1. Welcome! Please take a few seconds to create your free account to post threads, make some friends, remove a few ads while surfing and much more. ClutchFans has been bringing fans together to talk Houston Sports since 1996. Join us!

Atlantis off the coast of Cuba?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by Htownhero, Oct 13, 2002.

  1. Htownhero

    Htownhero Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2000
    Messages:
    2,570
    Likes Received:
    32
    link

    Mysterious stones off coast of Cuba spur speculation
    Some believe they're fragments from the legendary lost city of Atlantis

    Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post Saturday, October 12, 2002

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------



    Havana -- The images appear slowly on the video screen, like ghosts from the ocean floor. The videotape, made by an unmanned submarine, shows massive stones in oddly symmetrical square and pyramid shapes in the deep-sea darkness.

    Sonar images taken from a research ship 2,000 feet above are even more puzzling. They show that the smooth, white stones are laid out in a geometric pattern. The images look like fragments of a city, in a place where nothing man-made should exist, spanning nearly eight square miles of a deep-ocean plain off Cuba's western tip.

    "What we have here is a mystery," said Paul Weinzweig, of Advanced Digital Communications, a Canadian company that is mapping the ocean bottom of Cuba's territorial waters under contract with the government of President Fidel Castro.

    "Nature couldn't have built anything so symmetrical," Weinzweig said, running his finger over sonar printouts aboard his ship, tied up at a wharf in Havana harbor. "This isn't natural, but we don't know what it is."

    The company's main mission is to hunt for shipwrecks filled with gold and jewels, and to locate potentially lucrative oil and natural gas reserves in deep water that Cuba does not have the means to explore.

    Treasure hunting has become a growth industry in recent years as technology has improved, allowing more precise exploration and easier recovery from deeper ocean sites. Advanced Digital operates from the Ulises, a 260-foot trawler that was converted to a research vessel for Castro's government by the late French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.

    Since they began exploration three years ago with sophisticated side-scan sonar and computerized global-positioning equipment, Weinzweig said they have mapped several large oil and gas deposits and about 20 shipwrecks sitting beneath ancient shipping lanes where hundreds of old wrecks are believed to be resting. The most historically important so far has been the U.S. battleship Maine, which exploded and sank in Havana harbor in 1898, an event that ignited the Spanish-American War.

    In 1912, the ship was raised from the harbor floor by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and towed out into deeper water four miles from the Cuban shore, where it was scuttled. Strong currents carried the Maine away from the site, and its precise location remained unknown until Ulises' sonar spotted it two years ago.

    Then, by sheer serendipity, on a summer day in 2000, as the Ulises was towing its sonar back and forth across the ocean like someone mowing a lawn, the unexpected rock formations appeared on the sonar readouts. That startled Weinzweig and his partner and wife, Paulina Zelitsky, a Russian-born engineer who has designed submarine bases for the Soviet military.

    "We have looked at enormous amounts of ocean bottom, and we have never seen anything like this," Weinzweig said.

    The discovery immediately sparked speculation about Atlantis, the fabled lost city first described by Plato in 360 B.C. Weinzweig and Zelitsky were careful not to use the A-word and said that much more study was needed before such a conclusion could be reached.

    But that has not stopped a boomlet of speculation, most of it on the Internet. Atlantis-hunters have long argued their competing theories that the lost city was off Cuba, off the Greek island of Crete, off Gibraltar or elsewhere. Several Web sites have touted the images as a possible first sighting.

    Among those who suspect the site may be Atlantis is George Erikson, a California anthropologist who co-authored a book in which he predicted that the lost city would be found offshore in the tropical Americas.

    "I have always disagreed with all the archaeologists who dismiss myth," said Erikson, who said he had been shunned by many scientists since publishing his book about Atlantis. He said the story has too many historical roots to be dismissed as sheer fantasy and that if the Cuban site proves to be Atlantis, he hopes "to be the first to say, 'I told you so.' "


    __________________________________________________

    I've always been facinated by the legends of Atlantis, but have grown jaded over the years. This looks very interesting but I'll wait for more information before I get my hopes up.
     
  2. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Atomic Playboy
    Supporting Member

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2002
    Messages:
    59,079
    Likes Received:
    52,748
    I've read some interesting info on this (possible) find, its one of the more plausible lost civilization sites-
     
  3. right1

    right1 Member

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2002
    Messages:
    2,506
    Likes Received:
    1,136
    The ancient language of meso-america is Nahuatl. They called themselves Nahua, meaning 'the people'. If you look at many of the indigenous names in the region you will find that many place names end in Atlan(I believe it means land). An example would be Mazatlan on the Pacific coast of Mexico. During glaciation the sea level was very much lower than it's present level. There is really no doubt that ancient structures, pyramids and civilizations were flooded and engulfed by the ocean. The same thing is currently occuring on the low-lying atolls in the Pacific Ocean. On another note, I really don't think it's a "lost" civilization at all. The linguistics are very similar between Native American tribes from Mexico to Miami, from Michigan to Michoacan. Their descendants are very much alive today, and many of their ancient structures and burial mounds are still among us.
     
  4. BrianKagy

    BrianKagy Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 1999
    Messages:
    4,106
    Likes Received:
    6
    More importantly, do we have an embargo with Atlantis yet?
     
  5. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Member
    Supporting Member

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2001
    Messages:
    19,568
    Likes Received:
    14,578
    Does anyone know who originally talked of atlantis?
     
  6. BrianKagy

    BrianKagy Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 1999
    Messages:
    4,106
    Likes Received:
    6
  7. BobFinn*

    BobFinn* Member

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2000
    Messages:
    11,438
    Likes Received:
    6
    Donovan?

    Way down below the ocean, where I wanna be, she may be...
     
  8. Htownhero

    Htownhero Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2000
    Messages:
    2,570
    Likes Received:
    32
    I believe Plato was the first to mention it in writings.
     
  9. VesceySux

    VesceySux World Champion Lurker
    Supporting Member

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2001
    Messages:
    7,552
    Likes Received:
    234
    WTF? This is a dead issue. Indiana Jones already found it...

    (Stupid Nazis. They never learn, do they?)

    [​IMG]
     
  10. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
    Supporting Member

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2002
    Messages:
    35,986
    Likes Received:
    36,841
    Atlantis is very close to our shores, and they have ignored the UN for thousands of years. Also, this rogue state has demonstrated its familiarity with mass destruction. Clearly, we need regime change in Atlantis.
     
  11. ROXRAN

    ROXRAN Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2000
    Messages:
    18,827
    Likes Received:
    5,231
    Australia said they will back us by use of troops. It is rumored Smeg will be utilized as a trooper there to perform combative duties.
     
  12. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
    Supporting Member

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2002
    Messages:
    35,986
    Likes Received:
    36,841
    Well, if we have the SEALS, what does Australia have to combat Atlantis underwater? The PLATYPUSSES (Platypi)? Where is Smeg to answer this crucial question?
     
  13. Dr of Dunk

    Dr of Dunk Clutch Crew

    Joined:
    Aug 27, 1999
    Messages:
    46,648
    Likes Received:
    33,664
    "Nature couldn't have built anything so symmetrical,"

    I guess the guy's never seen a snowflake. :D
     
  14. BrianKagy

    BrianKagy Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 1999
    Messages:
    4,106
    Likes Received:
    6
    I think we should nuke them back to non-existence. Again.
     

Share This Page