Discovery of Atlantis Updates 2005

Images of the seabed (gathered by sidescan sonar during our expedition) are coming in and specialists are currently working to reduce the noise and create mosaics. The ridge/wall at the base of the hill is practically ruler-straight for the first two kilometers. At its western end, it clearly turns a hard 90 degrees and heads toward the hill itself. On the summit of the hill, straight walls/ridges run along the length on both sides, and canals surround the entire hill just below the summit. The post-processing of the data took longer than anticipated as always, stay tuned for developments...

Message from Robert: Various remote sensing experts have reviewed the images of the seafloor acquired during the expedition and we will continue to get peer reviews as time goes on. So far, no one can explain the anomalies we are viewing as anything other than manmade objects. The images are truly startling and have caused us to pull back as a team and consider how to best proceed. The post processing of the data has also proven to be a project of its own and various experts in the US and UK are busy working on creating clean images, mosaics and 3D models, which have caused further delays. Due to our desire to present these findings to the world in a methodical fashion through documentaries and publications, we have decided to keep the majority of the images confidential until the right time. However, the global thirst for the results of the expedition has also compelled us to share at least a snapshot of why we are all so excited. In the next few weeks a press release will be sent out with one image, revealing clear markings of manmade objects on the seafloor, a mile below. The rest will be made available as quickly as possible through publications and documentaries as opportunities arise. Please be patient as all scientific analyses need time to be properly reviewed and presented. We are currently looking for a publisher that has a distribution arm that can handle the international demand for the upcoming book, and working with various documentary companies that have already shown interest. It is our aim to release this one image in an effort to take the project to the next level and bring in the parties needed to conduct the second expedition properly and put this matter to rest. Plato is about to be vindicated, stay tuned...

Note from Robert: The Atlantis team is hard at work producing the new series of bathymetric maps, models and mosaic images. Scientists and experts from around the world are working on post-processing the sonar data and giving humanity its first good look at the massive structures on the seafloor. Several fronts are moving ahead simultaneously. The documentary angle, contractual agreements and financial platforms that have to be put in place in order to launch the second expedition demand careful marketing of the newly arriving, exclusive images/models. So far, we have made all the research and data and the maps/models freely available to the world, and we will continue to release this vital information as soon as possible whenever possible. Everyone that has ever been involved with this project has learned a thing or two about patience...

Robert will be heading to Cyprus again in the next few weeks to set up the second expedition, due to happen later this year.

Note from Robert:

Dear supporters, critics, and Atlantis buffs: I'm told that we're getting swamped with emails asking for the latest images. I understand the excitement and my primary wish was to share the images as soon as they arrived but life is never that simple. Please understand that this project and the resulting images from the expedition have required years of difficult work by dozens of people, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment money. The images didn't come cheap and to share them with the public for free is not fair to those who have given so much for this to happen. We also need to utilize the sale of these scans of the seabed in a way that will insure the required funding is made available for the second expedition. Remember that planning Atlantis expeditions is relatively easy and many people want to do them every year, but funding and executing them properly is very difficult and needs a business-minded approach. Our expedition last year was the most scientific Atlantis expedition conducted in history. We aim to film the remains of Atlantis City using an ROV and that takes a lot of planning and money, so the images have to be used to make that happen. They will still be released in the near future when the time is right. Don't worry, Atlantis isn't going anywhere...

Every year in the second half of May, the Eastern Mediterranean University in northern Cyprus (Gazimağusa or Famagusta) organizes a spring festival, which always enjoys high attendance and enthusiasm. The theme of the 12th Spring Festival this year will be Atlantis, Lost City, centering around Robert's work. Robert will attend personally for the festivities May 17-21st. You can read more on their sites: http://www.emu.edu.tr/fest and http://www.emu.edu.tr.

Robert will be a sponsored guest and presenter at the 3rd Artiglio International Award celebrations in Viareggio (Tuscany, Italy), June 2-5. His presentation is scheduled for Friday June 3rd, at 5 p.m. Please visit their site to read more: http://www.artiglio.org/. Program schedule is here (in Italian)

Invitation front back

Due to an ever-increasing demand for more updates and information about the progress of the Atlantis project, we will soon add a "members" section. This will be a fee-based, monthly subscription service that will give interested parties private access to the inner workings of Robert's day-to-day operations and a behind-the-scenes look at the Atlantis team as they approach the final leg of the discovery phase. We need your support and in return want to take you along on this fascinating journey and show you pictures of the colorful people and special places that Robert visits as the greatest archaeological discovery in history nears. His memoirs and comments from members of the team will also be listed. Stay tuned, it's coming soon.

