[music playing] JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The legend of Atlantis is one of the most alluring
stories in human history. A tale of a lost ancient utopia,
it has captivated and tempted thinkers and explorers
for centuries. Yet the lost continent
has never been found. Is Atlantis just a myth,
or was it a real place? I'm going on an exclusive
digging for the truth expedition that could answer
the mystery once and for all. Next stop, Atlantis. We'll use the very latest an
underwater survey technology to scan the ocean floor in
the most scientific search for Atlantis ever mounted. Have you ever used this to
look for lost civilizations? And I'll investigate alternative
theories about where and what the true Atlantis might be. I'll explore the geological
record of a violent disaster that rocked an ancient world. This much movement could
have occurred very rapidly. I'll dive a mysterious
sunken ruin that's never been filmed before. And I'll take to the high seas
on the edge of a war zone. What the-- Certain military
interest might be curious about what we're doing here. We're digging for the truth. We're going to
extremes to do it. Don't tell anybody. We may have found it. [theme music playing] For thousands of years,
people have told the story of Atlantis, the story of
an ancient world destroyed by a cataclysmic flood. And for thousands of years,
the location of that lost world has remained a mystery. It is perhaps until now. Hi, I'm Josh Bernstein. I've come here to
the Mediterranean to participate in what may
be an historic expedition, and you're invited
to come along. Join me on this very
special two hour edition of "Digging
for the Truth" as we go in search for the
lost civilization of Atlantis. Our exclusive "Digging
for the Truth" expedition begins in
the Mediterranean Sea. At the port of Limassol
on the island of Cyprus. It's the most scientifically
advanced search for Atlantis yet undertaken. We're using the
latest technology to survey what one
group of explorers believes is the final resting
place of the real Atlantis. They're convinced that the
legend is literally true and that they found the lost
civilization's watery grave. But we'll get back to
the expedition shortly. There are other theories
about what the truth behind this story really is. And I've also been exploring
some of those in my quest to find the real Atlantis. The first recorded
reference to Atlantis came in the writings of
the Greek philosopher Plato in the 4th century BC. He told of a great
civilization that had existed over 9,000 years earlier. It was a powerful empire, a
kind of utopia whose homeland was a lush paradise. Its capital was a
magnificent and advanced city that was built in concentric
circles across a wide plain and ringed with
elaborate canals. Plato wrote that the
people of Atlantis were descended from gods and
possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting
gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life. But according to Plato, the
Atlanteans became too proud of their achievements, and their
arrogance offended the gods. Terrible earthquakes
and violent floods struck the island nation,
and in a single day and night of destruction, Atlantis
disappeared forever, lost in the depths of the sea. No one paid too much attention
to the Atlantis story for the next 2,300 years. But then in the 1930s,
an American psychic named Edgar Cayce
resurrected the story in the popular imagination. I first learned
about Cayce in 2004 in Egypt from John Van Auken
of the Association for Research and Enlightenment. John believes that
the people of Atlantis built Egypt's Great Pyramids. He's been following
Cayce's readings and searching for Atlantis
for over 20 years. Can you tell me in a nutshell
who made these pyramids? Well, Edgar Cayce
ties this great pyramid and all the pyramids
around the planet earth into a very ancient period
that goes all the way back to Atlantis and the great myths
and legends of ancient peoples that were highly sophisticated. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Cayce said that the pyramids
and the Sphinx were built by refugees from
the destruction of Atlantis. In 1940, he predicted that
ruins from a part of Atlantis would be found off the coast
of the Bahamas in 1968 or '69. Cayce's prophecy
seemed to bear fruit when in 1968 a strange rock
formation was found off the coast of the Bahamian
island of Bimini. The stones were square and
nearly perfectly level. They appeared to have
been cut and laid out, looking remarkably like a road. Later, flat stones
were found with holes through them that looked just
like ancient anchors found in the Mediterranean. Many people still think that
the so-called Bimini Road could be part of Atlantis. That's where I began
my investigation. The Bahamas may seem far
from Plato's home in Greece, but it's consistent with
his description of Atlantis. He wrote it was the way to
other islands, and from these, you might pass to the whole of
the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean. So I went to the opposite
continent to the Bahamas to meet up once again
with John Van Auken. Good to see you. Just grab that. Come on aboard here. Unfortunately, my
trip to the Bahamas came in the middle
of hurricane season. We had to keep a close watch
on thunder clouds all day. As we dodged raindrops,
John told me more about Cayce's argument
that the Bahamas could have been part of Atlantis. JOHN VAN AUKEN: Atlantis
was a huge islands nation, so the islands from
just outside the Straits of Gibraltar to the
Canaries the Azores, all the way across to the
Caribbean Islands in this area all were part of Atlantis. It was huge. JOSH BERNSTEIN: So
there would have been a continent between
basically where the Atlantic is now. There is a belief that
the mid-Atlantic ridge, which the Azores are the
only remnant of that, was above the surface. So this section here would be
the very southwestern portion of Atlantis?
