The MEGA Blog

APEX Expeditions to Bimini: Past and Future

admin — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:13:00 GMT

In my last post I briefly described a spring, 2009, expedition being planned by Bill Donato and the APEX Institute. As a result of the interest in this post, Mr. Donato agreed to provide a summary of his past expeditions to Bimini. What follows is a direct quote from him and sheds some light on why the upcoming expedition could prove to be archaeologically historic.

[QUOTE]

In 1993 "The Atlantis Organization" founded by William Donato, Vanda Osmon, and Thomas Vanderveer, began the first of the "Project: Alta" expeditions and were documented on television in the Secrets of the Deep episode "The Hunt for Atlantis". During that expedition we used side-scan sonar in an effort to look for the remains of ancient man.

Prior to the last melting of the glaciers the Bahamas were all above the surface comprising a land mass of virtually thousands of square miles, in effect a "micro-continent." We were initially looking for anomalies like the so-called Bimini Road (now verified as one of three features comprising a harbor complex like those in the Mediterranean) or other features that Dr. Manson Valentine had documented photographically after many years of investigations in the Bahamas. Most people don't know that his investigations with associate Jim Richards included approximately 10 years of aerial investigations that showed numerous large-scale underwater geometric features, some of which ran for long distances. We verified some of these and discovered others, in particular a large pentagon to the south and east of Bimini between Cat Key and Ocean Key.

The 1993 expedition started at South Bimini, headed to the northern tip of North Bimini, went south along the drop-off, and ended at Gun Cay when the equipment failed. The side-scan unit was a "wet paper" type and GPS ("Global Positioning System") coordinates were at about 100 yard intervals. We picked up at least 30 "anomalies" and only some of these have been investigated to date (2008). Because of some interesting geometric features underwater (multiple right angled features, concentric circles, etc.) we initiated another set of expeditions in November 1997 to do preliminary work for the the more expansive project in June 1998.

This entailed use of side-scan sonar, a submarine, aerial investigation, and on-site diving -- as well as our first trip to investigate a site at Anguilla Cay, now believed to be a harbor site similar to the Bimini Road. The Anguilla site contains a large semi-circular enclosure first described by my associate Herbert Sawinski, who was of great help to us. I have since designated this feature the "Anguilla Arc". The submarine investigations were done off of Gun Cay and North Bimini in a "Nekton Gamma" two-man submarine and a 105 foot support vessel. An anomaly was noted off Gun Cay that would not be understood until an associate's later expedition using "tech divers" (deep gas mixture divers) and consisted of rectangular patterns of sand and vegetation). The remnants of an ancient waterfall were discovered by team member Steve Smith off Entrance Point. The late Donnie Fields also noted what may have been a megalithic stone block at depth. The side-scan sonar images were received by me a few weeks later and several appeared to show features underwater that were clearly not geological. A couple may have been debris or parts of ships, but some looked architectural.

The most interesting of these images I designated as "Target 1" and "Target 2", which an associate determined were only about 105 feet from each other. They are now believed to be part of the same site area. If it had not been for some "accidents" we might never have seen them. It was found that the "gain" was adjusted too high, but if it hadn't been we may not have noticed the features. The side-scan fish was also very low. Typically it should be between 50 and 75 feet under the water (from what I have been told), but it was only 17 to about 23 feet from the bottom. This version of side-scan sonar was put out by "Marine Sonics" and records the data electronically, providing GPS coordinates for literally every pixel -- a huge advance over the prior system. It can also measure the features. The features that got my attention had all the hallmarks of architecture and were proportional in size to human architecture.

The largest feature appeared to be a multi-tiered feature with a possible staircase and doorway at the top, analogous to a Maya-type "temple pyramid". Because of the relative closeness of the side-scan "fish" to it neither the top nor the bottom could be seen, though there appeared to be about 7 tiers (like ziggurats?) and each tier upward was smaller than the one below it, also similar in size to those of the Mayas. In addition there was also what appeared to be an attached structure (also seen in Maya sites). The same image showed 2 "post-litel" systems, one atop the other (about 12 feet long -- megalithic?). At the "left" side of the image was what appeared to be a structure with 2 vertical support elements (pillars?) about 10 feet high and 2.5 feet thick, a staircase, a 75 foot long "wall", and several "square" features that a Marine Sonics tech person said represented "hard targets" because they had square shadows in association with them. Target 2 had a rectangle measuring 31 by 65 feet. The technician could not explain it.

