1978 Russians' Ampere Seamounts Expedition (new information)

Back in the 1970s, the Russians made publicity by stating that they found undersea ruins near the Ampere Seamounts. Some of the pictures ended up in the books by Charles Berlitz! The original reports and pictures have ended up being a Holy Grail of sorts for Atlantis researchers.

To make a long story short, I found out that this material came into the possession of Edgerton Sykes and that he willed his entire Atlantis collection to the A.R.E. when he died.

Awhile ago, I asked Dr. Greg Little of the A.R.E. to check on that information and se if there was anything useful in it! Over the holiday break, he got the chance to do so and here is what he found:

"We were in Virginia Beach over New Years and spent two days in the Edgerton Sykes room copying and videotaping from his files. One of the early Bimini skeptics, John Gifford, was interviewed about the Bimini columns after he examined them in the 1970s. Gifford described the fluted marble columns and related that they appear to be directly linked to 3000-year old temples in the Mediterranean. Phoenician trading was cited. Secondly, Sykes had a huge amount of material regarding the Russian underwater explorations in the Mid-Atlantic. I wasn't aware that the Russians actually did so many followups to it all. The initial report they put out related that some of the things they found might be manmade. This is cited all the time. But, there were a host of follow-up articles by the same researchers, and they conclusively showed that everything they had seen on the bottom was natural. They had a lot of photos and scientific reports on it, most of which never were available in the US--and none of it is on the internet. Sykes also had a lot of books and articles on Atlantis in Spain, Cadiz, Andelucia, etc, etc., etc. Incredible. Not a new theory anywhere as every possible place is covered in these books even Israel, the UK, -- you name it. Sykes seemed convinced that Atlantis was primarily in the Bahamas-Carribean area, but it had remnants spread out all over the globe.

There were at least three followup articles with photos. They concluded it was all natural. There were some photos. It all looked interesting, but it looked natural."

I'd like to see the info on this myself someday, but I trust Greg's opinion on this, so that verdict is good enough for me. It's a disappointment, but, in the end, I would much rather know the truth than hold onto a fantasy!

Desiree