole-Earth Decompression Dynamics (WEDD).

The Thunderbolts.info website has a three-part article seeking to offer “an alternative to plate and extension tectonics”. The anonymous author suggests that an electrical element is involved in the development of our planet. An extensive look at mountain building is also included(y).

>A 1998 paper(ah). by Bill Mundy an American Professor of Physics is still relevant. In it, he discusses the pros and cons of both plate tectonics and the expanding earth hypothesis and concluded that Despite the success that standard plate-tectonics theory has enjoyed, there are phenomena that it currently is not able to model. Perhaps the most adequate model would incorporate Owens’ suggestion that there is both subduction and expansion. This would allow the earth to expand at a modest rate with reasonable changes in surface gravitation and also require some subduction for which the evidence seems convincing. But such a model presents the difficulty of finding suitable mechanisms for expansion, plate motion and subduction!”

In October 2022 Doug Fisher published a paper on Graham Hancock’s website highlighting weaknesses in the generally accepted theory of plate tectonics and seeking a review of the expanding earth hypothesis(ai).<

Keith Wilson, an American researcher, has also developed a website(k) devoted to the EEH and linked it to Pole Shift. However, he goes further and introduces Mayan prophecies into the subject, which in my view is unwise in the light of recent events or rather non-events!

In the meanwhile, a number of Atlantis researchers have endorsed the EEH including, Stan DeyoGeorg Lohle and Rosario Vieni. Nicolai Zhirov referred to the growing support both in Russia and elsewhere for the EEH citing a number of its supporters, adding that “the idea of the Earth expanding (within reasonable limits) cannot be ruled out altogether as absurd.[458.126]

A number of websites have dismissed the EEH as pseudoscience, which is confirmed by satellite measurements(m)(n).

There is also a variation of the standard expansion theory which proposes(q) that expansion may have occurred in fits and starts. There also seems to be evidence that the Earth is not alone with Venus expanding(r) and Mercury contracting(s).

Another matter that may be related to the claim of an expanding Earth is the question of the size of dinosaurs and other creatures and plants millions of years ago, which is claimed to have been impossible if gravity then was the same as today. A book[1218] by Stephen Hurrell has expanded on this idea. There is an interesting website(p) that deals with the enormous size of the dinosaurs as well as other creatures at the same period and the support it may offer the EEH.

Neal Adams, a respected graphic artist(u), is a vocal supporter of the EEH(v), but, he has gone further and has also proposed a growing Moon as well(w). Not content with that, he has extended his expansion investigations to other bodies in our Solar System, such as, Mars, Ganymede & Europa(x). Adams considers the term “Expanding Earth” a misnomer and has named his proposed expansion process ‘pair production’.(ad)

A December 2018 paper by Degezelle Marvin offers some new support for the EEH(ae). The author includes an interesting comparison of the problems of the currently accepted paradigm of plate tectonics with possible solutions offered by EEH. The author concludes with;

“The problems with plate tectonics were presented in this paper. Earth scientists dogmatically follow the plate tectonics theory that is falsified by geological data while Earth expansion is clearly a viable candidate to replace plate tectonics. Analysis map of the age of the oceanic lithosphere showed that the isochrons only ft on a smaller Earth with a calculated radius. Mountain formation has even been presented as a logical result of the Earth’s expansion. The average rate of the growth of the Earth’s radius is 1.22cm/year, obtained by geological methods.”

Finally, I cannot help thinking about those Victorians who thought that they had reached the pinnacle of scientific understanding. They were wrong and, I believe, that so are we, although we are slowly, very slowly, edging towards the truth, which may or may not involve the vindication of the Expanding Earth Hypothesis.

(a) https://www.checktheevidence.co.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=394&Itemid=59

(b) https://www.expansiontectonics.com/page2.html

(c) https://www.expansiontectonics.com/page3.html

(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUkEu6YYR3s

(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift

(f) https://www.scientus.org/Wegener-Continental-Drift.html

(g) https://davidpratt.info/ncgt-jse.htm

(h) https://davidpratt.info/lowman.htm

(i) https://www.newgeology.us/presentation21.html

(j) https://web.archive.org/web/20200926204322/http://nuclearplanet.com/

(k) https://www.eearthk.com/

(l) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Mantovani

(m) https://web.archive.org/web/20200928171034/https://www.xearththeory.com/expanding-earth-theory-debunked/