It is important to note that prior to this expedition there had been significant solar activity and the "Kosovo War". When we attempted to verify these features in 1999 we could not locate them. It is possible that the aforementioned errors contributed to the GPS errors. One of the Ocean Technologies personnel estimated that the GPS was "off" by about 1/5 of a mile. Even though the $15,000 project did not locate the features, the side-scan re-located a target off of Gun Cay at a depth of about 112 feet over 50 feet long first detected in 1993. Also, the submarine showed us what appeared to be terrace-like features. It was uncertain whether some of these had stone walls or not. We touched bottom at 320 feet with very good visibility. The tech divers that Dr. Joan Hanley employed on an earlier investigation had reported what they described as foot paths and "switchbacks". We also saw what appeared to be foot paths. Because we were not able, at that time, to locate the anomalies that looked like architectural features some thought that they might represent some sort of side-scan technical "glitch" or error. To me this seemed very unlikely because the features appeared very convincing in their measurements, orientations, and architectural appearance (somewhat reminiscent of the Maya "Puuc" style). The opinions held by our group were certainly NOT universal!

In order to determine whether these anomalies were real, and to investigate other anomalies, we planned an expedition that would include both side-scan sonar -- to be used on the eastern side of Bimini -- and a sub-bottom profiling project on the east side of East Bimini to determine why vegetation formed a 1/4 by 1/2 mile "rectangle". Dr. Gregory Little had told me that, according to Dr. Michael Faught's newest data, the sea level at circa 10,000 B.C. was about 110 feet lower than at the present (in 17,500 B.C. it may have been 320 to 340 feet lower). I had determined to cover a depth range of approximately 50 to 120 feet. Ronald Smith helped me arrange a scanning pattern that went just above the tip of North Bimini to just below South Bimini on the western side. The suspected area of the anomalies was 3/5 of a mile wide, while the other grids were 2/5 of a mile wide. We did the scanning in November of 2006. Grids 1, 3, and 4 were completed, but rough water conditions prohibited the Ocean Technologies crew from completing one grid. On the first day out with the dive team our boat was contacted by the Ocean Tech team. They told me that they had something they thought would interest me. They were correct. What they showed me were some "anomalies". One had a rectangular stone, there were apparent coral heads (some of which appeared to be equally spaced), and other features that had the appearance of possible structures. On the first attempt to locate them diving we failed. There was only a flat ocean bottom at 96 feet. When I reported this to the Ocean Tech team they assured me that their data was of good reliability. They coordinated our GPS with theirs on the next day. Capt. Eslie Brown (of K&B EZ Dive) took the boat to the location, dived in and (later) reported that he saw a rectangular stone on the bottom. It took about 20 minutes to correctly position the boat. Krista Brown was my dive partner. We descended the anchor chain and ended up 120 feet down. We went across the level bottom to an approximate 45 degree diagonal incline of about 4 feet. On the lower side were coral heads, like those in the image. At that point my regulator began malfunctioning and I had to surface, though it did appear that we were in the generally correct area. I had planned to do a "drift dive" over the area to cover a greater expanse and increase the likelihood of locating the anomalies, but water and visibility conditions did not allow for that.

In the meantime the sub-bottom profiling produced results that the Ocean Tech team found to be surprising. Though part of the "Rectangle" was in water too shallow to scan, the outer half was accessible. On the outside of the "Rectangle" the strata followed a "normal" configuration, but on the "inside" the strata had been removed down to a depth of about of about 18 feet, implying a large scale organized labor project in ancient times. I speculate that this may have been an ancient reservoir. About six months later I received images of the side-scan project. It included several features that showed apparent orientations to each other, including two obvious rectangles with what look like thick stone walls, a possible basal terraced structure, and other anomalies. Two of the images resembled two from the 1998 scan, but from a much greater distance. Several months ago the A.R.E. (the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment), using our Bahamian archeological permit, did further investigations. Dr. Douglas Richards was given data from John Van Auken from our investigations, Joan Hanley's, and recent one's done by the A.R.E. He noticed an interesting overlap of anomalous features. They are all within a 1 mile long 1/2 mile area. The results of their most recent work are not yet available.

It is our plan to do on-site investigations, probably in the Spring of 2009, of the target anomalies using both a Remotely Operated Vehicle ( ROV) and a special "drop camera" with a connected GPS system to locate the features, dive on them, and photographically and videographically document our finds. It is expected to take at least 5 full work days, possibly more, to investigate as many of the most "promising" features as possible. Since most of the features are between 80 to 100+ feet in depth it will only be possible to do 1 or 2 such dives per day per diver, hence the importance of locating targets by remote means first. The ROV. and drop camera are owned by two of our A.P.E.X. Board Members and long-time researchers. Verification of a single structure will have far reaching consequences archeologically.

