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by D. Trull
Enigma Editor
The island of Bimini in the Bahamas has long been a favorite hotspot in the
search for Atlantis. Speculation has centered around a supposed "Bimini
Road" (or "Bimini Wall"), a structure often said to have been paved on the
ocean floor by Atlanteans, which is actually a natural formation of
limestone. There have also been unfounded reports of stone columns and giant
pyramids in the island's waters. Now another claim has surfaced of a great
discovery at Bimini, and it appears that it will prove just as insubstantial
as the Atlantis theories that have come and gone before.
Aaron DuVal, president of the Miami-based Egyptology Society, recently
announced that a team of underwater explorers has found the ruins of
12,000-year-old temples off the coast of Bimini.
DuVal claimed the
structures bear markings and architectural specifications that match
well-known megaliths in Egypt, South America and other parts of the world.
The noted similarities to Egyptian ruins included distinctive quarry marks
on the rocks and the same geometric angles present in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Other markings were said to match the
Altamira cave paintings of
Spain. To make his claims even more fantastic, DuVal said the Bimini ruins
contained "exact orbital plots of the planets and what seem to have been
intricate star shafts, metal-coated walls, and intermingled stones of
various colors."
In the initial press release, dated July 6, 1997, DuVal made no specific
reference to Atlantis. Later, in an interview conducted by a new age
organization called New Heaven New Earth, he stopped short of claiming that
these ruins were evidence of the legendary sunken city, although he seemed
to relish the possibility.
"Atlantis is a pretty touchy subject," DuVal said. "Maybe this will be the
trigger to bring more people forth to explore ideas that have been taboo in
the past. Megalithic structures are not supposed to be in the Bahamas. These
are closer to what you would find at Giza than what you would find in Mexico
or Peru, which is very strange. People are saying unbelievable things like
it could force the re-interpretation of the course of human history."
DuVal was quick to agree when the interviewer noted how his announcement
seemed to fulfill the predictions of alleged prophet Edgar Cayce, one of the
top Atlantis advocates of all time.
"This discovery fits right with his predictions,"
DuVal said. "Now we are
not saying it is Atlantis, but it sure is strange how these findings not
only match Cayce's predictions but Plato's writings as well, even to the
metal-coated walls."
In fact, Cayce actually prophesied -- among other things -- that
Atlantis
would rise again to the surface in 1968 or 1969. Plato's description of
Atlantis was most likely a reference to the Minoan island of Santorini, near
Crete, which was devastated by a volcano.
DuVal remained tight-lipped on crucial details of the Bimini ruins,
including the exact location of the findings and the names of the explorers
who found them. He explained that he needed to work out arrangements with
museums and the Bahamian government to protect the site before its location
was made public. DuVal planned a press conference for July 25, promising
full disclosure and presentation of video tapes and photographs of the
ruins. He also stated that he had never claimed the ruins were Atlantis,
apparently to combat the "Atlantis fever" word of his announcement had
triggered on the Internet.
DuVal's claims garnered a stern rebuke from Dr. Paul Pettennude, an
underwater archaeologist with the Maya Underwater Research Center, who is
intimately familiar with the waters around Bimini. In a statement issued to
New Heaven New Earth, he listed several reasons why nothing like the ruins
DuVal describes could possibly exist. Among the points of Pettennude's
argument:
-- "Bimini is not the lost world. It is a very, very popular resort
destination and thousands of divers visit it every year. Every available
reef is dived frequently and nothing else has turned up."
-- Equipment used by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute of Melbourne,
Florida, and the Rosenteil School of Oceanography at the University of Miami
"is very sophisticated and there is nothing but known wrecks being found."
-- "In 1986, NASA had the Navy scour everything north of Cuba to north of
North Carolina looking for pieces of the exploded Challenger shuttle. Every
square foot of bottom down to 6,000 feet was examined and every piece of the
wreck larger than a dinner plate was recovered."
-- "The U.S. Navy maintains a system called
SOSUS which cost $16 billion to
secure the ocean floor from foreign subs. It paints a picture of everything
from the bottom up."
-- "The reefs off Bimini from 300 feet up to the surface are less than
14,000 years old. This is the level to which the water rose at the end of
the last ice age. There could not be a sunken city because the Bahama
Islands are not shrinking but actually growing inches per year. This would
have made any ancient city unstable."
-- "Divers could not have found a city below 250 feet without special diving
gases.... There are only a handful of people in the world trained and
certified to dive these research blends. I am one of them and the group is a
close knit family. No one has any knowledge nor has been asked to find an
ancient city."
Pettennude also mentioned the spurious "Bimini Road" and noted that the man
who discovered it in 1968, J. Manson Valentine, was one of his professors at
the University of Miami. Another red herring that has thrown off Atlantis
seekers at Bimini are stone pillars on the ocean floor that resemble
shattered marble columns. These artifacts were actually formed by barrels of
cement and similar materials that sunk from ships and hardened underwater,
leaving stone casts after the wood staves of the barrels rotted away.
