-Caveat Lector- http://www.nationalpost.com/ Friday, Dec. 7, 2001 p. A1
Canadian explorers find 'lost city' off coast of Cuba Andrew Cawthorne, with files from Michael Higgins, National Post Reuters, with files from National Post HAVANA - Canadian researchers believe they have found a 6,000-year-old underwater "lost city" built by an unknown civilization. The find off the coast of Cuba conjures up visions of the fabled lost city of Atlantis, although the research team said it is too early to draw conclusions about their discovery. However, using an underwater robot, the explorers have been able to confirm granite-like structures, some perpendicular, circular and triangular, on the seabed at a depth of 650 metres. "It's a really wonderful structure which looks like it could have been a large urban centre," said Paulina Zelitsky, a Soviet-born Canadian ocean engineer. The researchers from B.C.-based Advanced Digital Communications said they believe the mysterious structures could have been built at least 6,000 years ago -- or about 1,500 years older than the pyramids at Giza. "It would be totally irresponsible to say what it was before we have evidence," Ms. Zelitsky said. She said the structures might have been built by unknown people when the area was above water. She said volcanic activity might explain how the site ended up below the Caribbean Sea. In July, 2000, ADC researchers, using sophisticated side-scan sonar equipment, identified a large underwater plateau with clear images of symmetrically organized stone structures that looked like an urban development partly covered by sand. >From above, the shapes off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula on the Caribbean island's western tip resembled pyramids, roads and buildings, they said. In July this year, ADC researchers, along with the firm's Cuban partner and experts from the Cuban Academy of Sciences, returned to the site in their ship, Ulises. They said they sent an underwater robot down to film parts of the area, which covers 20 square kilometres. Those images confirmed the presence of huge, smooth, cut granite-like blocks, the researchers said. Most of the blocks, measuring between about two and five metres in length, were exposed, some stacked one on another. Others were covered in sediment and the fine, white sand that characterizes the area. The intriguing discovery provided evidence that Cuba at one time was joined to mainland Latin America via a strip of land from the Yucatan Peninsula, researchers believe. "There are many new hypotheses about land movement and colonialization, and what we are seeing here should provide very interesting new information," Ms. Zelitsky said. ADC is the deepest operator among four foreign firms working in joint venture with President Fidel Castro's government to explore Cuban waters containing hundreds of treasure-laden ships from the colonial era. The Canadian company already has discovered several historic sunken Spanish ships. In an earlier high-profile find, ADC was testing equipment in late 2000, off Havana Bay, when it spotted the century-old wreck of the American battleship USS Maine. The ship had not been located since it blew up mysteriously in 1898, killing 260 U.S. sailors and igniting the Spanish-American War. Atlantis, and its supposed advanced civilized race, has fascinated humanity for centuries and is surrounded by myths. One myth portrays Atlantis as a huge, beautiful continent peopled by a race of intelligent, scientific-minded people whose advanced civilization was destroyed in a flood or an earthquake after losing a major battle against the Athenians. Others claim it was destroyed during a volcanic eruption. The Greek philosopher Plato used the rise and fall of Atlantis as a parable to show how the gods punished those who worshipped false gods. Atlantis has been variously placed in the Atlantic, on the island of Crete, on the volcanic island of Thera north of Crete, on the Canary Islands, in the Bermuda Triangle and in Scandinavia. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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