- Exactly. And it would have stretched
all the way across the Atlantic to the Straits of Gibraltar. JOHN VAN AUKEN:
That's exactly right. OK. The Bimini Road stretches
for about half a mile and is perfectly
aligned north to south. John took me to dive
on its western arm, the one with the
distinct 90-degree bend. Now this is Christa
and she knows-- JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
John's not a diver, so his friend Christa Brown
is going to be my guide. Gonna be my dive buddy? Yeah, mm-hmm. Perfect. And we'll start, jump
off the back of the boat, start as the mooring
pin, and then we'll work our way north and south.
- OK. Sounds good. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): John
gives me an underwater camera so I can capture
some of what I see. Cool.
Then I come up. We can look at these together. All right. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The Bimini Road does look remarkably
like a manmade structure. The stones are very regular,
almost like large paving stones. I can see squared edges and how
the rocks seem to fit together as though they've been
placed and leveled. Not sure how that happened. Christa shows me one of the
stones with a hole through it, which some people
think may be an anchor. It's interesting,
but I want to know how conclusive the evidence
is that the road is manmade. Back on the surface, John
and I look over the photos from the bottom. Maybe there's a line here.
JOHN VAN AUKEN: Right. JOSH BERNSTEIN: And I was
looking for some sort of sign of man made stone working. So one could argue that there's
some organization to the stones out there. Right. So this was done above
the surface at a time when Atlantis was
not below the ocean. This is not old
enough to be Atlantean. This is built on top
of Atlantean ruins. So this, the Bimini Road,
the anchor points here. Even though there's a
relationship to Atlantis, this isn't Atlantis. No, Atlantis is deeper. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Today, John believes Edgar Cayce's theory
that the Bimini Road is part of Atlantis needs
to be re-evaluated. But he definitely thinks
that the road is manmade and that remains of Atlantis
do exist here in the Bahamas and are waiting to
be found just deeper. After my dive on
the Bimini Road, I meet up with Dr. Bill Keegan
of the University of Florida. He's offered to give me
the scientific perspective at another rock formation
just like the Bimini Road, but this one's up on shore. We'll try. Let's take a look. Why don't we start with the
actual formation of the Bimini Road. WILLIAM KEEGAN: OK. The sharp edges, the
sort of angular cuts in the rock, the anchor holes. Well, I think the first
thing that we need to deal with is this is just a natural
beach rock formation. If you look at the
sand over here, this is what they call
oolitic limestone. It's mixed with a
little bits of shell. Essentially, you're looking at
the constituents of cement that are compressed into
this beach rock. The smooth surface is caused
by the wave action going over, so you get these
nice level surfaces. JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. Well, what about the
angular cuts and formations, things that were called
blocks, these sort of angular almost right angles? WILLIAM KEEGAN:
They're natural breaks. It's the way that the
beach rock breaks. What happens is as this
rock forms and compresses, it also shrinks. And it looks like
because of the fractures that somebody actually set these
things down as paving stones. JOSH BERNSTEIN: What about
the anchors though, the holes? The anchors? OK. This is very soft rock. And what happens is in places
like this, some of these are probably sea urchin holes. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Yeah. WILLIAM KEEGAN: Crab
holes get started. And then something hard like a
rock or a heavy piece of shell will fall into one
of these holes. And as the water--
the waves come in, it creates a spinning motion
which actually drills out these holes, and you end up with
things that look like anchors. So, again, there's a
very natural explanation for what other people
are saying was manmade. Right. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Bill's explanations are pretty convincing that
the Bimini Road isn't manmade. But what about John's
theory that there could be other evidence of Atlantis
still waiting to be found on or under the Bahamas? Into the jungle. To answer that question,
Bill led me into the jungle just off the beach to do
some excavation in one of his own dig sites. WILLIAM KEEGAN: We're
headed into a Lucayan site. Those were the Native
peoples who lived here when Columbus arrived. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): So far, Bill's research has
shown that the Lucayan where the earliest
inhabitants of the Bahamas. Unfortunately,
their presence here can be dated only as
