[kj] OT: Oddly Enough

[Patrick Davies]

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/editorialatlantis.shtml

Could the Atlantis story be true?  What evidence to the contrary can
this claim stand that Atlantis once existed?  Well, it can't, not
concretely.  

Over 2000 years ago, the Greek Philosopher Plato wrote down the first
account of Atlantis.  He told of an immense and powerful civilization in
tune with nature that was "as large as Libya and Asia Minor combined."
Now theologians claim that Plato could have exaggerated the breath of
Atlantis and that they believe that Plato meant Atlantis's influence
extended throughout the Mediterranean; and the island was not as large
as claimed.  Plato places Atlantis "Beyond the Pillars of Heracles"
which means at this time beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, which is an
intercontinental opening that leads towards open sea situated on the
edge of the Atlantic Ocean.  Located here is the Azores, and many
believed that this is a very good place for the sunken island of
Atlantis.  

The Azores is a cluster of nine islands, and they are located amid a
chain of underwater mountains that rise to heights in excess of 9000
metres. They form part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which defines the
division between tectonic plates, aligned approximately north south
beneath the ocean floor for some 17,600 kilometres.  It is the tips of
the very highest of these subterranean mountains that protrude from the
ocean floor as the principal islands of the Azores, which are themselves
endowed with sizeable mountains that soar to a height in excess of 2100
metres.  But this water mass of evidence is only circumstantial to
Plato's story.  Plato describes large mountains in his story, but as of
yet, no ruins have been found in the Azores to corroborate this theory.

The best candidate for Atlantis is the island of Thera.  In 1628 BCE,
Santorini exploded with the power of several nuclear bombs nearly
destroying the island altogether.  The crater of what used to be the
island of Thera (also known as Crete) is 400 meters deep and 83
kilometres wide.  However, according to Plato the timeframe is nowhere
near when Atlantis existed.  Plato says Atlantis existed before time was
recorded (chronologically), and if this is true, then Thera cannot be
Atlantis.  At this time, smoke from the explosion of Santorini could be
seen form miles around and many stories are told of this frightful
event, even China writes of the smoke and ashes of the explosion
darkening the sky; but more evidence of Atlantis has been found here
then anywhere else in the world: temples, hot springs, fiascos on the
wall.everything that Plato describes as being Atlantis is here.  But why
then can this not be Atlantis if all the evidence is all here?  Because
the location isn't correct.

In the early 1900's, Edgar Cayce, the man who came to be known as "the
Sleeping Prophet", claimed that he received knowledge of Atlantis and
its people from those who once lived there, through spiritual
interpretation.  He would sporadically go into a rant about an ancient
people and their civilization when he would do psychic readings for
people.  Atlantis has received wide acclaim from authors over the years
and they have written about it extensively, and one of them is the
writer Ignatius Donnelly.  Ignatius Donnelly saw correlations between
other ancient civilizations and what Plato wrote, and he wrote them down
in his book: Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, first published in 1882,
and some now have come to believe that Edgar Cayce may have used this
knowledge to make his readings more believable.  Edgar Cayce placed the
civilization of Atlantis at the height of its power at 1,000,000 BCE,
well before recorded history, a date no one can confirm.  He also
predicted that in 1968 a portion of Atlantis would rise to the surface
off the coast of Bimini.  And in 1968, an stone roadway or wall was
found miles off the Bimini coast just where Edgar Cayce said it would
surface.  Evidence has concluded that the blocks or stones were
naturally sculpted over eons of water erosion and incoming currents, and
yet, they are so perfectly carved as if man-made that that evidence of
their natural construction is soon becoming implausible to believe by
true believers.

Bimini is in the Atlantic Ocean, precisely where Plato said Atlantis is
supposed to reside, but is this enough evidence to conclude Plato was
telling the truth?  Of course not.  Theory that it might be the outer
wall or a roadway of Atlantis according to Edgar Cayce is all that
connects the find to the lost civilization.other than that, we can
pretty much discard the "Bimini Wall" find.  However, rumour has it that
Atlantis is buried beneath North and South America due to a the well
renown continental drift theory, where as the tectonic plates of the
planet over centuries of movement shift around, altering the appearance
of the planet, and that the wall or roadway is in fact a portion of
Atlantis.  But if this is true, could the continents of North and South
America harbour Atlantis beneath?  