[END QUOTE]

APEX plans return to Bimini

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:05:00 GMT

On it's Website at http://www.apexinstitute.org, Bill Donato's APEX Institute has announced plans to return to Bimini next spring with the intention of verifying that at least one of the previously visited sites is of human construction.

Unlike the so-called Bimini Road structure, the sites to be visited on the next trip are at a depth that would suggest they are approximately 10,000 years old! Bimini Road is in somewhat shallower water, suggesting that it might have been constructed ~~much closer to the end of the first millennium~~ no earlier than 3,000 B.C.

FINALLY ... Some new info on MEGA!

admin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:46:00 GMT

Paul Bader, editor of the Yahoo Group Atlantis News, recently alerted me to some new information about the search for the “lost city of Cuba” (aka MEGA). In an article on his Website, British author Andrew Collins reveals some previously undisclosed facts surrounding the discovery and sheds some light on why additional information about the discovery seems to have vaporized. In this interesting article, he even suggests that Zelitsky and Weinzweig have “simply vanished off the map” – something I know to be false since I exchanged emails with Paul Weinzweig just last week-end!

Below are some highlights of Collins’ article, but I encourage you to read the entire text for yourself (scroll down to Cuban Atlantis Conspiracy):

http://www.andrewcollins.com/ page/news/ news25.htm

I was as excited as everyone about what had been found off Cuba by
Russian-born salver Paulina Zelitsky and her Canadian partner Paul
Weinsweig, who traded under the name ADC Communcations. I was involved
in the whole affair from the offset, interviewing Weinzweig at length on
the telephone, and speaking to them both on a regular basis. I was also
involved in setting up a publishing deal for exclusive world rights on
the story with publishers Randon House. So here is one email I received
recently asking what went on, and whether or not there was a conspiracy
to hush the matter up:

“We're trying to find out why there is no more news on the sunken ruins
found near Western Cuba since 2004. No one has proven that the stones
are either natural or man made. We're beginning to believe there is a
conspiracy to make this find go away.”

And my reply: ‘There is no conspiracy, simply human necessities. Paulina
Zelitsky and Paul Weinzweig held out as long as possible for the best
possible deal on world rights to release pictures and video footage of
what had been found. I know, I was involved with the deal from Random
House, and was to have ghost written the accompanying book, which would
have been accredited to them (I was chosen since the agent working on
the project was working with me also, and I had just released GATEWAY TO
ATLANTIS, which pinpointed Cuba as the site of the main island of Atlantis).

Collins’ original article about Cuba and Atlantis was published around the time of the Zelitsky/Weinzweig discovery and can be found at:

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/atlantiscuba.htm

Thanks to Paul Bader for the heads-up on this one!

Portal to Maya underworld found in Mexico?

admin — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:59:00 GMT

Here's an interesting article from National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080822-maya-maze.html

But, as usual, the “traditional” archaeologists make some really DUMB assumptions! Not only can they not agree on which came first – the Maya legends about an underworld or the caves of the Yucatan – but near the end of the article is the following statement:

Saturno said the discovery of the temples underwater indicates the significant effort the Maya put into creating these portals. In addition to plunging deep into the forest to reach the cave openings, Maya builders would have had to hold their breath and dive underwater to build some of the shrines and pyramids.

So does this guy (“a Maya expert”) really think the Maya could hold their breath long enough (or had scuba technology) to do underwater construction? Isn’t it possible that the water was just lower back then? DUH!

Obviously, the reason the academics won’t even discuss lower water levels is because then they would have to conceed that many ancient (and as yet undiscovered) cultures may have vanished due to rising sea levels. Since the peak of the last ice age, about 18,000 years ago, the oceans have risen 390 feet, swallowing up millions of square miles of what used to be “prime waterfront property” – exactly where ancient cultures would have settled. Today, if the oceans rose just 30 feet (less than 10% of the ice age rise) 634 million people would be displaced and every costal city on earth would be underwater!

Everything archaeology “knows” is based on a poorly done examination of less than 30% of the planet – that part that sticks out of the water! Maybe it’s time they got their feet wet.

Update on Bimini Research

admin — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:25:00 GMT

After a great deal of anticipation about last year’s Ancient Mysteries Conference in Virginia Beach, Virginia, information about the ongoing research in the Bahamas seems to have vaporized. In fact, after his three-part “teaser” that lead up to the 2007 conference, Dr. Greg Little didn’t publish a word about the Bahamas in his online Alternate Perceptions Magazine until the June, 2008 issue. In a paragraph titled Bimini Expedition Yields Compelling Evidence of Two Ancient Harbors, Little brings us up to date on the latest theories about two underwater megalithic features: Bimini Road and Paradise Point Pier. Little also briefly mentions a May, 2008 expedition that will be featured in two History Channel documentaries later this year.

