Curious ‘Atlantis’ News Story Surfaces

Yesterday, I found a curious story at the HuffPo about the “Lost City Of Atlantis” — After reading the short story and watching the video, it struck me that there were a number of odd things about the story that needed some checking up on…

The post at the HuffPo: Archaeologists Claim They’ve Found Lost City Of Atlantis (VIDEO). The post starts off: “Undersea archaeologists have found the ruins of an ancient city on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, and researchers claim that it is the fabled and lost city of Atlantis.” This is incorrect if one goes by what the “undersea archaeologists” say in the original story.

At the Herald de Paris where this story originates from, the researchers are asked this question:

Asked if this city is the legendary city of Atlantis, the researchers immediately said no. “The romanticized ideal of Atlantis probably never existed, nor will anyone ever strap on a SCUBA tank, jump in the water, and find a city gateway that says, ‘Welcome to Atlantis.’ However, we do believe that this city may have been one of many cities of an advanced, seafaring, trade-based civilization, which may have been visited by their Eurocentric counterparts.”

The ‘Atlantis’ Video — The Video at HuffPo — MSNBC Morning Meeting: Has the lost city of Atlantis been found? (Update: Dec. 27th, 2009 — Oddly, MSNBC has already taken this video down – hence why I’ve taken out the video that was embeded. I’ve kept the link to where the video used to be though, if you’re curious as to where it used to reside at.)

What MSNBC Morning Meeting Got Wrong:

There are a couple of things that Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC Morning Meeting, (and the rest of the team there) got wrong.

- First, this underwater site isn’t ‘Atlantis’ — A ‘lost ancient city’ perhaps.

- Secondly, according to MSNBC Morning Meeting, the Herald de Paris is a French newspaper. In fact, it is not; it’s not even a French news site. The site is a San Francisco based site, this can be easily checked by doing a Whois check. My first clue was the phone number listed in the first article about this story: Previously undiscovered ancient city found on Caribbean sea floor. Cool name with some historical connotations and a small part of the site is in French, but it doesn’t look like this site which was launched about a year ago has a real Paris or French address or connection*. The phone number was “specially set-up” by the publisher, Jes Alexander, for people to find out more information or to find out how to fund the project team’s research. Personally, I’m not concerned of where this site is based, I just think that MSNBC should get the facts right. (Alexander used to write for the San Francisco Chronicle) In point of fact, the number in question is the same number Alexander offered to advertisers, sponsors, and investors back in March, 2009. (I haven’t made the long distance phone call to see what the pitch is for this story.)

Wasn’t there another ‘lost city in the Caribbean’ story a few years back?

According to the Herald de Paris: “The site was found using advanced satellite imagery, and is not in any way associated with the alleged site found by Russian explorers near Cuba in 2001, at a depth of 2300 feet.”

I decided to go looking for references to the 2001 news anyway. Here’s a story that I found: BBC: ‘Lost city’ found beneath Cuban waters (Friday, 7 December, 2001). Unfortunatley, I can’t find the Reuters article that is mentioned.

So, if this lost city is not the Guanahacabibes Peninsula “Cuba site”, (by the way, has anyone seen film footage of the 2001 find?) then where is this “previously undiscovered ancient site”?

Anonymous Researchers: But perhaps the most curious aspect of this whole story is the anonymous project team and their leader. Who are they? They won’t say at this point. Curious that. Even more curious, is the expectation of people funding an anonymous project and project team. Sounds weird — who knows where your money could be going to if you were to jump into this.

End Thoughts: It’s an odd story so far. I wonder how this one will pan out? It would indeed be cool if it actually is an underwater ‘lost city’.

* Just to clarify a point on the ‘French connection’. There is one phone number on a banner at the site that is a European phone number but those are easy enough to come by. I have the option of having as many as I want with my phone plan here in Canada.