far back as 700 AD. That's nowhere near early enough
to be related to Atlantis. You just point, and I'll dig. OK, well-- JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Still Bill says that there is something to
be learned about the Atlantis theory by digging here. Well, what we should
find here are marine shells that were used as food. We'll find pottery
from ceramic vessels. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
But we're not here just to dig for Lucayan artifacts. We're really looking
for bits of beach rock. According to Bill, carbon
dating rocks used by the Lucayan will provide us
with a vital clue, the age of the Bahamas islands. For Atlantis to have existed
here as John Van Auken believes it did, these islands have to
be at least 12,000 years old. So this is what
we're looking for? Yeah, this is the
beach rock, same stuff you were looking
at on the beach. And the Indians used
it in their hearths to line them for cooking. And so we typically find
lots and lots of the stuff in in Lucayan Indian sites. Because this material is calcium
carbonate-- has carbon in it, and so it can be
radiocarbon dated. JOSH BERNSTEIN: I didn't know
you could carbon date rocks. WILLIAM KEEGAN: Well, ordinarily
you can't, but limestone has a lot of organic in it. There's small bits of shell. There's byproducts from algae. And that usually has enough
material, enough carbon in it that it can be
radiocarbon dated. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Very cool. OK, so let's bag 'em and tag
'em and take 'em to the lab. WILLIAM KEEGAN: OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Next, it's a visit to the lab for some
radiocarbon dating to determine if evidence of Atlantis can
be found in the Bahamas. And I head to the Mediterranean
to get our exclusive expedition underway. I'm exploring the legendary
story of Atlantis. I started by following the lead
of the famous American psychic Edgar Cayce, which took me to
the Bimini Road in the Bahamas. Archaeologists say that
humans arrived in only 700 AD, far too late for
Plato's Atlantis. To resolve this
debate scientifically, I left the Bahamas to visit
Miami, Florida, and a place called Beta Analytic,
the world's largest professional radiocarbon
dating service. There I met archaeologist Bill
Keegan with the beach rocks we dug up from the base
of Lucayan Indian firepit. Bill explained that
bicarbonate dating them, we can determine the geological
history of the islands and whether a civilization
dating to the time of Atlantis could have existed
in the Bahamas. Hey, Darden.
How you doing? Good.
Good to see you. Good to see you. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Darden hood is the president
of Beta Analytic. If you would, please put
on these safety glasses. We're in a chemistry lab,
lot of closed vacuum systems. Want to make sure
we're well protected. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): We started by handing over our sample
from the firepit to Darden. What's the first step? Since the outer part of the
rock may have been penetrated by carbon from a
more recent time, hydrochloric acid
is used to eat away the contaminated outer layers. DARDEN HOOD: And
it'll keep on going. If we leave it there,
it'll eventually completely disappear. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): The next step is to take our cleaned
up sample and crush it. We pump out the air in the
flask and add more acid. The gas produced by all
that bubbling is our carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. DARDEN HOOD: Now the
gas is being collected. So what was air and then
became a vacuum is now being filled with CO2? Correct. JOSH BERNSTEIN: How do you
get the gas from in here to where you can test it? Now that's a lot of fun. We use something called
cryogenic pumping. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Cryogenic pumping is simply a way to move
our carbon from one place to another. Liquid nitrogen at
minus 196 degrees centigrade turns the
carbon to a frozen solid. This-- the carbon gas that
was in here is now compressed, frozen into this
tiny little volume. And when we thaw it, it's
going to move that way. That's pretty cool. Some warm water to thaw it
out, back into a gas it goes. We open up this,
stop cock here, and now we have five liters of
a very special carbon dioxide here. Only contains the
carbon from your sample. Bahamas. CO2. Very cool. Now things get
really complicated. To find out how old it is, the
carbon needs to be a liquid. First, Darden makes it
into lithium carbide. That typically takes
about 15 or 20 minutes. OK, cooking show magic. OK. OK. Now that that's completed-- JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Then he turns it into acetylene. And after that the
last phase, benzene, a liquid form of carbon. So that's liquid rock.