For the full story, see: http://www.mysterious-america.net/news2008areconfe.html

The Littles will speak again this year at the October 9-12 Ancient Mysteries Conference along with Andrew Collins, Michael Faught, John Van Auken, James Mullaney and the recently booked Zechariah Sitchin.

Conference information and registration is available at: https://commerce.solutrix.com/ARE/ARESecure/conf_registerHQ81001.html

Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?

admin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:10:00 GMT

An article in the most recent issue of Andy Burnham’s Megalithic Portal (www.megalithic.co.uk) caught my interest and I thought I’d pass it along because of its connection to the search for ancient civilizations.

As one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient seafaring, Jon Erlandson has devoted much of his career to hunting down evidence of ancient human migrations, searching for something most archaeologists long thought a figment: Ice Age mariners.

The little “tree” in my hand is a dart head fashioned from creamy-brown chert and bristling with tiny barbs designed to lodge in the flesh of marine prey. Erlandson recently collected dozens of these points from San Miguel Island, a scrap of land 27 miles off the coast of California. Radiocarbon dating of marine shells and burned twigs at the site shows that humans landed on San Miguel at least 12,000 years ago, and the dart head in my hand holds clues to the ancestry of those seafarers.

To read the entire article and access a link to much more information in Discover Magazine, check out: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413496

One of my favorite quotes is found in a comment to the original article:

"There is no question in almost all archaeological minds that the earliest examples of North American occupation are underwater," said Dave Watters, curator and head of anthropology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. "There's been a lot of discussion, but not a lot of research because you can spend a lot of time looking for something and not ever find it."

Is it the end of the road for Bimini?

admin — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:08:00 GMT

The following comments from Dr. Greg Little were posted on the Atlantis Online message board titled “The A.R.E.’s 2008 Search for Atlantis.”

(see http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,6611.0.html)

These comments relate to earlier papers published by Little on the Internet and many have been reproduced elsewhere on this blog. For me – and probably for this blog – the most significant portion of the dialog that follows is in the third paragraph from the end, where Dr. Little says, “We have no intention of doing anything else at Bimini, all we can do there has been done already.”

What we know is this: the boat on the Great Bahama Bank is from the 1600s and the wall at Joulters is a complete mystery. We have expended all the time we will on trying to gather more info on the wall at Joulters. We may eventually try to dig out some portions to see exactly how far down it extends and goes. Two of the planes we found are planes reportedly lost in the Bermuda Triangle...the second one was identified in October. The marble temple ruins we found at Bimini are supposedly the cargo of a ship from 1823 BUT we discovered that this sits on top of the long-sought-after Phoenician ship that was reported discovered in 1970 or so. The Phoenician ship was found (or allegedly found) by several of the early 1970s people who investigated Bimini. An old "In Search Of" episode was the final piece of evidence we needed. But I don't think anyone ever verified that it was really Phoenician. We discovered this fact with Andrew Collins the night we left for the conference at Virginia Beach back in October, but we have not yet publically released that bit of interesting info. At the least, we ran down the source of the Phoenician ship discovered at Bimini and now have the precise location. I have no idea how they determined it was Phoenician, but that's what they seemed to surmise from its size, shape, etc. We have no further plans regarding the marble or the ships. Plus, we processed all of the underwater photos of the rectangular formations on the bottom about 5 miles off Bimini in 90-feet of water. These were initially found in the side-scan project Bill Donato did back in Nov. 06. The photos were converted to b/w and the contrast and brightness enhanced. The rectangular formations are all deeply encrusted with coral, but seem to be formed with small building blocks neatly stacked. Corners are visible as are layers of stone. These seem to be the remains of small stone buildings that were at an elevated shoreline in 10,000 BC. I have now spoken to a well-known mainstream archaeologist about these and am trying to arrange a professional excavation conducted by a university-based archaeology group that is completely impartial. I initially had no idea if it would come about. But now I think it will.

Another large ARE side-scan sonar/sub-bottom profiling project will be done in February at Bimini. It will investigate some deep stone anomalies and look at the descending wall of the Gulf Stream at 300-feet in an area that Dr. Joan Hanley identified about a decade ago.

The ARE completed a huge side-scan sonar & sub-bottom profiling project at Bimini in the summer. It went over many of the areas Bill did back in 2006 but covered about 3x the total area Bill did. It found only one anomaly, the one that will be tested in Feb 08.