The weight of the evidence certainly seems to be stacked against DuVal. As
it turned out, he canceled the July 25th, 1997 press conference at the last
minute. He indicated that more time was necessary to ensure the safety of
the ruins, lest they fall victim to looters and vandals. DuVal rescheduled
the press conference for August 8, '97 but it was postponed a second time.
After extensive research,
ParaScope has found no further information on this
supposed discovery or any subsequent public remarks from DuVal. Obviously,
the mass media has made no announcement on the discovery of Atlantis. The
only news outlet that seems to be following the story is the web site of New
Heaven New Earth, whose news bulletins are available to members only -- at a
cost of $100 a year. News concerning the Bimini discovery is to be posted by
NHNE "four weeks after our subscribers have received it." At
ParaScope,
where we believe the news should always be free for everyone, we may have
more to report on this story after all the details have surfaced.
Extract from Plato's Timaeus and Critias
This extract from the work of Plato (circa 427 - 347 BC) is the first
appearance in classical literature of the Atlantis myth. It is supposed to
be part of a story told by Plato's great grandfather (Critias), who heard it
from his great-grandfather (Dropides), who heard it from an Athenian traveller (Solon). The narrator is an Egyptian priest talking to
Solon. It
is supposed to describe a historical war between the ancient Athenians and
the legendary Atlantis.
'Our records show how your city checked a great power which arrogantly
advanced from its base in the Atlantic Ocean to attack the cities of Europe
and Asia. For in those days the Atlantic was navigable. There was an island
opposite the strait which you call the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of
Gibraltar), an island larger than Libya (Africa) and Asia combined; from it
travelers could in those days reach the other islands, and from them the
whole opposite continent which surrounds what can truly be called the ocean.
For the sea within the strait we were talking about is like a lake with a
narrow entrance (the Mediterranean sea); the outer ocean is the real ocean
and the land which entirely surrounds it is properly termed continent. On
this island of Atlantis had arisen a powerful and remarkable dynasty of
kings, who ruled the whole island, and many other islands as well and parts
of the continent; in addition it controlled, within the strait, Libya up to
the borders of Egypt and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia (Italy).
This dynasty,
gathering its whole power together, attempted to enslave, at a single
stroke, your country and ours and all the territory within the strait. It
was then, Solon, that the power and courage and strength of your city became
clear for all men to see. Her bravery and military skill were outstanding;
she led an alliance of the Greeks, and then when they deserted her and she
was forced to fight alone, after running into direst peril, she overcame the
invaders and celebrated a victory; she rescued those not yet enslaved from
the slavery threatening them, and she generously freed all others living
within the Pillars of Hercules. At a later time there were earthquakes and
floods of extraordinary violence, and in a single dreadful day and night all
your fighting men were swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis
was similarly swallowed up by the sea and vanished; this is why the sea in
that area is to this day impassable to navigation, which is hindered by mud
just below the surface, the remains of the sunken island'
Translation by Sir Desmond Lee
first published 1965
Penguin Classics
Although Plato describes Atlantis as an island in the Atlantic Ocean, and
some Canarian writers have associated Atlantis with
the Canaries, it is now
generally believed that the Atlantis myth is a memory of Minoan Crete, a
civilization which was overwhelmed by the volcanic explosion of the
Mediterranean island of Santorini in the fifteenth century BC.
Ivan Sanderson
The professional biologist who founded the Society for the Investigation of
the Unexplained in Columbia, New Jersey, wrote "The Twelve Devil’s
Graveyards Around the World" for Saga magazine in 1972. Reprinted in
Paradox, by Nicholas R. Nelson, Dorrance & Co., Ardmore, Penn. 1980.
"... with several associates, he set out to 'pattern the mysteries' by
taking full advantage of modern communication technology and statistical
data analysis. His success was startling. "The Twelve Devil’s Graveyards
Around the World," plotted ship and plane disappearances worldwide, focusing
attention on 12 areas, equally spaced over the globe, in which magnetic
anomalies and other energy aberrations were linked to a full spectrum of
strange physical phenomena.
Highest on Sanderson’s statistical priority list was a lozenge-shaped area
east of Miami, in the Bahamas, on the western tip of the infamous
Bermuda
Triangle. This area’s "high profile" of strange events,
Sanderson concluded,
was mostly due to the enormous flow of air/ sea traffic in the area. Other
zones of anomaly, though less familiar, were equally rich in disappearances
and space-time shift occurrences. ...
Another area of continuing disappearances and mysterious time-warps is the
Devil’s Sea located east of Japan between Iwo Jima and
Marcus Island. Here
events have become so sinister that the Japanese government has officially
designated the area a danger zone. Sanderson theorized that the tremendous
hot and cold currents crossing his most active zones might create the
electromagnetic gymnastics affecting instruments and vehicles. His theory is
now being balanced against several."
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