DARDEN HOOD: Liquid rock. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): This test tube contained almost nothing
but the carbon from my rock as a liquid. So this was all
worked out for us in the 1960s, that's how long
this method's been around. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): To date rock, we need to count a
particular kind of carbon, the radioactive carbon-14. To do that, the sample
goes in this machine, the liquid
scintillation analyzer. Then we get our results. And it spits out this sheet? So what date did we get, Josh? We got 14,920 plus or
minus 100 BP, before present. So call it 15,000 years ago. The rock clearly in
this case was created during the time of Atlantis. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): The rock we dug up dated from
the time of Atlantis. Does this mean that we found
the hard evidence to support Edgar Cayce's theories? Actually, no. from the point of
view of archaeology, it does the exact opposite. Phil explains why. Dating the stone only tells
you when the stone formed. It doesn't tell you
when people were around or even if they used it. Which raises another issue,
because the Atlantean question is really one that's interesting
and worth scientific scrutiny. But if this stone is 15,000
years old, it's on land, there should be some evidence
of Atlantis from that same time period above water,
if it exists, and no one has found it yet. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Bill's point is Archaeology 101. Things that date from
the same time period should be found
in the same place. If rocks from the time of
Atlantis can be found on land, then artifacts from Atlantis
should be found on land, too, if they exist here. And to date, nothing
from Atlantis has ever been found
anywhere in the Bahamas. It seemed like the theory
of Atlantis in the Bahamas was dead in the water. So I decided to head straight
to the source, to Athens. Athens was the home
of Plato, as well as the site of his Academy, the
school of philosophy he founded and the prototype for
the modern university. I wanted to find out what
evidence there is for Atlantis, whether it's fact or fiction. I meet up with
Anthony Kontaratos, an expert in Plato's
writings about Atlantis. Nice meeting you in person. Great to meet you. So what we know about
Atlantis comes from Plato. Comes from Plato. As a matter of fact, it
comes from two dialogues. Mm-hmm. Timaeus and Critias. Forget about whatever people
have written subsequently. Yeah. The original story
comes from Plato, and we only have one source. That's it. And these two dialogues
were written when? JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): All that's left of Plato's Academy today
are these few foundation walls. But thousands of pages of
Plato's writings still survive. It's in his dialogues Timaeus
and and Critias that Plato first mentions Atlantis,
through his character, Critias, who says the story,
though incredible, is true. He relates that he first
heard it as a child, listening in on a story told by
his grandfather, who also swore that it was true. Critias' grandfather said the
story was handed down to him by the famous Athenian
lawmaker Solon, and was an important event
from 9,000 years before. In the dialogues,
Plato describes Atlantis in vivid detail. From these details, Anthony
has isolated a list of criteria for identifying
Atlantis definitively. So let's start with the facts. What do we know from
Plato about Atlantis? OK, Plato says that it
was outside the Pillars of Hercules. And the Pillars of Hercules,
as we know it from antiquity, are the Straits of Gibraltar. Also debatable. Also debatable. OK, some people
place it in Italy. Some people place the Pillars
of Hercules in Greece. Yeah. So take your pick. So that's not exactly
directions, but just a vague sense of
where it used to be. That's right. He describes the
topography of Atlantis, and it was set as concentric
rings of land and water. So there are
physical descriptions. Physical descriptions. Of the size of the island and
the topography of the island. - Yes.
- And of the city itself. And of the city
itself, and of the Temple of Poseidon in the middle. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Anthony's list has more criteria taken
from Plato's dialogues. The city was located
on a coastal plain that faced south, and was
close enough to Athens to wage a sea war. Bridges and canals linked
the sections of the city, and a hill rose in the
central most island that held a massive temple complex. What are the clues? We have to go by Plato. There's nothing else. So if you decide that you have
to stick to what Plato says, you'll come up with
a number of criteria. And you cannot ignore
those criteria. All of us who work
on the problem have to abide by these criteria. The search for Atlantis
still continues today. And while the number of clues
from Plato might be finite, there are an infinite
number of interpretations. Now, I know someone who's
interpreted these clues in such a way that he believes the
lost continent has been found, and that's definitely
worth checking out. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Our exclusive Digging for the Truth expedition
is just beginning here on the eastern Mediterranean
island of Cyprus. All right, very good. Let's lift up. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
We're at the port of Limassol on the southern coast of the
island in the dockyard EDT Stowage & Salvage. Every deep sea
expedition needs a ship, and this is ours, the EDT
Argonaut, which normally is a salvage vessel, but
we're retrofitting it for a specific expedition
to find Atlantis. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Like any other expedition, our first step is
to prep the gear. It's a big job. Dozens of crewmen are
racing around the ship, mobilizing it for departure. And all this activity is being
supervised by expedition leader Robert Sarmast.
Hey, Robert. - Hi, Josh.
- How are you? - Good to see you.
