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Atlantis: Discovered at Last?

Posted by Hemos on from the so-many-submissions dept.

Henry G. writes "The BBC is reporting that recent satellite pictures may show the location of the fabled city of Atlantis, as described by Plato. It is in Southern Spain, though, and not on an island as is commonly believed. Here's an image of the concentric rings over the alleged area." This story has gotten a lot of submissions; it's worth noting that it's also shown up off Cyprus, or near Cuba, or is Crete, or... It is worth noting that that Ubar was found this way.

9 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. Am I the only one... by brejc8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...who can't see any rings in that photo?

    --
    Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
    1. Re:Am I the only one... by snkline · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They are very hard to see in the top picture, but it was fairly obvious to me after a couple seconds, although you can only really see the ring pattern well on the right hand side, my brain simply extrapolated(sp?) the other side. Of course I don't think the jump from "a group of rings with two rectangles" to "ITS ATLANTIS!" is justified even if the measurements are close. Actual groundwork will have to be done to see what is really there, if artifacts indicate that there were two temples there to the correct gods (can't remember which ones even though I just read the friggin article) it may well have been the basis for Plato's Atlantis.

      Maybe my college archaeology classes did pay off, I remember looking at arial RS photos back then and wondering how the hell my prof saw the things he did, but by the end I could see them too.

  2. We've "found" it dozens of times... by ShinSugoi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    And every single time, it turns out to be false. Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubt this will truly turn out to be Atlantis.

    Of course, it certainly would be cool if it was the real deal!

  3. pareidolia by benploni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's probably just pareidolia. They know what they are looking for, so they see it in highly ambiguous data. Sure it might be Atlantis, but I remain skeptical until they can produce much more unequivocal evidence.

  4. Plato the story teller by Ghost-in-the-shell · · Score: 5, Insightful


    It might be important to note that the sory of Atlantis could and is most likly just that a story. Plato like Homer was a great story teller, he was also had an great impact on many Academic Disciplines.

    While Homers story of The Illiad was based on the real war that happened in Troy, we have no conclusive prof that an island of Atlantis existed. This discovery may provide evidence of the fabled city, but I won't hold my breath just yet.

    --
    -Ghost
    1. Re:Plato the story teller by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It might be important to note that the sory of Atlantis could and is most likly just that a story.

      You think? Gee, I don't know. I'm inclined to believe that prefacing the story of Atlantis with a disertation on the value of constructing false histories for the moral instruction of youth and the less sophisticated of the populace and then employing all the standard literary devices of the time to denote that the story being told was instructional myth is purely coincidental.

      KFG

  5. Oh brother, here we go again by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "This is the only place that seems to fit [Plato's] description," he told BBC News Online.

    Except for its not being an island and all the other bits we ignored to make the data fit the model.

    KFG

  6. Seeing what you're looking for.. by WegianWarrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're looking for something spesific, it's easy to find it.. our mind is good at recognisong patterns, even when they arn't there. Off course, this is what leads people to see cities om Mars, Lenin in their shower curtain and, in this cause, traces of Atlantis. It's called pareidolia, and it's more common than you might think.


    PS: I urge everyone to visit the link and explore the site - it's a good read and quite interesting as well as funny.

    --
    Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
  7. Just fudge the numbers by Wizzo1138 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I love this part:
    ...the ancient unit of measurement used by Plato - the stade - may have been 20% larger than traditionally assumed. If the latter is true, one of the rectangular features on the "island" matches almost exactly the dimensions given by Plato for the temple of Poseidon.
    And if the mile is 10000% larger than we tradtionally assume, I only have a one-mile trip to work.
    --
    Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.