Rocks of St. Peter & St. Paul (L)

The Rocks of St. Peter & St. Paul (sometimes just St. Paul’s Rocks) are two islets, each about a quarter of a mile long, and are part of a small archipelago located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge about 1000 miles from the mouth of the Orinoco in Venezuela.  I have included them here because Charles Hapgood expressed the view, at least in private, that they were the remnants of a larger island that had been the location of Atlantis. Publicly he was disinclined to mention Atlantis, fearing ridicule and damage to his professional reputation. His views were the result of his study of three ancient maps; those of Piri Reis, Phillipe Bauche and the Reinel Chart of 1510, which all show an island in the same position as these ‘Rocks’. This earlier island appeared to have dimensions of about 250 x 350 miles according to its depiction on these ancient maps.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note Hapgood’s written reference^[369.55] to these small islands, as the remains a large island in the past, where he speculates that it could have been ‘An ideal home for a sea people! A secure base for a maritime empire: whose ships would have had easy access to commercial ports in the Caribbean, in South America, in Europe, in Africa, and even, perhaps, in Antarctica!’

Hapgood’s conviction that this had really been the location of Atlantis led him to seek President Kennedy’s assistance in having the area explored by the US Navy, but, unfortunately, the assassination of Kennedy took place before a decision could be made.