(n) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/2014/05/12/the-expanding-earth/

(o) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238388608_Francis_Bacon_and_Continental_Drift

(p) The Inflating Earth: 4 – Gravity | MalagaBay (archive.org)

(q) https://web.archive.org/web/20161203151134/http://www.xearththeory.com/expansion/

(r) https://web.archive.org/web/20200808000231/https://www.xearththeory.com/expanding-venus/

(s) https://web.archive.org/web/20200807234839/https://www.xearththeory.com/mercury/

(t) https://web.archive.org/web/20200206154438/http://wachsende-erde.de/web-content/bilder/hilgenb/hilgenberg1933.pdf

(u) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Adams

(v) https://www.naturalphilosophy.org/site/dehilster/2014/09/22/is-the-earth-expanding-and-even-growing/

(w) Neal Adams: 02 – The Growing Moon | MalagaBay (archive.org)

(x) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy3_sWF7tv4

(y) https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16534 (link broken Oct. 2019)  See: https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-3326/

(z) https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-subduction-3892831

(aa) https://www.newgeology.us/presentation8.html

(ab) https://web.archive.org/web/20190715191800/http://areopagusletters.com/10-problems-with-plate-tectonics

(ac) https://www.annalsofgeophysics.eu/index.php/annals/article/view/4622

(ad) https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/neal-adams-01-the-growing-earth/

(ae) https://www.gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers-Astrophysics/Download/7531

(af) Atlantis, Volume 16, No. 1, February 1963.

(ag) NCGTJV9N4_Pub.pdf (registeredsite.com)

(ah) https://www.grisda.org/assets/public/publications/origins/15053.pdf *

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

Kenyon, J. Douglas

J. Douglas Kenyon is the editor and publisher of the well-known douglas kenyonAtlantis Rising magazine, now closed down. He is also the editor of the ‘Forbidden’ series of books. One of these  Forbidden History[802] is an anthology of over forty articles previously published in Atlantis Rising. The book covers a range of fascinating subjects including Darwinism, catastrophism, ancient technologies and ancient civilisations including Atlantis. Contributors include Will Hart, David Lewis(b), Frank Joseph, Robert Schoch and Christopher Dunn. Kenyon has written a number of introductory articles to the various sections of the book. Elsewhere(a), he has written a sympathetic review of the Flem-Aths’ Antarctic theory.

Although I cannot subscribe to many of  the ideas presented in his book I can certainly recommend it as a good overview of ‘alternative’ history.

>(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20190831203830/https://www.briantaylor.com/Atlantis.htm<

(b) https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/religion.occult.new_age/occult_library/Atlantis%20Rising%20Magazine/12contents.pdf

Cartography

Cartography is defined by The International Cartographic Association “as the discipline dealing with the conception, production, dissemination and study of maps.” The earliest land maps can be traced back to Babylonia around 1400 BC. In 2017, Evangelos Livieratos, Professor Emeritus of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki Cartography Department, offered evidence that the ancient Greeks were the first to develop a primitive GPS system, using the stars and their relationship with the earth’s surface(g).

O.A.W. Dilkie (1915-1993) was an English classical scholar and the author of a well-regarded paper Greek and Roman Maps [1753]. The BBC offered an overview of the development of cartography since the 15th century(k).

The subject entered the Atlantis arena in 1665 with the publication of a speculative map(a) of Atlantis, situated in the Atlantic, by Athanasius Kircher. It was allegedly based on earlier Egyptian maps, but unfortunately, there has been no corroborative evidence to support this contention. Kircher’s map had been used to bolster a variety of location theories – Azores, Russia, Baffin Bay and Greenland, Kircher himself favoured the Azores.

Hy-Brasil was reputed to be an island to the west of Ireland and frequently associated with the story of Atlantis. The Genoese cartographer, Angellino de Dalorto (fl.1339), placed Hy-Brasil on a map as early as 1325. It is further claimed that Dalorto, sometimes known as Angelino Dulcert, also depicted Australia on his 1339 portolan chart(l).

However, on some 15th-century maps, the islands of the Azores appear as Isola de Brazil, or Insulla de Brazil. Apparently, it was not until as late as 1865 that Hy-Brasil was finally removed from official naval charts.

