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An independent team of researchers claims to have discovered Atlantis.
The research focuses on stone structures on Salmedina Island, off the coast of Chipiona, Spain. Bay of Cadiz, west of the Strait of Gibraltar.
The ruins span approximately 11.6 square miles of offshore ocean floor and adjacent coastline, with some walls measuring 23 feet high and 6.5 feet thick.
Michael Donnellan, founder of Spain-based Ingenio Films, believes these structures are the remains of a lost Atlantic civilization, perhaps Plato’s Atlantis. He chronicled his beliefs in the film “Atlantica,” a 90-minute piece shared with Fox News Digital.
Donnellan said the slabs can only be seen twice a day, at low tide. And he estimates they could be more than 11,000 years old.
Independent researchers claim that giant stone ruins off the coast of Spain’s Salmedina Island may be evidence of Plato’s Atlantis. The photo on the left shows the coastal waters of Cadiz, further away from Sal Medina. (Ingenio Film)
So what’s behind his theory? Donnellan said it’s all about depth.
He said geologists believe that everything buried at a depth of about 3 meters, or 10 feet, in the area is about 3,000 years old.
“What we’re finding is more than 20 meters deep,” he pointed out. “And when you go down 15 to 20 meters, floor level …But in reality, we have to take into account that there is probably another 5 or 10, even 15 meters of sediment on top of the underwater ruins, which further exaggerates the antiquity. ”
“The discoveries we are making are real and are the result of an extraordinary team effort, including divers, archaeologists and experts.”
All of this leads Donnellan to believe that they are much older than a few thousand years, or before the Common Era. Phoenicians, Tartessians, Romans.
”[They’re] “According to our geologists, it will take about 10 to 12,000 years, or even thousands of years,” he said.
Donnellan argued that not only was the structure ancient, but there appeared to be evidence that it was a large-scale structure. catastrophe This is not unheard of, as the island is located near the Azores-Gibraltar fault.
“Typically, when sediments have been deposited over a long period of time, we see a layered structure,” the researchers said. “But when you have a sudden deposit, a very chaotic catastrophe deposit, what you find instead is not a layer, but just a huge deposit.”
Michael Donnellan, founder of Spain-based Ingenio Film, believes the site may date back 11,000 years, long before the advent of any known advanced civilization. (Ingenio Film)
“There’s every indication that these settlements were truly affected by traumatic shocks and a series of climate changes.”
Donnellan said the researchers used a variety of techniques, including LiDAR and multibeam echosounders, to study the details of the site. Using a sounder, we were able to create a 3D map of the ocean floor.
Donnellan said the “Atlantica” documentary is the culmination of 10 years of work, including more than 200 dives and careful study of Plato’s writings.
“The discoveries we’ve made so far are very similar to the following: Plato’s writings on Atlantis It’s hard to imagine that he discovered anything other than what he described,” Donnellan said.
“Our commitment to this project has been immense and will certainly continue for many years to come.”
“But for those who are afraid of the word ‘Atlantis,’ I prefer to use the term ‘ancient Atlantic culture.'”
Those who think it is unheard of to refer to ancient materials to aid archaeological discoveries should consider this.
When archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the ruins of Troy in the 1870s, it was thought to be a purely mythical place.
But Schliemann unearthed walls, fortifications, artifacts, and even remnants of the conflict that prove Troy’s existence. Donnellan believes he can similarly transform Atlantis from myth to history.
Donnellan believes the stone structures in the Bay of Cadiz are remnants of a lost Atlantic civilization. (Ingenio Film)
“Either Plato was talking about this very place, or it’s an amazing coincidence that science and Plato’s writings are linked,” Donnellan said of Salmedina.
If proven, Donnellan’s discovery would suggest that the earliest advanced civilizations are much older than Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago.
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There is still no academic consensus on Donnellan’s discovery.
Juan Antonio Morales, a professor of stratigraphy at the University of Huelva in southern Spain, told local media Cadiz Direct that the coastal strata he studied “do not show any evidence of human activity in this area.” Instead, he thought of them as geological process. His comments were about the region in general and were not specific to the Donnellan site.
Jose “Pepe” Orihuela, an anthropologist and author of “Atlantis: Light of the West,” told Fox News Digital that it is “reasonable” to believe that Plato’s Atlantis story is “a reflection of the presence of megalithic phenomena in western Europe during the Holocene.”
Mr Donnellan argues that the site reveals a catastrophe likely related to tectonic activity in the area. (Ingenio Film)
The Holocene began about 11,700 years ago, or about 9700 BC, and marked the end of the last major ice age.
“Cultural phenomena such as megaliths suggest that during the Holocene, a flourishing culture and civilization flourished in this part of the world with its epicenter in the southwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula, especially along the washed coast of the Gulf of Cadiz,” Orihuela said.
For those who think this formation is natural or much younger than a few thousand years, Donnellan invites them to watch his film series. Distribution is underway, but an official release date has not been determined.
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“The discoveries we are making are real and are the result of an extraordinary team effort, including: divers, archaeologists, experts,” said Donnellan.
“The ruins we discovered underwater are just one part of a whole series of discoveries, all of which… iberian peninsula There was a thriving culture thousands of years earlier than previously assumed. ”
The next step is to continue research both on land and underwater, he said.
“I hope the public understands the importance of our work,” Donnellan said. (Ingenio Film)
“Our commitment to this project is enormous and will certainly continue for many years to come. This is just the top of the mountain.”
He added: “I hope the public understands the importance of our work… that humanity as we know it is much older than we have been led to believe.”
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“Everything we consider to be central to humanity: culture, navigation, science, art, music — It’s all much older than we’ve been taught… something really tragic happened in our ancient past that led to our downfall. ”
He also said, “We basically all need to get along better!”
