Message #146061

[Bianca]

One segment of David’s film showed an elevated rectangle from a distance ­ about 50 yards— and clearly showed what appeared to be a wall of individual stone blocks about 4 blocks high spanning the length of the coral mound from the sea floor. Strangely when he got right next to the site with his camera the blocks were not visible and the same area appeared to be a lava-like covering of hardened coral. This was the same optical illusion we had experienced on our dive the day before at rectangles on the southern end of the site. However, this rectangular mound had a curious t-shaped extension on one of the short sides. It was covered in hardened coral but seemed to have right angles cut out of it so that the raised area formed a T shape. Also of interest were some clearly defined rectangular depressions in the sandy areas between some of the mounds which may also be the remains of building foundations. In essence, the formations resemble truncated mounds, with clearly defined sides and a flat-top. Several appear to have multiple levels. Most of the formations are 3-6 feet in height with the sizes varying from about 12 x 15-feet to 15 x 24-feet. The sides of the formations are likely stone as we did find some stone slabs in some areas.

Needless to say the History Channel was very pleased with their footage and the forthcoming documentary will probably cause quite a stir and raise the ire of the skeptics. Unfortunately, not a single archaeologist asked by the History Channel to go on the expedition to examine the site would or could go. They may—or may not—include that issue in the show. We are now more convinced then ever that this is clearly an area that needs more exploration. It may well be that the remains of manmade structures are truly on the edge of this 10,000 BC shoreline—which would be a stunning and completely mind-boggling discovery. But more research is needed. Unfortunately sub-bottom profiling cannot penetrate the hardened coral on the rectangular mounds, but if the sea bed next to the mounds are pure sand then it can “see” through them so that we could search for artifacts that might have been preserved in the sand. For a 5-day expedition we felt that we got a lot accomplished. We were even able to take one day before the film crew arrived to travel 65-miles south of Bimini to explore a few of the areial targets we had identified during our April 2008 flyover of the Great Bahamas Bank from Andros to Orange Cay. We found lots of cars, trucks, TV antennas, and other fish condos (cages) on the bottom, but no archaeological evidence. However, we still have more than 100 targets to access so that will be another expedition. Hopefully it will be soon as we hope to return to the rectangles at Bimini in order to map it more completely with both sidescan and video.

A more detailed report will be issued next month after we examine our extensive film and photos. In addition, these new results will be incorporated into the dvd documentary, The Search for Edgar Cayce’s Atlantis, which is now being updated and should be available by June 1.