- And it's exciting times. It's very exciting. And this piece of equipment
is critical to our expedition. Absolutely. We've got about
20,000 feet of cable. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): We'll be surveying the ocean floor
a mile below the surface, and using the best
equipment available. Much of it has been brought
in just for this mission. Where do you get
a machine like this? Well, this doesn't exist
in the eastern Mediterranean, so we actually had to bring
it all the way from Scotland. And it's a very
special equipment. I don't think there's more than
a handful of them in the world, and it's gonna work.
- It's gonna work? - It's gonna work.
- All right, let's get it up. All right, guys. Let's lift it up and
put it on the ship. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Coming up, we make our final preparations
to set sail on what promises to be an historic voyage. Oh, it feels magnificent. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): And
Robert gives me the full story of why he's convinced
he's finally found the legendary Atlantis. I'm about to embark on
an extraordinary voyage. Digging for the Truth is
mounting the most advanced scientific expedition ever to
search for the lost continent of Atlantis. Expedition leader
Robert Sarmast has been working towards this
moment for nearly 15 years. Now it's all coming down
to just a few short days. We're headed from our port
here in Limassol, Cyprus to a spot in the
eastern Mediterranean, just 50 miles from the
coast of Syria, where Robert is sure he's located
the central city of the vanished civilization. If it looks like there's a
lot of activity going on here, it's because there is. From the moment we first
step on the ship, it's ours. The charter begins. We have 24 hours to
prepare everything we need, and then we leave port. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Because of the time of year and the limited availability
of a suitable vessel, we have just 72 hours
total to conduct our work. And the clock is
already ticking. Everything is tightly
choreographed. It's a real team effort. The gear is loaded and ready
as fast as safety allows. Even the slightest delay
cuts into our research time. As the mobilization
progresses, Robert and I sit down to talk about
why he's so confident he's found the real Atlantis. Well, you seem so convinced
that it's actually out there. I am absolutely
certain, having studied the ancient world,
that Atlantis was a real place. What if someone said to you,
"Robert, there is no Atlantis. You're just wasting
time, energy, money. It was a story." No. No? If you know ancient
history well enough-- JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Robert's fascination with Atlantis actually began
20 years ago, when he developed an interest in
world mythologies. He was especially intrigued by
the similarities and stories throughout the Near East
about a great flood. In the Bible, the story of Noah. For the ancient Sumerians,
the Epic of Gilgamesh. From Plato, Atlantis. It's really easy to sit back
and say no, it didn't exist. It doesn't take much effort. But when you do
the research, you start to see that this could
not have just been a myth. Something had to have happened. And we have this vivid
description of the island, what it looked like. Why not look for it? JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
In 1999, Robert began looking for a spot
in the Mediterranean that would match Plato's
geological criteria. Plato wrote that the city was on
a level plane with very precise dimensions, equal to
about 230 by 345 miles. It faced south and was sheltered
by mountains to the north. Robert had a topographic
computer model of the Mediterranean built. It
allowed him to lower the sea level in increments. When he brought the
level down by a mile, he found a plain on the seafloor
between Cyprus and Syria that he believes matches
Plato's description. Robert's next step was
to get a closer look at one particular spot
that looked promising for the location of Atlantis. He made his first expedition
to the site in 2004. On the 8th of November,
we are Atlantis-bound. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): He
conducted side scan sonar tests of the area, trying to build a
more complete picture of what he thought could be the
sunken plain of Atlantis. Look at that. oh my god. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): What he found made him absolutely certain. Man, that is too cool. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
His sonar tests revealed strange ridges
with sharp 90 degree bends. He was convinced he was looking
at the walls of the city canals that Plato described. Robert believes the dimensions
matched Plato's descriptions perfectly. There isn't a shadow
of doubt in my mind that that valley is the
rectangular great plain of Atlantis. I have no doubt about
that whatsoever. Now it's just a matter of
using the best technology to verify this and to
bring the final irrefutable evidence to light. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Robert is confident he has the best
evidence yet as to where Atlantis could be, so we're
bringing the best technology available back to the
site to test his theory and find out once and
for all if he's right. Ah, let me introduce
you to what is perhaps the most important part
