Did Google Earth Satellites Discover Atlantis？ ｜ What on Earth？

2003. A German researcher is using satellite images to search for evidence of lost civilizations around the Mediterranean. As he scans a wildlife preserve on the southern Spanish coast, he spots what he believes are giant rings hidden beneath the sandy marshes. You have to focus, but when you do, you see what appears to be concentric circles. The image comes to the attention of physicist and amateur historian Reiner Kuhne. As he studies it in more detail, he notices what appear to be large rectangular structures near the center of the circles. I saw two rectangles. One was 250 meters in length. The other one was much larger. To find out what is in the image, a team of scientists heads to the site to investigate. Geoscientist Dr. Philip Reeder is one of them. Part of the analysis of that image is what's called ground truthing, so you actually go to that place and you see what's there. The wildlife preserve is a national park where excavation is prohibited. To solve the problem, Reeder turns to a state-of-the-art technique called electro-resistivity tomography, or ERT. ERT shoots pulses of electricity into the ground beneath the earth's surface, and then the materials then reflect that pulse of electricity back up to paint a picture of what's beneath the surface. The ERT creates a kind of ghost image of the site. The hard data seems to confirm Kuhne's hunch. A series of massive circular structures appear to be buried just inland from the Spanish coast. The fact that the analysis of the image indicated that there was something beneath the surface is truly exciting, and it makes you want to determine exactly what is down there. If circular structures are concealed under this marshy coastline, then who built them? For some investigators, the first clue comes from the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato. When we see the concentric circles, we're reminded of Plato's account of the lost city of Atlantis, for he describes it as having circular harbors. Based on Plato's interpretation, could this be the location of where Atlantis existed? The problem with the Atlantis theory is that very few experts believe the legendary city existed at all. I think it was not a real place, because Plato described Atlantis as larger than Africa and Asia together. Countless researchers have attempted to locate Atlantis. Many now believe that Plato may have simply made it up. The thing about Plato is you have to realize he got all his information secondhand. Do we really take him seriously? I don't know if Atlantis is real or just a figment of Plato's imagination, but I feel that there is something there. Investigators must dig deeper into the past for clues to who built the structures. One comes from the Bible. In its pages, they discover references to a lost city, famed for its riches, called Tarshish. According to the Bible, Tarshish is a legendary trading center that provides gold and silver, exotic spices, all across the Mediterranean. Many of the Bible's clues to the location of the city of Tarshish are vague. But intriguingly, at least one ties it to the site in the satellite image. According to the scriptures, Tarshish lay beyond the pillars of Hercules, which was an old reference and common reference to the rock of Gibraltar. The Straits of Gibraltar connect Spain with North Africa, and it's just beyond Gibraltar that we find our image. The location of the image and the fabled city matches up. Are the circular structures in the image just a small section of a vanished biblical city? Dr. Reeder and his team search the site for physical evidence to back up this theory. The initial results are disappointing. The pottery that was found in the area, once it was dated, indicated that it was from a much newer time than you would expect for Tarshish as it's mentioned in the Bible. The discovery of the newer pottery fragments suggest the site isn't as old as investigators thought. But the Bible offers a possible explanation for this discrepancy. In the book of Isaiah, Overflow thy land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish, there will be a girdle no more. And what that clearly means is that a flood is coming and that there will be nothing to contain the flood and that the city will be destroyed by a flood. Did a giant biblical flood cover the site, depositing a layer of newer material on top of the treasures of Tarshish? Evidence from the site seems to lend weight to the theory. Drilling holes into the Dona Ana plain indicated that there was a layer of sand beneath the landscape there. And this layer of sand could indicate that there was a tsunami. What would that do to any archaeological evidence? It would wipe it out. Could an underwater volcano have created a massive tsunami that destroyed the legendary city of Tarshish and buried its riches? And could Tarshish and Atlantis be one in the same? What's frustrating for me is that there's three things that tie this site to Atlantis. It's just beyond the pillars of Hercules. There's circular harbors and it was destroyed by a cataclysm. But yet we can't excavate. I can't think of another site that more perfectly fits the description of Atlantis. The problem is we'll never know.