For years, dreamers, occultists, and New Agers have been attracted by the idea of Atlantis,
the "lost" island subcontinent frequently imagined as an advanced, utopian society holding
wisdom that may bring world peace.
Thousands of books, journals, and websites have been written on Atlantis, and it is still
a popular topic.
People have lost riches, and in some cases their lives, in search of Atlantis.
If you type "Atlantis" into Google, around 150 million results will show up.
Obviously, Plato's legend of Atlantis has long engaged many individuals, from scientists
to mythicists, with various locations being offered as the likely location of this lost
and sunken metropolis.
But did such a city ever exist?
And, if so, where would the ruins be?
Is it possible, though, that it has already been there in front of us in one of the most
unlikely places on the planet?
In the middle of the Sahara Desert?
Stay with us until the end to learn how a recent discovery indicated that Atlantis could
be located in the Sahara Desert!
Unlike many myths whose beginnings have been lost in the mists of time, we know exactly
when and where the legend of Atlantis initially originated.
The story was initially described in two of Plato's dialogues, "Timaeus" and "Critias,"
which were written around 360 B.C.
Though Atlantis is commonly imagined as a peaceful utopia today, the Atlantis described
by Plato in his fable was quite different.
In his book "Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology," professor of archaeology Ken Feder notes that
in Plato's story, "Atlantis is not a place to be honored or emulated at all.
Atlantis is not the perfect society ... Quite the contrary, Atlantis is the embodiment of
a materially wealthy, technologically advanced, and militarily powerful nation that has become
corrupted by its wealth, sophistication, and might."
The Atlantis legend, as propagated in Plato's morality tale, is more about the city's heroic
competitor Athens than a drowned civilization; if Atlantis existed today and was discovered
undamaged and inhabited, its inhabitants would most likely strive to kill and enslave us
all.
There are no other records of Atlantis anywhere in the world, indicating that Plato invented
it as a plot device for his writings.
There are many existing Greek works; certainly, someone else would have mentioned, at the
very least, such a magnificent location.
There is absolutely no evidence from any source that Atlantis mythology existed prior to Plato's
writing about it.
However, many people over the years have believed that there must be some truth to the mythology,
speculating on the location of Atlantis.
Based on the same set of data, countless Atlantis "experts" have found the lost continent all
over the world.
Candidates include the Atlantic Ocean, Antarctica, Bolivia, Turkey, Germany, Malta, and the Caribbean,
each with its own unique set of evidence and reasons.
But might it have been right in front of us in the Sahara Desert, in a location known
as the Eye of the Sahara?
The Richat Structure, sometimes known as the Eye of the Sahara, is a strange African phenomenon
located near west-central Mauritania.
It is situated on the Adrar Plateau of the Sahara.
It is a fairly symmetrical geologic feature composed of numerous concentric circles of
exposed sedimentary rock seen from space.
In fact, that is how scientists discovered it in the first place.
The Richat Structure is a 45-kilometer-wide geological anomaly that has been compared
to Jupiter's Great Red Spot by some.
When you get to the ground, all you see is sand, rocks, and more sand.
As a result, it's hardly unexpected that the structure was only found from space in 1965.
The four-day voyage of Gemini IV included not only the first American spacewalk, but
also the first photos of our planet.
At first glance, it appears to be a meteor impact crater.
In fact, it is most likely the result of millions of years of erosion on Earth.
The meteor impact theory has fallen out of favor since the site lacks the minerals often
found in shock metamorphism.
That is where the surrounding rock is deformed by the severe heat and pressure of a high-velocity
impact.
Long ago, the Sahara was a temperate region full of colorful rivers, lakes, and flora,
rather than a desert.
This changed for unknown reasons.
Weathering took away layers of hard and soft rock as it turned into a barren wasteland.
The rings exhibit older igneous rocks in the middle and younger quartzite and sedimentary
rocks in the surrounding rings and ridges.
The Structure includes three primary rings, the exact shape of which experts are still
unsure.
NASA's photos of the Richat Structure use artificial coloring to display all of the
layers of rock and to differentiate bedrock, sand, vegetation, and salt-laden deposits.
The rings do not appear blue from space.
Tectonic and volcanic activity caused by the cataclysmic separation of Pangea 100 million
years ago led molten rocks to rise and form a dome, the rocks of which date back to the
Proterozoic and Ordovician periods.
Later hydrothermal action led the center to collapse and generate megabreccia, a type
of huge, broken rock containing tiny quartz-rich sandstone shards.
The center lies below the surrounding rings and ridges because it has collapsed in on
itself.
The Structure is surrounded by massive sand dunes known as the Ouarne.
These dunes are home to Ksours, mediaeval settlements, and historic Saharan trading
routes.