of our team, the tow fish. It is the eyes and ears
of this expedition. Inside this capsule, side scan
sonar and sub bottom profiler, this is about to be
loaded onto the ship. It will be one mile
below the surface, and almost three
miles behind the ship, dragging over the site to
let us see what's down there. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): Sub
bottom profilers are typically used by the oil industry to
look for new places to drill. But for us, it'll be doing
duty as a remote archaeologist. It uses sonar to penetrate
through muck and rock, sending the data up to
the ship in real time. We'll be able to tell almost
immediately just what caused Robert's anomaly, whether it's
a normal geological process or sunken ruins. Ah-hah. Very important. I want to show you
something here. This is what connects to the tow
fish, all the miles and miles of cable. But it's not just cable. It's electronic
information coming through. The coaxial liner is gonna send
all the data from the bottom of the ocean up
through the cable and into the computers
in the bridge. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
With the mobilization nearing completion, I decide to
take a tour of our home for the next 48 hours
and meet our captain. Captain? Hi, Josh. Come on. Welcome to the bridge. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Commodore Robert S Bates, captain Bob, is
our nautical and maritime consultant. He's been an integral part
of Robert Sarmast's team for the last five years. What We see here, of course,
is the port of Limassol. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): It'll be Captain Bob's responsibility
to make sure the ship keeps the tow fish on course. With our time at
sea so limited, we can't afford to have
anything go wrong. When you were going
through all your education to become a master of the seas,
did you ever think that you'd be looking for Atlantis? I never thought
it in 100 years. And now you adjusting
to the reality that we're on a quest
to find something that could be historic? You know, this is
so exciting to me. I could not-- this is sort
of my capstone project and my capstone experience of
50 years of maritime service. I know what I've been building
to, towards this last 50 years. Well, you know, let's keep
our expectations in line. We don't know what
we're gonna find. Well, I know. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Finally, after 24 frantic hours, the
mobilization of our ship is complete. --get these on. Joyous moments when
we officially initiate the Atlantis expedition 2006. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
For Robert Sarmast, years of research are coming
down to the next two days. How does it feel to see
your flags flying after all these years of planning? Oh, it feels magnificent. Yeah? Oh, yeah. You don't even know
the half of it. How long have been
waiting for this? Oh, about 15 years. 15 years. Something like that. Great. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Up next, our expedition to search for Atlantis
heads out to sea. But first, an alternate
theory takes me on a journey into the center of a volcano. It's not going to
explode while we're in it? JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
I traveled to the Bahamas to test the theory that
the island chain could be the remnants of
the lost Atlantis, but I found no conclusive
evidence to support that idea. Back on the other
side of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean Sea,
I'm on an exclusive Digging for the Truth expedition to
test Robert Sarmast's theory that the ruins of Atlantis lie
a mile underwater between Cyprus and Syria. But before I arrived on
Cyprus for our expedition, I put some other theories
to the test, too. I went to the
island of Santorini, about 100 miles southeast
of the Greek mainland. Santorini is home
to a volcano that destroyed an ancient island
nation, just as Plato described. This is the town of
Fira, which as you can see is perched precipitously
on the edge of a cliff. But this is no ordinary cliff. This is a caldera, the edge of
an ancient volcano, a volcano which some believe links
this place with Atlantis. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Plato wrote that Atlantis had
alternate zones of land and water, larger and
smaller in concentric rings. The Santorini of today
does have a similar layout. The rim of the caldera
surrounds a large bay with a small island in the
center called Nea Kameni. But that island seems much too
small to be Plato's Atlantis. To find out why
many people think this could be the location
of the lost civilization, I met with Dr. Kostas Synolaki
of the University of Southern California. So as I explained, I am
exploring the parallels between Atlantis as written
by Plato, evcharisto, and Santorini, or I guess Thera
is what this used to be called. Yes. So the similarities between
Thera and Plato's Atlantis. Well, a lot of
scientists believe that if there was any
truth to the myth, this is one of the
most likely spots. Near the center, where
this island is now, it was an entirely
different island. It was bigger. It was circular. What you see here, you know,
the caldera, this opened up after the eruption. So in the past, this did
have that circular description, where you had an island in the
center, surrounded by water, and then another piece of land.
