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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 »
Zakynthos
Daily Express (UK)
The Daily Express is a well-known British tabloid newspaper. Together with its sister publications, The 
Sunday Express and its online Express.co.uk, it has recently set a new record for the number of ‘might be Atlantis’ articles published, all with the byline of Callum Hoare. During the first three weeks of 2019, he has managed to produce four stories suggesting four different locations for Atlantis – Doggerland(a), Malta(b), Azores(c) and the Bahamas(d). But I did not have to wait long for the next regurgitation from Hoare, with another piece mined from a recent Amazon Prime documentary, where the Atlantis in the Canaries theory is reviewed (21.1.19)(e). I note that Hoare was also the author of similar BS Atlantis stories for another alleged UK newspaper, The Daily Star. The quality of research continues to be abysmal, citations are often years old, facts are mangled and quite misleading. Definitely ‘Fake News’.
Unfortunately, this outpouring of nonsense continued on in 2020. June 30th saw the ‘Express’ publish another article(f) by Hoare with an “Atlantis Located” headline. This gem begins by repeating the view of ‘expert’ Matthew Sibson, who advocates Rockall as the site of Atlantis and then switches to the opinions of Christos Djonis who claims the Aegean Sea as the home of Atlantis. According to Hoare, in this instance, Djonis refers to the research of Mark McMenamin of around 25 years ago who noticed on some Carthaginian gold staters of the fourth century BC that they had tiny engravings that he subjectively interpreted as rough maps showing both Asia and America and centred on Sardinia(g). This, according to Djonis, indicates the possibility that the Greeks may have had knowledge of America!
Djonis and Hoare were obviously unaware that in 2000, McMenamin was obliged to confirm that the coins in question were fakes(k) as revealed in his book, Phoenicians, Fakes and Barry Fell [1738].
Furthermore, Djonis is contradicted by the clear statement of Herodotus that the Greeks only knew three continents, Europe, Asia and Libya (Africa)(h). Finally, if Djonis thinks that Atlantis was located in the Aegean what has America got to do with his theory?
July 2020 saw Hoare pollute the Express with another ‘Atlantis Found’ piece, this time locating it off the coast of Cornwall(j). This story is a quarter of a century old and a few years ago its credibility and even the existence of the institution to which its original author, Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev, was supposed to belong to, was brought into question(i).
Hoare ended the year with another pathetic attempt(l) to revive interest in the Minoan Hypothesis as well as the failed claim that the Spanish Donana Marshes held the remains of Atlantis or Tartessos!
>In January 2021, he continued his recycling of old Atlantis claims, with the 35-year-old story of the submerged rock formation off Yonaguni in Japan(m). Later in the same month we were regaled with yet another “Atlantis Found?” headline(n), which led on to report that the remains of another submerged city had been discovered off the Greek island of Zakynthos. No direct link with Atlantis was claimed!<
(g) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236000049_Cartography_on_Carthaginian_Gold_Staters
(h) Herodotus, Histories 4.42.
(i) https://shimajournal.org/issues/v10n2/k.-Hallerton-Shima-v10n2.pdf
Underwater Anomalies *
Underwater Anomalies claimed as Atlantis related have been ‘identified’ in recent years on various Google Earth 
images. The one that received the most widespread attention was situated in the Atlantic west of the Canaries. Bernie Bamford, a British aeronautical engineer, got widespread media coverage in 2009 with this ‘new’ discovery. However, it is claimed that these features were discovered even earlier by Larkin & Cynthia Jones(h).
The location in question purports to show a gridlike street system. However, the scale involved would suggest ‘streets’ half a mile wide, which even for Atlanteans would have been rather unlikely. Google updated its data with a technical explanation for the anomaly(b)(k). However, Michael Jaye is unwilling to accept Google’s response and has described the gridlike feature to have been the Plain of Atlantis(f). A comparable site(c) near Puerto Rico has been highlighted by Deb Johnson, which can probably be explained similarly.
Bernhard Beier wrote an extensive article for Atlantisforschung on the evolution of the controversy surrounding Bamford’s claim and concluded with “In this case, the Atlantis reference was created solely by the media, which acted completely independently of competence – and thus created another, small ‘Atlantis myth’ in the world.”(j)
A slightly different type of image has been spotted in lakes in the Peruvian Andes(d) as well as Manzanillo Bay in the Dominican Republic(e). These images of shallower waters show a range of rectangular shapes that stop dead where they meet the shore with no continuation on land. Once again I suspect flawed processing of the scanning data.
Apart from the fact that all of the above lack any of the circular features so vividly described by Plato. It is obvious that they cannot all be Atlantis and in all probability none are. No effort has been made to match any of these anomalous images with the topographical details provided by Plato!
May 2022 saw more nonsense of this ilk in the tabloids, with headlines proclaiming the discovery of a ‘Yellow Brick Road to Atlantis’, north of Hawaii in the Pacific. In fact, the ‘road’ is a recognised volcanic feature and has never been claimed as anything else by its discoverers(i).
In a similar manner, it was reported in 2011 that divers on the coast of the Greek island of Zakynthos initially thought that they had discovered the remains of a lost port city, when they found “some very unusual underwater formations came into view, including some strange pillars, walkways and even what appeared to be courtyards. Writing in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, a team of environmental researchers has now revealed that these peculiar structures are not actually archaeological remains at all.
After being carefully examined by archaeologists, geologists and professional divers from both Greece and the United Kingdom, it was clear that the disk and doughnut-shaped columnar features were a type of mineralization feature. They were being generated by the escape of chemicals, mainly methane, emerging from hydrocarbon-rich layers hiding below a semi-ruptured fault.
Microbes lurking in the sediment there appeared to be using the carbon in the methane as a source of energy. As they oxidized the methane, these bacteria and archaea were inadvertently changing the chemistry of the sediment they were living in to form a natural cement. To geologists, this is known as ‘concretion,’ and it can result in a number of new rock formations.” (l)
(b) https://www.livescience.com/18308-google-earth-update-erases-atlantis.html
(c) https://www.atlantismystery.com/Atlantis.jpg (offline)
(d) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground23.htm
(e) https://manzanillodigital.blogspot.com/2009/12/lo-que-dice-fianchy-torres-sobre.html
(f) The Explorers Club – Events – NYC – Public Lecture Series feat. Michael Jaye (archive.org)
(g) https://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2009/02/atlantis-not-found-with-google-earth.html
(h) Atlantis – Just Another Sea Floor Anomaly? – YouTube
(k) Atlantis revealed at last… or just a load of old Googles? | Daily Mail Online
(l) https://www.iflscience.com/submerged-greek-lost-city-sculpted-microbial-life-36128