As to plans, we have been actively testing various boats and are going to buy one sufficient to do what we need. We have been to various boat shows and to marinas in Florida, Virginia and Georgia looking for what we need. It is not as easy as it sounds. We have no intention of doing anything else at Bimini, all we can do there has been done already.

Our first order of business is to do an extended aerial survey over the next portion of the Great Bahama Bank and identify the locations of potential targets. That will be in late January or early Feb. But we intend to spend about a week in central Andros immediately after the aerial survey. We also have made tentative plans to go to the Canary islands but there are just so much time.

I am now completing our next documentary which has realistic
reenactments of Cayce giving some of the important Atlantis readings and then show what has been found. This has already been filmed and came out very well.

So here's the question of the day: Will someone else pick up the search for the ancient maritime culture(s) of the Caribbean or is it really GAME OVER?

Happy New Year and Welcome Back!

admin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:19:00 GMT

You’ve probably noticed that there haven’t been any new posts here for quite a while. Part of the reason is that I’ve been busy finishing up the third (and last) novel in my Seeds of Civilization series and I’m happy to report that I completed that project on December 31^st! The other reason is that there just hasn’t been any news relating to the search for ancient maritime cultures in MegaAmerica.

I did run across one interesting story about a month ago and I guess I’ll have to dig it out of my Pending file until something new comes in from Bill Donato or Greg and Lora Little. I’ve emailed Greg for a post-conference follow-up and I know Bill has some really interesting side-scan sonar images taken near Bimini, but so far I have nothing I can report on.

On December 17^th, National Geographic News ran a story by Brian Handwerk titled Bahamas “Blue Hole” Yields Pre-Human Fossil Treasures. Naturally, the title caught my attention and it includes some facts that may support the work being done by Donato and the Littles.

The Bahamas are home to a large number of underwater cave systems called blue holes and many of them have never been explored. The NG article focuses on one particular site, known as Sawmill Sink, where the National Museum of the Bahamas has been recovering some remarkable fossils, including the remains of extinct species of lizards, snakes, bats, birds and plants. They’ve even found human remains that are more than a thousand years old!

Sawmill Sink, like many of the other blue hole sites, was once a dry cave system that flooded when the seas rose at the end of the last ice age. Many blue holes in the Bahamas contain stalagmites and stalactites, features than can only develop above the surface. If the sea levels rose approximately 10,000 years ago, MegaAmerica’s blue holes may soon provide clues to what – and who – inhabited the area in ancient times.

Good Science, Bad Science and the Bahamas

admin — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 20:18:00 GMT

Several years ago, and long before this blog, I ran across a couple of on-line articles by a Dutch professor named Dr. Zweistra that I liked so much I printed them out and filed them away in my “stuff to keep” folder. About a year ago I wanted to include those articles in a blog post I was working on but when I went back to the original Web site I found that it was now password protected. I contacted the University of Leiden (Netherlands) last January and five months later I finally received a reply that basically said, “Sorry, but we can’t help you.”

Last month blog member “SandRock” asked me why a specific Greg Little article wasn’t included in my list, so I gave him the background information above. The Little article mentions and quotes Dr. Zweistra extensively but, unfortunately, none of the links at the end work due to the password problem so I chose to omit it rather than create reader confusion.

Luckily for us all, SandRock’s brother happened to be a student at the very same University of Leiden and he helped track down the new location of Dr. Z’s articles, which I’ve listed below.

Thank you SandRock!

P.S. After you read Dr. Z’s Editorial Page and Dr. L’s article, you’ll understand the title of this post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dr. Zweistra’s new site: http://www.altarcheologie.nl/

Dr. Little’s article: http://www.edgarcayce.org/am/leidenunivevaluat.html

200,000-Year-Old Sailors?

admin — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:39:00 GMT

An article in the July/August (2007) issue of Minerva Magazine places the origins of village life and sea travel as far back as 200,000 to 400,000 years before present (BP).

Professor Helmut Ziegert, an archaeologist at Hamburg University, has been conducting surveys and excavations for 39 years and he’s convinced that evidence from sites in Libya and Ethiopia will move the initial appearance of human civilization from 10,500 year BP back to at least 200,000 years BP and maybe well before that!

Ziegert has identified a total of 37 Lower Paleolithic sites from China to Germany that he claims support his revolutionary theory. If he’s right, the suspected ancient maritime cultures of the Caribbean and the South Pacific become much less of a mystery, given the extra 190,000 years they may have had to develop!