There is no evidence to prove this theory, and only conjecture gives it
merit.  But as we look in places like Mexico where we find the pyramids
of the Inca and the Mayans, do these not smack a similarity between the
pyramids in Egypt?  Could there have been a co-existence between the
continents at one point?  Theory points to the tectonic plates shifting
and creating the continents of today, and that they broke up the land
known as Lemuria, where supposedly all the people of the world lived
long ago.  Lemuria existed in the Atlantic Ocean, or what has come to be
known as the Atlantic Ocean.  Many centuries ago, Lemuria was one large
land mass surrounded by ocean on every side.  Could this have been
Atlantis?  We don't know for sure, and we may never know.  And only
through extensive archaeological and oceanography evidence will we ever
know the truth, and prove this theory.

The theory of Lemuria could hold merit though, and it might be the key
to why so many different and yet similar civilizations were birthed on
separated continents where they had absolutely no communication with
each other, as we are presently aware.  As Lemuria broke up, different
civilizations began to crop up, eventually giving birth to collective
societies with equally similar but distinct cultures.  And Egypt
becoming the dominant one as history sees it.  

And what of the story of Atlantis first coming from Egypt?  Plato said
that he heard the story of Atlantis from the Greek Philosopher Solon,
who heard it from an Egyptian priest.  How did Egyptian priest learn of
this story?  The Egyptian priest said it was a story passed down from
generation to generation, but its origin was unknown even to the priest.
But could it just be a story?  Theologians wonder about its validity.
Could Plato have created a story of a perfect utopia to give the Greek
people faith that there was something to belief in to take their minds
off the unpleasant times Greece was facing with war and strife at the
time?

As far as history text books say, the Egyptians are one of the most
technological civilizations ever created, then they slipped into
history, letting the sands of time cast its shadow over them, and soon
they were lost.until many centuries later a new civilization emerged
that cast light onto what we had forgotten about our planet's past.
Could this have happened to Atlantis?  That the civilizations that came
after it merely forgot about Atlantis over time?  The Modern age is a
wonderful time:  we have the technology to turn grains of sand into
computer chips that can run everything from the modern toaster to the
most sophisticated military hardware every devised.  And yet, we have
also created weapons of mass destruction and have used them on a number
of occasions against our fellow man.  Rumours have cropped up that
Atlantis also possessed these very same weapons in the form of power
crystals and sub-nuclear technology, hinting that they may have
destroyed themselves due to their arrogance and over-confidence in
trying to control them.  Some say they were forgotten on purpose, cast
out of history, so the world wouldn't repeat the same mistakes as
Atlantis did.  But could this be true?  If they were, why recant the
story now?  And are we repeating history?

The Great Sphinx of Egypt may hold an answer to this question.  Beneath
the right paw of the Sphinx is an unclaimed chamber found by sonic
subterranean equipment nearly 10 years ago.  Archaeologists were
searching for hidden passages and chambers under the sand when they came
across a cavity beneath the Sphinx.  At first a dig was planned to learn
what secrets this chamber held, but then fears cropped up about the
danger of digging and it was stopped.  No one wanted to dig for fear of
having the Sphinx collapse under the strain.  But what could lie in this
mysterious chamber?  Rumour has it that this is where the lost scrolls
of Atlantis are kept, a depository of wealth and information about the
lost civilization.  A hidden chamber filled with debris has been found
connecting the Great Pyramid of Cheops to the Sphinx, but it has yet to
be cleared.  Scientists have dated the Sphinx as being close to 10,500
years old due to water erosion around its body.  The Sphinx's head is a
mystery in its own rite and it has been theorized that the head is not
the original one first craved onto the body; yet it shows more erosion
than the body.  Carbon dating says that it was left to the elements for
centuries while the body was buried beneath the sand.  But the question
is this:  Why does the Sphinx date back long before the birth of the
Egyptian civilization as we know it?  Who could have created this wonder
of the world?  The refugees from Atlantis?  Could it be a message of
some kind?

In conclusion, many questions still surface about whether or not
Atlantis once existed.  Science-fiction has sketched this lost
civilization as nothing more than fantasy, a story for fairy tales and
comic books, but why then are there so many clues to an ancient
civilization that no one can find? Did Plato write fact or fiction?  And
why do Edgar Cayce's readings of Atlantis intrigue us to the point that
these lost souls he was in contact with might be giving us information
to forgo a similar fate that of Atlantis.  Are we meant to learn the
secrets of Atlantis to save us from destroying ourselves?  Why is the
Sphinx older than recorded history?  Could the Sphinx hold the key to
unlocking Atlantis?  Or is Atlantis nothing more than our hopes and
dreams of a perfect utopia put into practise to deny ourselves from
accepting that perfect utopia like Atlantis is an unattainable dream?  I
think only time will tell