Another feature on ancient that can confuse is the placing of the south at the top of old charts, two examples of which are Kircher’s map of Atlantis and Al-Idrisi’s Tabula Rogeriana. Caroline Williams has an interesting article(e) on the BBC website relating to the history of map orientation.

California_island_Vinckeboons5The unreliability of early maps is highlighted by the manner in which California has been depicted. In the 16th century, the maps of both Mercator and Ortelius correctly show Baja California as a peninsula, but in the following 17th and 18th centuries, it became an island on many charts despite written evidence to the contrary. There is a website dedicated to a study of the ‘island of California’(I), which incongruously ends with a brief reference to Atlantis, placing it in the Atlantic in the Region of Bermuda.

Donald S. Johnson in his well-illustrated Phantom Islands of the Atlantic[0652] discusses in detail the history of seven legendary islands. This fascinating book offers every reason to treat the details of early cartography with extreme caution.

Further difficulties with old cartography are the result of early mapmakers having a dread of blank spaces, a view outlined in a recent (Nov. 2017) National Geographic online article(h).

The most widely referred to map in relation to Atlantis as well as advanced ancient civilisations is the Piri Reis chart. This arguably depicts an ice-free Antarctica and has been used to develop the idea that Atlantis had been located there and was destroyed when a sudden pole shift caused the southern icecap to move to its present position. Rose and Rand Flem-Ath are the leading proponents of this idea based on the findings of Charles Hapgood. Other maps such as that of Phillipe Buache, the renowned French geographer, published in 1737, are claimed to show an ice-free Antarctica.

It is claimed by Ivan Petricevic that The Ben Zara Map of 1487 “displays remnants of glaciers in Britain, but also extremely detailed depictions of islands in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Today, these islands still exist, but due to rising water levels, these are now underwater.”(j)

Dale Drinnon had an interesting if speculative, article on ancient maps and their possible relevance to the story of Atlantis(b).  Another article in Atlantis Rising magazine (July/August 2014) argues that the quality of medieval navigational charts (portolans) of the Mediterranean exceeded the capabilities of the instruments and knowledge in the region at that time and must have originated elsewhere. However, Roel Nicolai at Holland’s Utrecht University, who expressed these sentiments, was unwilling to nominate Atlantis as the source of the maps(c).

When asked in a recent interview what he meant by ‘advanced civilisation Graham Hancock revealed(u) that “I think we’re talking about a civilization – more than 12,000 years ago – which was as advanced as our civilization was, say in the late 18th century or early 19th century. In other words, they could navigate the world, they could explore the world, they could measure the world accurately, they had precise astronomy, they could create beautiful maps that were accurate in terms of latitude and longitude. That kind of level of civilization.”

Enrique García Barthe is an Argentinian cartographer who has an interesting Spanish/English website(d) dealing with pre-Columbian maps. Although many people have heard of the Piri Reis Map and the controversy surrounding it, García Barthe introduces a lot of new maps that appear to complement Piri Reis.

In 2015, Melissa Brooks used the data in the Atlantipedia chronology of location theories to develop a map(f) showing the distribution and level of support for the various theories on offer.

(a) https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=19800.100

(b) See: Archive 3591

(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20160805113251/https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/maps-from-before-history/

(d)  https://web.archive.org/web/20111026020513/https://globalizacion.no.sapo.pt/ingles/pon_ing_1.htm

(e) https://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160614-maps-have-north-at-the-top-but-it-couldve-been-different

(f) https://www.guerrillacartography.org/?s=Atlantis

(g) https://www.tornosnews.gr/en/greek-news/culture/22876-cartography-professor-ancient-greeks-in-ionia-first-used-gps-method-to-navigate.html

(h) Why Ancient Mapmakers Were Terrified of Blank Spaces (archive.org) *

(i) https://californiaasanisland.org/

(j) 9 Extremely Ancient Maps That Should Not Exist | Ancient Code (archive.org)

(k) https://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180819-the-travel-guides-that-charted-our-world

(l) https://www.dailygrail.com/2015/01/ancient-maps-reveal-a-thread-of-truth-weaved-through-antiquity/

(m) https://www.dailygrail.com/2019/04/watch-graham-hancock-discuss-his-new-book-america-before/

Italian Atlantology

Italian Atlantology can be traced back to the 16th century when Fracastoro, Garimberto and Ramusio, identified the Americas as Atlantis. In fact, we should look to the 15th century when Ficino was the first to translate Plato’s entire works into Latin giving medieval Europe its first access to the complete Atlantis texts. Not much happened until 1788 when Carli attributed the destruction of Atlantis to a close encounter with a comet. In 1840, Angelo Mazzoldi proposed Italy as the location of  Atlantis and as the hyper-diffusionist mother culture of the great civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean region. He was followed by others such as Giuseppe Brex(b).