Read the entire Minerva article at:
http://minervamagazine.com/news.asp?min_issue=JUL_AUG2007#0

A Message From Dr. Greg Little

admin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:12:00 GMT

Some recent posts on The Mega Blog have cited the writings of Eugene Shinn and others (the skeptics) who published an article in 2004 designed to discredit those conducting real, on-site research in the Bahamas, especially at the "Bimini Road" location. I'm familiar with the report and I've also read Dr. Greg Little's comments about the report, but I thought our members would appreciate hearing from Dr. Little directly, so I asked him if he would respond. Below is his reply, word-for-word.

<quote>
The Skeptical Inquirer article authored by Eugene Shinn is so filled with lies, inaccuracies, and distortions that it is beyond absurd. These are all easily provable as wrong, but skeptics who are gullible "true believers"

will continue to cite Shinn's Skeptical Inquirer article as some sort of proof for their false belief system.

Shinn says the columns at Bimini were proven to be Portland cement and cites "Harrison" as his reference. Harrison's article related that the columns (that were not actually fluted marble) were an old form of lime kiln cement.

Shinn simply "made up" or "fabricated" the Portland Cement assertion because it makes it sound absurd. Shinn---and several notable skeptics---simply ignore the huge fluted marble columns found next to the "cement" ones--but they were detailed by Harrison.

Shinn and the skeptics will gladly send you an e-copy of everything but Shinn's actual research article that detailed the genuine results of the cores. (Ask Shinn for the actual "Sea Frontiers" article and see what

happens.) In that actual article he related that less than a quarter of the "bedding planes" in his cores were consistent in that they dipped toward deep water. But none of the skeptics will actually read what Shinn actually reported in his reported results. Instead, skeptics report the altered, fabricated, and hoaxed results--the hoax--that relates the cores were all consistent and dipped from one stone to the next.

As to the cut support stones and rectangular wedge stones being easily removed from under the big blocks, who said they were easily removed??? I personally removed about 8-9 of these, but this wasn't exactly easy and there were many, many others that couldn't be budged or dug out.

As to the carbon dates Shinn reports: they were done by students using "bulk dating." Shinn has admitted that bulk dating is unreliable. But we have not asserted that the Bimini Road is older than 7,000 years.

Shinn also cites the following "facts" in his article:

> Plato said that the Atlantis story was "7000-years old." Huh?? What Plato ever said that?

> The Bimini Road was discovered in the early 1960s. Huh?? How did Shinn make this up?

> He dismisses a "Demitri Ribicoff" a "new ager" -- who is really Dimitri Rebikoff, PhD from the Sorbonne.

> He cites an "Edward Zink" who was actually David Zink.

> He cites a "Lester Hemmingway" who was actually Leicester Hemmingway, a newspaper editor.

There are so many more errors in Shinn's article...and I admitted that I am embarassed by how terribly inaccurate an article in The Skeptical Inquirer could be because my own research has been cited by that ... ah ...

pseudoscientific claptrap ... as notable.

Here is a fact about Shinn: he received a bachelors degree in biology.

That's it... Just before he retired he got an honorary doctorate... Believe what you will--and skeptics can claim that Shinn was the greatest geologist of all time.

My bottom analytical line in this is psychological. I have met almost no one who is interested in the truth about this. People cite "things" --- factual or contrived -- that support their currently held viewpoint. Facts do not seem to matter to any "true believers" whether they believe that Atlantis never existed or Atlantis is here or there.

I do not know if Atlantis existed or not. I have written about what various people "said" about Atlantis and various research projects seeking to find Atlantis. All I know is that there are a lot of interesting underwater artifacts in the Bahamas that show there was a maritime culture present there in a time period before historians accept. Armchair skeptics as well as armchair believers can be equally gullible. But it takes actual work to find out the truth and that's a bit more than most want to do.

Dr. Greg Little
<end quote>

Dr. Little has far more important things to do than debate this issue on a blog, so I appreciate his reply to my email and his permission to post that reply here. Just in case there's still any doubt, I'm firmly on the Greg Little side of this debate and this blog is written from that stand-point. I've seen the photos and read the published work. I also recommend the 73-minute documentary video titled "The Ancient Bimini Harbor: Uncovering the Great Bimini Hoax" produced by Dr. Little.

One final thought: this Web site exists to report on the discoveries in MegaAmerica that I believe will one day lead to the undeniable conclusion that an as yet unknown ancient maritime culture once inhabited the area. I do NOT feel obligated to grant equal time to opposing views, but I made an exception in the case of the Shinn writings because I think it furthers the work in the Bahamas if people realize that some of the so-called "scientific" reports aren't supported by the work actually being done in the water. As usual, your comments are welcome.