Due to the political situation in Cyprus, Robert has cancelled his participation in the Atlantis Festival in Famagusta (Turkish occupied area of north Cyprus).

We are launching the subscription-based member's section today, a long-awaited addition to the DiscoveryofAtlantis.com website. We will continue to inform the public about the major updates on this public updates page, but for those of you who are interested in knowing the behind-the-scenes stories and the more detailed accounts of our day-to-day progress, we have prepared a reserved section for "member's only." Through this medium we intend to familiarize you more fully with this fascinating project that has enthralled so many of us through the years, and in turn, fund some special trips and projects that will excite and inform you for months to come. This is also a chance for Robert to be less formal and share some otherwise private thoughts. We are heading toward the final stage of the discovery process and there is sure to be lots of exciting news, and we promise to inform you as much as possible about the progress. By becoming a subscribed member, you will enjoy exclusive breaking news, more detailed information, special audio and video files, high resolution animation files, and the first peek at the vestiges of Atlantis/Eden as they are released to the world.

"The Levantine Basin is traditionally the deep basin at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Since its physiography was first described in the seminal work of Emery, Heezen and Allan (1966) based upon a reconnaissance cruise of the R/V Aragonese in the very early sixties, the Levantine Basin has piqued the interest of earth scientists. The region hosts the junction of three plates, whose interaction has produced complex structures. Because of its relative remoteness, and the uneasy relationships between the seven national entities along its littoral, the area was not easy to investigate. However, the probing since the 1970s has shown that the basin is filled with a great quantity of sediments (12 km or more), and that the nature of its underpinnings is not simple. Many investigators have studied the area. Some have returned again and again to this problematic place. Most propose models for its origin and history based on the findings of the particular tools employed, whether they be bathymetry, gravity, magnetics, seismic reflection, seismic refraction, teleseismic investigations, or submarine geology based on coring, drilling, and dredging. The region’s recent history also seems to beckon. From the pioneering study of our colleague Ya’akov Petrovitch Malovitskiy (1978) who proposed on the basis of seismic investigations that the Levantine Basin was a sunken continent, we advance to recent extrapolations (www.discoveryofatlantis.com - Sarmast, 2003) regarding the ‘finding’ of Atlantis at depths of ~1500 m between the West Tartus Ridge and the Gelendzhik Rise, based upon a computer analysis of the Strakhov’s multibeam soundings." -- Dr. John K. Hall (2005)

Quote from "Discovery of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus," : "Evidently the (Atlantis) disaster was one of gigantic proportions and included several different but related natural catastrophes, all of which conspired to bring about the end of the famed island. ... The catastrophe, then, included an earthquake, a flood, and the submergence of land." Robert Sarmast (Origin Press, 2003, P. 97)

Scientific studies and evidence now at hand supporting the Mediterranean/Cyprus theory: Scientific knowledge of the destruction of the Gibraltar Strait due to seismic activity in the entire Mediterranean region, and the filling of the basin by a torrential and devastating Atlantic flood. Malovitskiy's assertion, based on seismic studies, that the Levantine Basin is a "sunken continent." A landmass on and around Cyprus that perfectly matches Plato's detailed description of Atlantis Island, found through the construction of the world's first detailed look at the seafloor in the area. An expedition showing anomalies around a low mountain, also matching the description of the Acropolis Hill perfectly, which cannot be explained as natural formations.

This all means that every part of the Cyprus theory has now been substantiated and successfully matched with the story of Atlantis using accepted scientific facts and academic proposals, through the work of the world's leading scientists in their respective fields and the most advanced technologies available to humankind. That includes the precise landscape match, anomalies around the purported Acropolis Hill, the earthquake, the flood, and the sinking basin. The sole discrepancy remaining is the timing. Scientists currently gauge the time of the flood to have been around five million years ago, based on studies of the core samples taken from the Med. seafloor. However, such core samples have NEVER been taken from the Cyprus Arc, the plateau upon which the island of Atlantis rested -- not a single one. The core samples collected so far are few and far between, and the closest to our target area came from the southern region of the Med., which is far greater in depth than the Cyprus Arc. According to our maps, those areas WERE under water when Atlantis was above water, so a core sample from the region showing that it was last dry five million years ago does not in any way conflict with the Cyprus/Atlantis theory. In other words, until a core sample is taken from the Cyprus Arc plateau and analyzed, the assumption that this area also was last dry five million years ago is just that -- an assumption. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to substantiate this claim, only theories based on data collected from unrelated areas. A core sample from the area would put the matter to rest and we aim to collect it during the second expedition if possible.