Two years after Donnelly published his Atlantis in 1882  the Italian, D’Albertis followed him and opted for the Azores as the remains of Atlantis.

Not much developed in pre-war Italy apart from Russo’s journal which ran from 1930 until 1932. After the war, other Atlantis journals were established by Gianni Belli(d) in 1956 and Bettini in 1963 and reportedly one in Trieste by Antonio Romain & Serge Robbia(c).

After that, there was a wide range of theories advanced by Italian researchers. Spedicato located Atlantis in Hispaniola, Stecchini opted for São Tomé, Barbiero, who although Croatian by birth was an admiral in the Italian Navy nominated the Antarctic as the home of Atlantis before the Flem-Aths published their Antarctic ideas. Bulloni chose the Arctic, Pincherle identified the Mandaeans as the last of the Atlanteans and Monte links Thera with Tarshish.

In recent years the most widely reported Atlantis theory to emanate from Italy came from Sergio Frau who advocates Sardinia as the original Atlantis. However, this idea is not new having been promoted by Poddighe in 1982. Frau has subsequently been supported by other commentators such as Tozzi and Novo. I cannot help feeling that there might be a trace of nationalism underlying this theory, a suspicion that I have held regarding writers of other nationalities.

The latter end of the 20th century saw the development of the Internet which enabled the instant promotion of Atlantis theories, both silly and serious, to a global audience. Italy was no exception, where websites, such as Edicolaweb that are sympathetic to the exploration of historical mysteries emerged(a).

More recently, Marin, Minella & Schievenin had The Three Ages of Atlantis[0972published in 2014. This is an English translation of their original 2010 work. In it, they suggest that Atlantis had originally existed in Antarctica and after its destruction survivors established two other Atlantises in South America and the Mediterranean. Perhaps more credible is the theory of Capuchin friar, Antonio Moro who, in 2013, suggested that Atlantis had included Iberia, the south coast of France and the west coast of Italy![0974]

> I must include here a mention of the website of Pierluigi Montalbano where he and various guest authors have written many interesting articles, particularly about Sardinia and its Nuraghic past as well as Atlantis. The site is well worth a browse and as it has Google Translate built-in it is accessible to all(e).<

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20140625081839/https://edicolaweb.net/cerca.htm

(b) https://www.simmetria.org/simmetrianew/contenuti/articoli/43-altri-articoli/705-giuseppe-brex-e-il-primato-italico-di-paolo-galiano.html  (Italian)

(c) Atlantis, Vol 16, No.2, April 1963.

(d)  025_028.PDF (uranialigustica.altervista.org)  *

(e) https://pierluigimontalbano.blogspot.com/2014/04/uno-tsunami-cancello-la-civilta-nuragica.html *

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.

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

(l) https://www.sott.net/article/223364-The-Beginning-of-Ice-Age-Magnetic-polar-shifts-causing-massive-global-superstorms

(m) NHNE: Pole Shift Torpedoed by Author (archive.org) 

(n) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/greek-sculptors-in-ancient-china-plus-a-very-early-claim-for-a-pole-shift-destroying-atlantis

(o) https://www.poleshift.org/index.html

(p) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20080705100438/https://www.nagt.org/files/nagt/jge/abstracts/Earle_v51n3p290.pdf

(q) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-forgotten-nineteenth-century-pole-shift-claim-and-its-connection-the-great-pyramid-of-egypt

(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/ 

(y) https://www.ancientoriginsunleashed.com/p/quest-for-mu-200000-year-old-sunken?publication_id=1035345&post_id=135365655&isFreemail=true 

(z) https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?2004JRASC..98..183B&defaultprint=YES&page_ind=1&filetype=.pdf *

Kircher, Athanasius *

athanasius-kircherFr. Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and a professor of ethics and mathematics at the University of Würzburg. In his day he was considered one of the greatest authorities in Europe on Chinese and Egyptian cultures, archaeology, ancient languages and astronomy. However, he was not without his detractors, one of whom was Descartes who robustly attacked Kircher’s scientific abilities. Kircher’s writings filled 44 folio volumes.