- Yes. And all that gets
blown into bits. So the geological shape
could match the description. What about timeline? When did this volcano erupt? Well, the best dates
that we believe in is somewhere between
620 BC to about 1550 BC. And there's a lot of work-- JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): That's about 8,000 years after the date
Plato gave for the destruction of Atlantis. This would seem to mean this
can't be the lost continent, at least not literally. But Kostas tells me,
aside from the date, Plato's other criteria
match amazingly well. It's definitely
worth a closer look. If there was ever an Atlantis
for Plato, it was here. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Kostas suggests that we take a trip
out to the center of the bay, to see what the modern island
of Nea Kameni can tell us. Nea Kameni means "newly burned",
due to the volcanic activity that created it. On the way out, we skirt the
steep sides of the caldera rim. Plato wrote that the
colors of Atlantis were red, black, and white. There's plenty of that here. Kostas told me that these
are the typical colors of volcanic rock. Plato also said that there were
hot springs, another indicator of a volcanic land. Nea Kameni is a
very young island. It broke the surface
only 300 years ago. We head straight for the
crater in the center. I want you to look over there. There are two sulfur vents,
the left and the right. And then, oh, you can see
coming out now, smoke. So this is still
an active volcano? In fact, this is a
very active volcano. And on the other side-- It's not going to
explode while we're in it? Not today, no. OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): Nea
Kameni is still being formed, and will eventually itself
be destroyed in an eruption, repeating a process that
has taken place many times over the last million years. 4,000 years ago, though,
the island that was here was much different
than what we see today. It was significantly
larger, reaching almost to the edge of the caldera. It was lush and fertile,
and the sheltered bay supported a thriving
city with a busy harbor, an important center of trade
and power in the Mediterranean. Imagine the ancient
island at the time before the eruption
was much wider, closer to the rim of the volcano. So the entire rim was acting
as a giant breakwater, protecting this perfect island. To them, it was just a
miraculously, magically shaped piece of land that made
this place the greatest harbor in the Mediterranean. Exactly. But geologically, it was
a bomb waiting to go off. Yes, and eventually it did. Kaboom. Boom. It's all gone. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): The
eruption completely obliterated the island here in
the center of the bay. Any settlements that
existed on the periphery were buried under 100
plus feet of volcanic ash. But the civilization
that built this utopia wasn't totally destroyed. Kostas tells me that to
get a better idea of what life on Thera was probably
like, I should pay a visit to the homeland of
the people who lived here, the Minoans, on the
island of Crete, just 70 miles to the south. Most people go to
Crete by passenger ferry. I found a better way. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The palace at Knossos is the best preserved ruin
of the Minoan civilization, and the best place to see what
the city in the center of Thera might have been like
before the explosion. Former curator, Colin MacDonald,
shows me around the site. I want to know how closely
the Minoan civilization here at Knossos resembled
Plato's description of life in Atlantis. Plato wrote that Atlantis
was very advanced, and had hot and
cold running water. Here at Knossos, Colin
shows me a remarkable link to Plato's writings. The terracotta water pipes
are down here, down this hole. Now, you see they're in
individual sections, each one slots into the next. And it would be able to
go gently around corners, as it were. JOSH BERNSTEIN: And I guess
as it goes from the wide into the narrow, it's also
gaining a little pressure. Yes, I think that's also true. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
It's the ancient equivalent of indoor plumbing,
which would seem to fit Plato's descriptions
of Atlantis pretty well. For the prehistoric period-- Right. --now this is quite unique. Yes, yes. OK, put it back
onto the grate. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): I'm
also interested in the bulls on the palace walls. Plato wrote that the
Atlanteans worshipped bulls, and that they had free reign
in the temple of Poseidon. What we're looking at now is
the great relief bull fresco, which is at the northern
entrance of the palace at Knossos. And the bull is an interesting
image in Minoan civilization, because it occurs elsewhere,
notably on a marvelous fresco showing bull leaping, with
young men and young women actually jumping over the bull. But it's interesting
that there's a parallel between the
Minoan civilization and their worshiping of bulls,
or at least the iconography of bulls that's present here
and what Plato writes about in Atlantis. Yes, it's interesting
that they both have bulls. But also we can
point out that bulls were either sacred or
important in several other-- in fact, almost all
other Near Eastern civilizations at the same time. Perhaps the similarity isn't
as great as I was hoping. Not as specific. Not as specific, OK. So you think, and
as a storyteller, he's trying to set a timeline
and this mood of "a long time ago, in a galaxy
far, far away", he's trying to reach back for
this 9,000 year old culture. It's the way he
can flesh things out. Yeah, he says, I
want something ancient. What's iconically old?