Catastrophic Sea Level Rise

admin — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:31:00 GMT

In a recent email, blog member Ron Smith suggested that my Sea Level Rise chart in the photo gallery doesn’t take into account the Younger Dryas interval, so I did some digging and I believe he’s correct. Here’s what I learned:

The Younger Dryas interval was an unusually cold period that interrupted the last deglaciaction. As the glaciers began to melt, the temperature of the earth – and the levels of the seas – began to rise as well. But something happened about 12,800 years ago that reversed this trend for more than a thousand years. Then, as quickly as it had come, the Younger Dryas event ended and temperatures in northern hemisphere rose by as much as ten degrees Centigrade in ten years! Compared to the current global warming trend of less than one degree per hundred years, the YD interval was a catastrophe of major proportions.

The exact timing of the Younger Dryas interval has a fairly wide margin of error, but evidence of its occurrence comes from a number of sources, including glacial deposits, tropical and polar ice caps, pollens, lake and marine sediments, tree rings, corals and speleothems. Furthermore, evidence appears from Greenland to China, indicating that this was not just a regional problem.

There’s a lot of speculation about what might have initiated the cold snap, but one explanation I ran across frequently was a meteor impact in the area of the Great Lakes. This could have caused an extraordinary amount of fresh water to be released through the St. Lawrence valley and into the North Atlantic which, in turn, disrupted the thermohaline circulation of the Earth’s oceans and produced global climate changes.

Another graph in the main photo gallery depicts the rate of sea level rise (not the actual depth) in centimeters per century over the past 20,000 years. Except for just the last few years (extreme right side), the seas have been experiencing a nearly constant and very gradual rise since about 1,000 B.C. Compare that to the dramatic events of the two recent “spikes” and you begin to understand how ancient civilizations could have literally disappeared off the face of the earth.

For more information on Younger Dryas I suggest:

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/examples.shtml

http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/mayews01/node6.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data_glacial.html

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2001Q2/211/groupD/page5.html

http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/YoungerDryas.pdf

I’m still looking for a direct sea-level vs. year chart that takes into account the Younger Dryas interval. If you know where I can find one, please drop me a line.

The New Yonaguni

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:14:00 GMT

For a couple of weeks now, various media outlets have been running a story about the Yonaguni monument based on information from Masaaki Kimura, a professor at Ryukyu University. Kimura claims to be “on the verge” of proving that the underwater megalithic feature was the foundation of a castle built in the middle of a city that was sunk by an earthquake 3,000 years ago. That would make the site at least 7,000 years newer than previously thought! The new theory first appeared on the Reuters News Service HERE but let’s examine what we really know about Yonaguni.

First of all, the underwater feature was actually discovered by Kihachiro Aratake, a local dive operator who was scouting for new sites. This fact is overlooked in every one of the recent articles I’ve read, which credit the discovery to “scuba diving tourists.” Aratake was – and still is – a dive operator on Yonaguni Island and he made his amazing discovery in 1985, 1986, 1987 or 1988, depending which source you read. Even Graham Hancock cites two different years: 1987 in Heaven’s Mirror (Three Rivers Press, 1998) and 1986 in Underworld (Crown Publishers, 2002). Regardless of the exact year, Dive Master Aratake deserves a nod anytime the Yonaguni monument is mentioned.

According to the most recent version of his findings, Professor Kimura now believes that the Yonaguni megalith was once part of a castle in the center of a city that also included a castle, a shrine, an arch, statues and a coliseum. “Judging by the design and disposition of the ruins,” he is quoted as saying, “the city must have looked just like an ancient Roman city. I can envisage a triumphal arch-like statue stood on the left side of the Coliseum and a shrine over the hill.” Kimura claims the city was sunk by an earthquake 3,000 years ago. At least that’s what he says today. Remember that the megalith was at the center of a city that was destroyed by an earthquake – we’ll come back to this later.

In 2002, Kimura was interviewed by Morien Institute through a series of emailed questions and answers. You can read the entire article HERE but the last two questions warrant some discussion.

When asked about evidence that the Yonaguni monument was once above sea level, Kimura responded, "When it comes to evidence that Iseki Point [the site of the monument] was once well above sea-level, the Yonaguni 'sea-floor stalactite cavern' has been studied by me with scientific methods and now put this fact beyond dispute."

When asked about the age of the monument, he replied, "After studying the No 1 monument at Yonaguni for more than 10 years, the structure may have been manufactured in the dry air about 10 thousand years ago based on such evidence as age determinations of the stalactite in the underwater caverns, and of the No.1 monument using 14C and 10Be methods." [14c and 10Be are scientific dating methods and Kimura mentions the ten thousand year age several times during the interview]

Before reading on, you might want to check out the underwater site for yourself. A Google search for the exact phrase “Yonaguni photos” yields 62 hits and many of the pictures posted on the Internet are remarkable. I’ve also added a picture to the Gallery that you should check out before continuing.