June 1st 05

Robert will be traveling to Italy tomorrow as a sponsored guest and presenter at the 3rd Artiglio International Award celebrations in Viareggio (http://www.artiglio.org). His presentation is scheduled for Friday June 3rd, at 5 p.m. and this will be the first time the sonar images resulting from the first expedition will be shown publicly.

A four part audio documentary on the mythical stories of Atlantis, broadcast over shortwave radio, CBC Radio International (1977):

Featuring: Atlantis the lost continent

Part 1
Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The audio interview (4 hrs) was encoded at 36k to conserve bandwidth, equalizer adjustment maybe required for
listeners comfort.

all video/audio encoded in windows media player

Again, there has never been and there will never be a charge for the important updates regarding the Atlantis project. The member's page has "extra" details that are not really appropriate for the public updates page and is meant only for those who want to know the behind-the-scenes story. We're all used to getting free information from NASA and NOAA and other governmentally funded sources, as well as free information from scientists working off grants by universities etc... The Atlantis project is a privately funded work, paid for by people who have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for this discovery to happen. Nevertheless, we will soon lower the price for the member's page so more people can afford the rate and join the fun.

Due to your requests we have lowered the access fee to the member's page to $8 per month. Other currencies are accepted at around the same rate.

Robert will give three presentations at the Droushia Heights Hotel (near Paphos in Cyprus) on Wedneday, Thursday and Friday night (June 29-July 1), at 6:30 p.m. All the new images, maps and models resulting from the expedition will be shown for the first time in Cyprus. Please contact the hotel for reservations at: 26332351.

Here are some pictures of the Akamas region in the southwestern tip of Cyprus, probably the most beautiful spot on the whole island. This is a remote region that is only accessible by boats or very adventurous four-wheel drivers. These four pictures give us a small glimpse of what Atlantis/Eden may have looked like before the great flood. One can only imagine the sheer beauty of the gardenic paradise at the southern foothills of the island, presently a mile below water. Enjoy!

The Cyprus government will hold a press conference within the next ten days to announce their full cooperation with the Atlantis Project. The images of the seafloor acquired during the first expedition will be released during this conference. The contract with the production company that will produce the Atlantis documentary has been signed. Stay tuned for more details.

PRESS RELEASE
August 2, 2005

Atlantis Expedition

INVITATION

All Cypriot media and foreign correspondents are invited to a press conference about the Atlantis project on Thursday, August 4 at the Journalist House (“Dimosiografiki Eftia”) in Nicosia, at 10.30 a.m.

Robert Sarmast, head of the Cyprus/Atlantis Expedition project, will be showing the results of last year’s expedition to the world for the first time on Thursday, by showing the sonar scans of manmade structures one mile below water. He will also announce the support by the Cyprus Tourism Organization.

An international press release will be handed out to all journalists on Thursday and simultaneously sent out to the world’s media, along with the announcements and images of the manmade structures on the seafloor will be released for global distribution. The address for the press conference is:

Rik Avenue, #12
Journalist House (tel: 22446090)
Nicosia.

NEW IMAGES, FINALLY RELEASED ON INTERNET TODAY, SHOW MAN-MADE STRUCTURES 1.5 km (4,900 ft) BELOW SEA LEVEL, OFF CYPRUS COAST

ATLANTIS LIVE UNDERWATER ‘DISCOVERY’ TO BE FILMED FOR $5 MILLION WORLDWIDE TV SPECIAL IN 2006

International TV networks in Europe and the US are already scrambling for the presales of a planned $5 million American-made live ‘Discovery of Atlantis’ TV special, following the initial release today of the first few much-awaited underwater side-scan sonar images of structures 1.5km below sea level, 80km off the SE coast of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean.

Published today to the world press and scientific community on the official Cyprus Atlantis Expedition website, Discovery of Atlantis Website, triumphant expedition leader American Robert Sarmast is confident the newly released images (which include a 3km-long straight wall intersected at right angles by another wall) will finally silence any remaining scepticism about his long-standing claims that modern Cyprus is what remains of a much larger and now partly sunken landmass – a landmass which fits Plato’s description of the ancient land of Atlantis perfectly.

They have now so impressed the officials of the Cyprus Tourism Organization (CTO) of the government of Cyprus that they are now giving the project full support. In addition, the scientific community has as yet been unable to provide any convincing explanation as to how the image structures could be produced by natural means.

