Thursday, December 20, 2012

Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?



A "grid of streets" on the seabed at one of the proposed locations of the lost city of Atlantis has been spotted on Google Ocean.

Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?
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The perfect rectangle, which is around the size of Wales, was noticed on the search giant's underwater exploration tool Photo: GOOGLE EARTH


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.
Last night Atlantis experts said that the unexplained grid is located at one of the possible sites of the legendary island, which was described by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
According to his account, the city sank beneath the ocean after its residents made a failed effort to conquer Athens around 9000 BC.
Dr Charles Orser, curator of historical archaeology at New York State University told The Sun that the find was fascinating and warranted further inspection.
"The site is one of the most prominent places for the proposed location of Atlantis, as described by Plato," the Atlantis expert said. "Even if it turns out to be geographical, it definitely deserves a closer look."
Bernie Bamford, 38, of Chester who spotted the "city", compared it to the plan of Milton Keynes, the Buckinghamshire town built on a grid design. "It must be man made," he said.
Google Ocean, an extension of Google Earth, allows web users to virtually explore the ocean with thousands of images of underwater landscapes.
Launched earlier this month, it lets users swim around underwater volcanoes, watch videos about exotic marine life, read about nearby shipwrecks, contribute photos and watch unseen footage of historic ocean expeditions.
The legend of Atlantis has excited the public imagination for centuries. In recent years "evidence" of the lost kingdom has been found off the coast of Cyprus and in southern Spain.
Plato described it as an island "larger than Libya and Asia put together" in front of the Pillars of Hercules - the Straits of Gibraltar. He said Atlantis was a land of fabulous wealth, advanced civilisation and natural beauty destroyed by earthquakes and floods 9,000 years earlier.
here the gallery







http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/4731313/Google-Ocean-Has-Atlantis-been-found-off-Africa.html


OMG! Did Google Earth Find Atlantis?

This story was written by CNET's Caroline McCarthy.



Google is officially denying widespread Internet rumors that its Google Earth software located the mythical sunken city of Atlantis off the coast of Africa. Either that, or Google is totally trying to hide something. Since I always appreciate a nice juicy conspiracy theory, I'm going to go with the latter.

From what it sounds like, a British aeronautical engineer was playing around with the new Google Earth 5.0, which includes undersea data, and noticed something funny off the coast of Africa, about 600 miles west of the Canary Islands, that resembled a pattern of a street grid.According to the U.K.'s Press Association, the pattern of streets equated to an area the size of Wales.

In case you've had more important things to read about for the past few thousand years, Atlantis was a legendary island city first mentioned by Plato, allegedly a hardcore naval power located somewhere near North Africa that disappeared when it sank into the ocean. Guess global warming was a problem back then, too. Anyway, most people think Plato made it up, kind of like how those guys in Georgia made up the story about shooting Bigfoot, but others just won't stop believin'.

So this guy is trawling the ocean floor with Google Earth--ah, if only we had that kind of free time on our hands--and was quick to announce his discovery. It looks like The Telegraph reported the story first, adding that the exact coordinates are 31 15'15.53N, 24 15'30.53W.

Recently, Google's mapping products have revealed everything from a creepy dude walking around with a sniper rifle to what appear to be U.S. drones in Pakistan.

But when it comes to Atlantis, Google totally had to rain on everyone's parade. "It's true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an ancient Roman villa," a statement from Google read. "In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artifact 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."

I smell a cover-up!

In other news, that pendulum map on last week's Lost was totally awesome.

By Caroline McCarthy
CNEThttp://www.cbsnews.com/2100-503063_162-4815915.html

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