Now that you’ve seen the site first-hand (well, technically, second-hand) I remind you of Kimura’s claim that the structure was once at the center of a city that was sunk by an earthquake. Did you see, in a single photograph, the kind of rubble you would expect to find if an entire city had been destroyed? Quite the contrary! The smooth, sandy bottom is conspicuously devoid of rocks, boulders and debris. The picture I added to the gallery was taken by professional underwater photographer Danielle Caceres-Bricheno earlier this year (2007) when she explored the site with Aratake and she says, "There is nothing that looks like it was affected by an earth quake at all.” More of her incredible Yonaguni photos are online HERE.

Although I couldn’t find any photographs of the stalactite cavern Kimura claims to have studied, I seriously doubt if the stalactites would have been worthy of much study if they had been through an earthquake large enough to sink an entire city. No, I think Graham Hancock’s original scenario – that the site was submerged by rising sea levels – is much more likely to explain the physical evidence. It also explains the well-preserved stalactite and stalagmite caves of the Bahamas, and the massive complex beneath the island of Cozumel. The real question seems to be why did Kimura revise his thinking and move the submergence of the Yonaguni monument 7,000 years into the future? None of the available interviews (see YouTube interview HERE) mention his “old” theory or ask why he’s changed his mind. However, the new theory certainly fits the academic view of history much better than his old theory did.

[Footnote: The second novel in my Seeds of Civilization series takes place almost entirely on the island of Yonaguni and suggests an entirely different origin and purpose for the monument, but at least I tell my readers my story is fiction! Et tu, Kimura?]

New Discoveries in the Bahamas (Part 3 of 3)

admin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:17:00 GMT

Dr. Greg Little’s third report details the discovery of “Joulter’s Wall” – a stone wall found in shallow water off a deserted island seven miles north of Andros. Little and his team spent four days filming the wall and exploring the surrounding islands, known as the Joulter Cays.

In Little’s own words:

“The wall itself is actually located in a small, narrow bay between what appears to be two islands. The bay is 3-7-feet deep, depending on the tide, and has sharks coming in at high tide. From the bay, the wall extends diagonally away from the two islands into water that is one-to-four feet deep ending where sandbars are located and the bottom is barely covered by water. About two miles further, through this shallow water, is the [6,000-foot] deep Tongue of the Ocean.”

Describing the wall, he reports:

“The wall is primarily made from square and rectangular limestone blocks that range in length from 3-6-feet, a width of 2-3-feet, and a thickness of 6-inches to 3-feet—with some blocks far larger. The blocks are obviously cut and roughly dressed and rough tool marks are clearly visible on many. There are some smaller, cube-like stones, about a foot square, occasionally found in portions of the intact wall and in places on the bottom. One area of the wall remains fairly intact and is found in water about 6-feet deep. Brushing the sandy bottom underneath the lowest tier of stones revealed more limestone blocks under the visible portion. How far down it extends is unknown. This section of the wall runs approximately 30-feet long and is formed by the massive blocks stacked on top of each other with 2-3 vertical layers of blocks visible.”

On the nearby island, Little’s team discovered two small dams possibly used as fish traps. Although Bahamian fishermen claim they’ve never used traps, Little suggests that they look very similar to those commonly used by the Maya.

Dr. Little's complete article is available at:

http://www.mysterious-america.net/atlantisandros20.html

Don’t forget that The Littles will be presenting the full results of the 2006-2007 Bimini and Andros expeditions at the Annual Ancient Mysteries Conference in Virginia Beach, VA on October 6, 2007.

Digging for the Truth

admin — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:03:00 GMT

The History Channel launches the fourth season of its Digging for the Truth series on Monday, September 3, 2007 at 9 PM (8 Central) with an episode about the Chachapoya, a band of warriors who preceded the Inca by five hundred years and built a giant stone monument three times the size of Egypt’s largest pyramid.

On September 17th the series will air an episode titled Kings of the Stone Age focusing on the Olmec – the most mysterious culture of the Americas.

Although new episodes air on Mondays at 9PM (8/C), they are repeated several times throughout the week. See the series Web site at http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=1337 for more details.

P.S. If you know of upcoming TV shows that are relevant to the topics covered here at The Mega Blog, please drop me a line (rja@TheMegaBlog.com) and I’ll get the word out to our growing subscriber list. If there’s enough interest, I’ll consider making the TV listings a regular feature of the site. (Thanks to George E for his continued updates)