At a Nicosia press conference, expedition leader Robert Sarmast yesterday presented the images to the media and explained the next steps leading to the second and main underwater expedition and TV special that will enable viewers worldwide to participate in the thrill of discovery as they watch, live on their own TV screens, as manned submarines film underwater ROV submersibles blasting sediment off the buried structures - revealing the full detail of what has lain hidden for probably more than 12,000 years.

The first expedition took place in November 2004 in association with Phoenix International, who were involved with the filming of the wreckage of the actual Titanic. Phoenix, along with other international experts, are set to take part in the main expedition in May next year. Mr. Sarmast’s 12 years of research draws upon the theory that the city of Atlantis was submerged when a massive flood swept through the Mediterranean when the Atlantic Ocean burst through the previously closed straights of Gibraltar. Says the American-Iranian researcher: “These images are showing what I believe to be the oldest man-made structures ever seen by human eyes – old enough to make the great pyramids of Egypt seem like modern buildings in comparison.” Now, at least 12,000 years later, we may soon be the first generation to see a live discovery of the remains of what was destroyed so many years ago.
END

SIDE SCAN SONAR IMAGES Available on Discovery of Atlantis Website.

PRESS CONFERENCE
A press conference will be held today Thursday 4th August in Nicosia – contact Cyprus News Agency for details.
EXPEDITION LEADER
Robert Sarmast (expedition leader, researcher and author of: ‘The Discovery of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus’)

Cyprus contact: Axel Schoeller +357 99 447013
Email: press@discoveryofatlantis.com.
UK contact: Angela Henderson, Press Officer, +44 7724 602500

Here is a link to a site run by the Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, north Cyprus, which originally invited Robert to participate in their spring festival. The theme for the festival was based on Robert's work in associating Cyprus with Atlantis (unfortunately Robert could not attend the festival due to political tensions on the island). There are some interesting pictures here!

Talks are ongoing with US and European broadcasters about the next expedition and the documentary. The weather window around Cyprus closes around November 15 which means that the second expedition will likely take place in early spring. It will include an ROV which will light the area and take video footage of the area, as well as a sub-bottom profiler which will allow us to look under the sediment.

Jon Stewart's take on the Cyprus/Atlantis expedition as shown on the
"Daily Show" last November, 2004.

New York Times article discussing recent research about Cyprus's ancient past.

newspaper article

Animation file shows how the flood moved toward Atlantis/Cyprus island and how the famed rectangular valley at its foothills was slowly engulfed. You can see how the flood went all the way to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean basin before it began to make its way into the valley itself. This is an accurate computer simulation produced through the 3D model and original software created by our geophysicist, Patrick Lowry of the Scotia Group. It's all based on real data.

The rectangular valley is elevated slightly above the seafloor to the south. Since the flood was tremendous in volume and force, the valley would have experienced some of its devastating power right from the start but not the full fury of being struck head on. Since the valley is elevated just a bit and protected by a string of coastal mountains to the south, it was spared the full force of the flood but it wouldn't have taken long for its flat lands to be under water. The summit of the Acropolis Hill, however, was slowly submerged since it was a few hundred feet above the surrounding land.

An interview with Robert Sarmast is published in the Asian-American "Hyphen" magazine (Issue #8): http://www.hyphenmagazine.com

Robert will be arriving in Cyprus again by mid March. The US broadcaster, NBC, will be there by late March to film Robert's story as part of a two hour Atlantis special due to air on one of its cable channels on July 2nd. A few minutes of footage from the first expedition will be aired on this program for the first time. The second expedition may also happen this spring/summer season depending on the availability of funds and/or favorable circumstances.

NBC and Natalie Morales have finished filming with Robert in Cyprus and it was a great success, with some beautiful footage taken of the island as well as a group voyage on an EDT vessel. The Cyprus theory will be discussed for at least 30 minutes in the 2-hour Atlantis documentary due to be aired by the Sci-Fi channel in the US (July 2nd) and by SKY TV in Europe.

A revised edition of Robert's "Discovery of Atlantis" book is in the works and will hopefully be ready by July. The new edition will include a report about the 2004 expedition by Commodore Robert S. Bates and an update by Robert, as well as a foreword by Colin Wilson. Colin's foreword begins this way: " "I have virtually no doubt that Robert Sarmast’s conclusion that Plato’s Atlantis was situated in the south part of the island of Cyprus, and now lies under the sea, is correct."