Has the legendary city of Atlantis been found by Google Ocean? The buzz is spreading about a British engineer who claims that the add-on to Google Earth has pinpointed the street layout , shown above, of Plato's doomed city.
The Telegraph cites a Google user identified as an aeronautical engineer:
Bernie Bamford, 38, of Chester who spotted the unusual grid-like markings compared it to the plan of Milton Keynes, the Buckinghamshire town built on a grid design.
...the network of criss-cross lines is 620 miles off the coast of north west Africa near the Canary Islands on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
The perfect rectangle – which is around the size of Wales – was noticed on the search giant's underwater exploration tool by an aeronautical engineer who claims it looks like an "aerial map" of a city.
The underwater image can be found at the co-ordinates 31 15'15.53N 24 15'30.53W.
But wait! There's more--in 2004, an American team said that a search using sonar had revealed man-made structures in the Mediterranean between Cyprus and Syria. The BBC reported:
They believe they found evidence of massive, manmade structures beneath the ocean floor, including two straight, 2-km (1.25 mile) long walls on a hill.
Team leader Robert Sarmast said the walls appear to be sited on a flat-topped hill where the temples of Atlantis once stood.
Google's hot-new Earth functions, Ocean and Mars, are providing unparalleled glimpses into science and mysteries from ocean floors to Mars. Among the popular places to visit on Google Mars: the alleged "face on Mars."
You can find NASA's Mars Odyssey images, captured by THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging Sytem) at 40.68N, 9.54W at Google Mars. In 2001, NASA scientists compared images from the 1976 Viking mission, which inadvertently started the whole "face on Mars" craze, to then-new images from the Mars Global Surveyor.
Twenty five years ago something funny happened around Mars. NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was circling the planet, snapping photos of possible landing sites for its sister ship Viking 2, when it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. An enormous head nearly two miles from end to end seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia.
...Scientists figured it was just another Martian mesa, common enough around Cydonia, only this one had unusual shadows that made it look like an Egyptian Pharaoh....A few days later NASA unveiled the image for all to see. The caption noted a "huge rock formation ... which resembles a human head ... formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth." The authors reasoned it would be a good way to engage the public and attract attention to Mars.
It certainly did!
The "Face on Mars" has since become a pop icon. It has starred in a Hollywood film, appeared in books, magazines, radio talk shows -- even haunted grocery store checkout lines for 25 years! Some people think the Face is bona fide evidence of life on Mars -- evidence that NASA would rather hide, say conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, defenders of the NASA budget wish there was an ancient civilization on Mars.
And the "face on Mars" debate was on. For some, like controversial conspiracy theorist Richard C. Hoagland,Mars, the face and other alleged illicit NASA undertakings became a cottage industry.
Will the alleged Atlantis street grid become another flash point for debate? Probably, because after all, we humans love a mystery.
Update 7:55 a.m. CST--apparently the Atlantis speculations rocked some boats. Google quickly responded to the increasing interest with a press statement, including this explanation of the lines as:
..an artefact [sic]of the data collection process.
Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor.
The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.
Image credit: Google Earth/Ocean
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