Kircher claimed to have deciphered the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, but this was later shown to be unfounded and drew highly critical comments such as that of the Egyptologist Sir E. A. Wallis Budge who wrote in 1910: Many writers pretended to have found the key to the hieroglyphics, and many more professed, with a shameless impudence which is hard to understand in these days, to translate the contents of the texts into a modern tongue. Foremost among such pretenders must be mentioned Athanasius Kircher, who, in the 17th century, declared that he had found the key to the hieroglyphic inscriptions; the translations which he prints in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus are utter nonsense, but as they were put forth in a learned tongue many people at the time believed they were correct. A more recent critique is available online(b).

When it is realised that more than a century was to pass after Kircher’s death before the Rosetta Stone was discovered and the work of Champollion finally gave us a reliable decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, it is quite reasonable to treat Kircher’s translation as purely speculative. His efforts in this regard were recently described as ‘illusory’.

In recent times Kircher has regained widespread fame because of the map, published in his Mundus Subterraneus [1203],  which among a range of subjects(c), outlines Atlantis (Insula Atlantis) between Africa and America. This Latin text can now be read or downloaded online(a). A 1678 edition of the book held in the Fagel Collection in Trinity College, Dublin has been described as one of the most beautiful books in the collection(h).

In Mundus Subterraneus Kircher was the first to propose that the Canaries and the Azores were the mountain peaks of sunken Atlantis. His famous map has the north shown at the bottom with Africa and Spain on the left and America on the right. There is no particular significance in this fact as the convention of having North at the top of maps is relatively recent and generally attributed to the controversial 8th-century Irish cleric, Virgil of Salzburg, who was eventually appointed bishop of that city and later canonised as St. Virgilius. A Latin label on the map reads: “site of Atlantis, now beneath the sea, according to the beliefs of the Egyptians and the description of Plato. A chart based on beliefs and descriptions clearly shows that his offering is speculative and not a real map, although some claim that it is an ‘authentic’ depiction of Atlantis, such as can be seen on an hour-long YouTube video from a 1997 conference(g).

>Despite being based on speculation, Kircher’s map is still widely used today. An article by Phil Edwards has commented on its continued use – ” We can only guess why one map became the iconic depiction of Atlantis, but there are a few reasonable assumptions. It had a veneer of scientific legitimacy, thanks to Kircher’s reputation and other work. It came at a time when the world was actively being reimagined. And Kircher’s map was one of the earliest ones nestled into an otherwise accurate depiction of the world. And perhaps most important is that once Atlantis’s appearance was established it couldn’t really be disproven. So the same map stuck around for centuries” (l).<

Recently, Doug Fisher has drawn attention to the similarities between a 1592 map of South America by Abraham Ortelius and Kircher’s Atlantis map when inverted(e). Frank Jacobs has highlighted the same comparison but also notes how the map might be seen as an image of Greenland(i). Some further background information on Kircher’s map is to be found online(f).

Kircher’s Atlantis map is widely used, particularly by supporters of an Atlantic Atlantis. Some, such as Dieter Thom, have followed Kircher’s view that Atlantis had been located in the Azores, while others have been more liberal in their interpretation of the map. Dale Huffman, Johan Nygren and Mario Dantas have associated the map with Greenland. Ian A. Fox has pushed matters further by nominating Baffin Bay west of Greenland as formerly the Plain of Atlantis. Now, while all these have kept their chosen Atlantis locations within the Atlantic Ocean conforming, at least to some extent, with Kircher’s map. However, there are a number of commentators who have employed the map to justify even more exotic locations. At one end of the world, Rand and Rose Flem-Ath were apparently inspired by Kircher’s map and opted for an Antarctic Atlantis, while at the other end, just south of the Arctic Circle Marco Francesco Bulloni has nominated the Solovetsky archipelago in northwest Russia as the home of Atlantis, once again inspired by Kircher. Of course, I’ve saved the best for last with Australia as the nominee and a specific location of Port Arthur in Tasmania(k).