When viewed from above, aerial photographs of the Eye reveal a number of large white
spots.
These are actually salt pockets on the sand's surface.
This implies that ocean water flowed over this area in the last 12,000 years.
The number 12,000 was not chosen at random.
Several recent articles have claimed that the Sahara Desert used to have a lush, green
climate.
Everything was washed away in a massive flood about 11,600 years ago, leaving behind a deserted
wasteland.
That is approximately 56 million years later than people previously thought that part of
Africa was underwater.
The Trans-Saharan Seaway had submerged parts of Africa at the time.
So, if you think it can't be Atlantis because it isn't underwater, think again.
The Eye is now landlocked, but it wasn't always that way.
The main reason why people believe the Eye of the Sahara is not Atlantis is that it is
higher than sea level.
However, 11,600 years is a long time.
The region has lifted since Atlantis would have sunk.
The salt in the area indicates that the ocean once flowed over this part of Africa, indicating
that it was once below sea level but is now higher due to how the earth's crust shifts
up and down and side to side.
This was especially true given the amount of volcanic activity in the area.
People believe that if Atlantis was as large as Plato claimed and had sunk into the sea,
we would have discovered it by now.
Someone has to have seen remnants of buildings or artefacts among all the oceanographers,
submariners, and other people who study the ocean.
But if we recall the massive flood that wiped out the green landscape that was once the
Sahara, we have our answer.
Something that could have completely wiped out a land's foliage and other life forms
could certainly wipe out an entire city with little to no evidence left behind.
More recently, the YouTube channel Bright Insight stated that the elements of the Richat
Structure match Plato's description of Atlantis in a viral and quite convincing video.
Many other 'parallels' have been pointed out by proponents of the "Eye of the Sahara = Atlantis"
theory, some of which appear to be even more fanciful.
Five-time EMMY Award winner writer Paul Wagner, for example, asserts that King Atlas, the
King of Atlantis and namer of the Atlantic Ocean, is the same person as Atlas of Mauritania;
or that Atlantis is located in the same location as the Eye on Herodotus' map from 450 BC.
Unfortunately, Herodotus did not create any maps himself.
However, the maps circulated on the internet as his are neither authentic nor a scam.
They were created thousands of years later, based on Herodotos' work, to assist modern
readers in keeping track of all the peoples and geographical aspects mentioned by Herodotos.
One of these characteristics is Mount Atlas, and one of these peoples is the Atlantean
tribe, but Herodotos never mentions Atlantis.
One of Wagner's seemingly most convincing statements is that hundreds of artefacts have
been discovered in and around the Richat Structure.
He believes the objects discovered, which include arrowheads, spears, stone spheres,
surfboards, oars, ship hulls, and other artefacts, date from the time of Atlantis.
Some formerly classified CIA files were recently made public.
Some redactions remained classified, but they gave fresh information on the Eye of the Sahara.
In 1967, the CIA executed a covert mission in which aircraft were flown to a dozen various
places across the world to undertake geomagnetic anomaly surveillance.
Scientists intended to look for any differences or occurrences in the geomagnetic fields that
insulate us from the vacuum of space.
One of the areas tested was the Richat Structure.
While the fact that a mission occurred has been declassified, the mission's results have
not been made public.
This is what was written about the Eye of the Sahara findings: “While the scientific
aspects of this survey are totally unclassified and available to the worldwide scientific
community…”
There is still some disagreement over why the findings would be classified.
This isn't proof of the Lost City of Atlantis, but it is proof that something strange is
going on in the Eye of the Sahara that the CIA believes should be kept hidden from the
public.
Atlantis' central island was reported to have remarkable features, such as two freshwater
springs, one hot and one cold.
This would be extremely rare, considering there are no other known locations in the
world with such springs.
Something like this could have been the cause for the mission in the first place.
But, for the time being, we don't have an answer.
A book titled Adam and Eve was also discovered in the declassified files.
The complete book became available, but the reasons for its inclusion in the CIA files
remain unknown.
There are assertions in the text regarding entire continents being buried by ocean water
around 11,600 years ago.
That number comes up again.
This number corresponds to the time when the Sahara transitioned from lush and verdant
to arid desert.
It also corresponds to the sinking of Atlantis.
Furthermore, it corresponds to the Younger Dryas period.
The Younger Dryas is a well-known example of earth's sudden transition.
It began around 14,500 years ago, when the Earth's climate transitioned from a chilly
glacial environment to a warmer state.
The end is thought to have occurred around 11,500 years ago.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the end was exceptionally
abrupt.
This could be what caused the Lost City of Atlantis to vanish rather than simply sink
into the ocean.
Is the Eye of the Sahara really the lost city of Atlantis?
Let us know in the comments section below.