Atlantis 'just a volcano'
From correspondents in Berlin, Germany
17nov04

THE remains of the lost city of Atlantis, which a United States researcher claims to have found off the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, are in fact submarine volcanoes, according to a German physicist.

US researcher Robert Sarmast claimed on Monday to have found proof that the mythical lost city of Atlantis actually existed and is located under the Mediterranean seabed between Cyprus and Syria.
But German physicist Christian Huebscher said he had identified the phenomenon as 100,000 year-old volcanoes that spewed mud.

Mr Huebscher, of the Hamburg Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, is quoted in tomorrow's edition of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as saying he and two Dutch colleagues had sailed in a boat to the same area at which Mr Sarmast claimed to have located Atlantis and made their findings.

Mr Sarmast's team claims to have found man-made structures located about 1.5 kilometres below sea level and 80 kilometres off the south-east coast of Cyprus.

In his book Discovery of Atlantis, Mr Sarmast argued Cyprus was once part of that lost continent - at its highest peak - and said his findings matched almost perfectly every clue in the philosopher Plato's description of the legendary city state.

Plato's famed account in Timaeus and Critias is the sole source of the Atlantis myth dating back to 9000 BC.

The privately-funded $US200,000 ($258,830) expedition seeks to confound sceptics by bringing back scientific side-scan sonar data which supports evidence revealing man-made structures such as a three-kilometre wall.

Plato said an epochal flood "swallowed up" the mountainous island of Atlantis.

Other theories place the lost civilisation in the South China Sea, the Azores, the Aegean or the Atlantic Ocean. Greek mythology has it Atlantis was destroyed as punishment by Zeus for the greed and corruption that befell the city.

Holy shit, that would be crazy if it actually is Atlantis!

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK

August 2002

NOV 17, 2004 08:18 PM

You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend.

[Edited on Nov 17, 2004 by Keith]

MisterSatan

Portland, OR

August 2002

NOV 17, 2004 08:20 PM

Keith said:
You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend told by a blind man.

Didn't waste any time on that one, didja?

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK

August 2002

NOV 17, 2004 08:30 PM

MisterSatan said:

Keith said:
You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend told by a blind man.

Didn't waste any time on that one, didja?

Heh.

Well, if you want specifics, Cyprus can't be Atlantis as described by Plato [who wasn't blind, my bad] because he described it as being *west* of Gibraltar.

[Edited on Nov 17, 2004 by Keith]

kosomot

Pompano Beach, FL

November 2003

NOV 17, 2004 08:33 PM

Keith said:
You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend.

[Edited on Nov 17, 2004 by Keith]

How do you explain him?

Slander

Dayton, OH

May 2004

NOV 17, 2004 09:05 PM

kosomot said:

Keith said:
You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend.

[Edited on Nov 17, 2004 by Keith]

How do you explain him?

Another dream that J.R. had.

turin

Denver, CO

October 2003

NOV 17, 2004 09:06 PM

if I weren't drunk I could probably think of something really clever to say about atlantis being "found" 3 times a year and how it's like something else, but uh... well, there you go.

HORUS73

Sun Prairie, WI

June 2003

NOV 17, 2004 09:10 PM

I remember watching 'In Search Of' when I was a kid about them finding what they considered to be the lost city of Atlantis...They found it under water, and in the middle of the city, they found a gold pair of arms holding some large gem...now that I think of it, it was all probably just a hoax...

crispy

NEWSWIRE

Philadelphia, PA

NOV 17, 2004 09:19 PM

Abominable Snowman says, "WHO YOU CALLIN' A LEGEND?!?"

I love crap like this ... Atlantis, UFOs, Bigfoot, the NHL, the Loch Ness Monster ... I'd like to believe they all exist, or did at one time. That would be cool.

crispy

NEWSWIRE

Philadelphia, PA

NOV 17, 2004 09:21 PM

Slander said:
How do you explain him?

Another dream that J.R. had.

It was Pamela's dream, I believe.

cthav

USA

August 2004

NOV 17, 2004 09:26 PM

Keith said:
You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend.

[Edited on Nov 17, 2004 by Keith]

Goodness knows, there were never stories about real places before. It's in a book. Thus. It's. Not real. And. This. Proves. My theory. Of. Something.

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK

August 2002

NOV 17, 2004 11:55 PM

cthav said:

Keith said:
You can't find something that never existed, because it was only a legend.

[Edited on Nov 17, 2004 by Keith]

Goodness knows, there were never stories about real places before. It's in a book. Thus. It's. Not real. And. This. Proves. My theory. Of. Something.

According to Plato, the story of Atlantis was told by Solon, who said the island existed 9000 years before. This would place the time period in the Early Stone Age. There have never been ruins of a [relatively] advanced civilization from that time period found anywhere on Earth.

Plato also said the island of Atlantis was larger than Libya and "Asia" [North Africa and the Middle East in that day] combined.

Plato said the Atlanteans built a ditch that was 100 feet deep, 600 feet and 11,000 miles long. Nothing like this has ever been found.

No one else that we've found in recorded history prior to Plato, in all those supposed 9,000 years, wrote anything about Atlantis or a supposed battle between Atlantis and Egypt, including the Egyptians! Every mention of Atlantis goes back to one person -- Plato. Don't you think that's a bit of a clue that this was a legend, a myth, Plato was talking about? A moral allegory? A legend which might have incorporated *small* bits of truth about some historical disaster? For example, the island of Santorini, which was mostly destroyed by a volcano 1,000 years before Plato?

http://skeptic.com/atlantis/atlantis1.html

Let me know when Xanadu and El Dorado are discovered.

[Edited on Nov 18, 2004 by Keith]

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK

August 2002

NOV 18, 2004 12:09 AM

Here is a map of some of the places people have claimed to have "found" Atlantis in:

And I'd like to be clear, I'm not mad at the original poster or people who entertain these ideas, but I saw this story covered on CNN -- which gives it some air of authority. That our media reports such bollocks unskeptically gets me steaming.