Less known is his 1665 world map recently published on the atlan.org. website(j).

athanasius_kircher map

In 2004 a book[425] with the enticing title of Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything was published. It was edited by Paula Findlen and includes essays by leading historians of our day.

(a) https://archive.org/details/mundussubterrane02kirc

(b) https://publicdomainreview.org/2013/05/16/athanasius-kircher-and-the-hieroglyphic-sphinx/

(c) https://publicdomainreview.org/2012/11/01/athanasius-underground/

(e) https://atlantismaps.com/chapter_7.html (Link broken Nov. 2018) New replacement site is now being developed – https://www.copheetheory.com/

(f) https://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8516829/imaginary-island-atlantis-map-kircher

(g) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZcuJKilUdw

(h) https://www.tcd.ie/library/fagel/ *

(i) Could South America be Atlantis? – Big Think 

(j) The World Map of Athanasius Kircher 1665. – Atlan.org 

(k) The location of Atlantis, page 1 (archive.org)  (The map was not saved by Wayback Machine)

(l) https://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8516829/imaginary-island-atlantis-map-kircher 

 

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

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) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2013/03/21/antarctica/

(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) 

(n) https://web.archive.org/web/20170424005259/https://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-history-of-antarctica-is-actually-a-really-fun-tale-1784067739

(o) https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/568409/antarctica-atlantis-found-ancient-city-pyramids-plato-hapgood-civilisation-giza

(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) 

(s) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/david-wilcock-claims-an-evil-cabal-of-aliens-and-democrats-are-trying-to-stop-trump-from-defeating-evil-revealing-truth-about-atlantis

(t) Was Aztlan –the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec people—Atlantis? | Ancient Code (archive.org)

(u) https://www.ladbible.com/more/interesting-has-the-location-of-atlantis-just-been-discovered-20170511

(v) Jean Seimple & Fabien Pardo – Hym.media (archive.org)  (French) Slow loading

(w) https://web.archive.org/web/20170712093003/https://www.theeventchronicle.com/antarctica/joseph-p-farrell-antarctica-revealed-admiral-byrd-jfk-nazis-atlantis/

(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

(ad) https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2017/05/what-s-up-down-there-in-antarctica-dr-joseph-p-farrell-update/

(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) 

(aj) https://www.amazon.com/Earths-First-Civilization-Antarctica-Million-ebook/dp/B07D1RC8DJ?asin=B07D1RC8DJ&revisionId=bbd69a70&format=1&depth=1 

 

Reiche, Harald A.T.

Harald A.T. Reiche, (1922-1994) was born in Germany and studied in Switzerland before arriving in the United States. He received a BA degree in cHarald Reichelassics from Harvard in 1943, an MA in 1944 and a PhD in 1955. He was a professor of classics and philosophy at M.I.T from 1955 to 1991. His principal interest was Greek cosmology and astronomy, subjects on which he lectured and wrote extensively. Reiche offered an astronomical interpretation of the Atlantis story, based on precession*; a concept discussed at length in Hamlet’s Mill[524] by Santillana and Dechend who were colleagues of Reiche at M.I.T. Their view is that “myths were vehicles for memorising and transmitting certain kinds of astronomical and cosmological information”. A comparable suggestion has been proposed by Kenneth Wood and his wife Florence, built on the research of his mother-in-law, the late Edna Leigh, which they outlined in Homer’s Secret Iliad[391], a book that attempts to prove that the Iliad was written as an aide memoire for a wide range of astronomical data. Guy Gervis has adopted some of their work and specifies a date of around 2300 BC for the events described in the Iliad and Odyssey, based on an analysis of this astronomical data(b)Hamlet’s Mill has received widespread critical acclaim but perhaps it might be no harm to also consider a more sober view presented by Jason Colavito(a).

>Some years ago, in a paper [0525] also published in Brecher and Feirtag’s Astronomy of the Ancients [1883.153],<  Reiche suggested that Plato’s description of the city of Atlantis mirrors “features of the southern circumpolar sky”. Understandably, this quote has been gratefully seized upon by the Flem-Aths to bolster their Atlantis in Antarctica theory.

*Precession is the name given to the astronomical feature whereby the gradual change in the direction of the Earth’s axis of rotation, producing a shifting of constellations around the celestial sphere.

(a) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/12/hamlets-mill-precession-or-solar-symbol.html

(b) See: Archive 3606