- Yes, yes. Boom, how about we have a
people that worship bulls? Right, right. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Colin thinks the Minoans may
have provided Plato with some authentic-sounding
details for his story, but these were not the
people of Atlantis. Still, I'm intrigued. Fresco images recovered
from Knossos show a society that appears just as
idyllic as Plato's Atlantis. Actually, it's a pretty good
match, except for the date of destruction. This event occurred
900 years before Solon, not 9,000 as written
in Plato's dialogues. But there is an
interesting theory that could explain this discrepancy. Plato wrote that the
story of Atlantis originally came
from the Egyptians. They told it to the
Greek scholar Solon when he paid a visit
to one of their temples some 300 years before
the time of Plato. In that age, the Egyptians
counted time in lunar months, not just solar years. So it's possible that a
simple error in translation could have entered
the narrative. The Egyptians may not have been
talking about an event that took place 9,000 years before
but rather 9,000 months. If this were the case, that
would put the destruction of Atlantis at nearly the same
time as the cataclysm of Thera. So there is a decent case
for Thera being Atlantis, if you allow for a little
error in translation. But that's not a
compromise Robert Sarmast is willing to make. The leader of our
expedition is sure that Plato's text is
the literal truth, and only by following his
descriptions to the letter will we locate the real Atlantis. In Limassol, Cyprus, the
mobilization of the EDT Argonaut is complete. We're casting off the
lines and pushing off. These are the breakers
which marked the harbor. Once we pass through, open sea. Next stop, Atlantis. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Coming up, we put our tow
fish in the water. What the? JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
And get an unexpected visitor from the edge of a war zone. We're 26 hours into
our exclusive Digging for the Truth
expedition in search of the final resting
place of Atlantis. That means there's only
46 hours left before we have to return to port. We're at sea. We are leaving the port of
Limassol, heading eastward, along the southern
coast of Cyprus. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
We're heading to a precise spot that's 68 miles east of Cyprus
and 50 miles west of Syria. At a top speed of 9 knots,
it'll take a precious 11 hours to reach our destination. Meaning once we get on site,
we'll have just a little over 24 hours to
complete our work. The trip out quickly
gets interesting. While Robert and I are
chatting on the deck, we get a surprise visitor. What the? We're in an area that's
military sensitive. We've got Syria,
Lebanon, Cyprus. These are international waters,
but we're a big ship in an area that many ships don't come. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Our expedition set sail shortly after the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in the summer of 2006. We're not too far from the
edges of the Israeli blockade. We've attracted some attention. That's the British Royal Navy. One of the realities of
being in our current location is that certain
military interests might be curious about
what we're doing here. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): We
seem to have passed inspection. Whoa! JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
And after taking a polite British curtsy,
the helicopter zooms off to leave us to our research. That was very cool. Yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): We still have some time left before
we reach the location, so I pay a visit to Robert's
technical advisor up in the control room. Geologist Patrick Lowry is
president of the Scotia Group based out of Houston. He spends most of his time
surveying the world's oceans for oil, but for
the last seven years he's been helping Robert
with his research. Robert had gotten
a data set and needed to map it to see the sea floor
of the eastern Mediterranean. Early on with the initial
data, I saw nothing. There was nothing about it
that would suggest there was anything there at all. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): But Robert was adamant that there was more
than immediately met the eye. He was fixated on a
mound in the middle of the large rectangular
plane that he'd identified as the plain of Atlantis. This mound was, he believed,
the center of Atlantis city, the Acropolis hill where
the Temple of Poseidon would have once stood. Patrick saw nothing
remarkable about the mound, but then he got a look
at high resolution scans of the seafloor produced by a
French oil exploration project. When the latest data
came from the French, it then had something for the
very first time that was unique in its own character and
different from anything in the area. As a geologist, I look
for natural causes first. But when you look at the
character of this ridge out front, I had
to say to Robert, it is awfully regular in nature. And based on
your expertise, you would agree that this
is perhaps an anomaly? This is an anomaly. This is an anomaly? Yes, you can see
even on this image, and this is from the raw data,
the very straight line nature of this. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Robert believes these ridges
are the remains of the double walled canal
that Plato described. You can see it's almost
equal height all the way along. It's almost equal width, and
then this 90 degree corner going back here. We also see an interesting
feature coming off this shoulder over here that is
hard to explain geologically. You'd have to ask yourself, what
natural processes would lead to this type of very
regular feature? You haven't seen anything
like this elsewhere? No, and there is nothing
else like this in this area. The key now is to take actual
measurements across this that are definitive, that will
show us whether or not this is strictly geological,
and I think we'll be able to see that
if that's the case, or whether or not this is,
for example, cored with blocks of stone, which then it
would be a man-made wall. Should be obvious. Yeah, and exciting, you know? It is. Yeah, it is suspense
at its best, isn't it? Certainly worthy
of a closer look. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
This closer look is what our sub bottom
profiler provides. We'll be towing
it just a few feet above these mysterious ridges. It works by transmitting
powerful sonar waves that penetrate the seafloor
up to 150 feet. It then sends the signal it
receives back up to miles of coaxial cable to the control
room, where Patrick will analyze the readings. We'll have only a few chances
to pass over the ridges and gather data. So shortly before our arrival,
Robert holds a crew briefing to review the game plan. OK, well, this is the
purported Acropolis hill. That's the area that
we're gonna be doing most of our investigation. The points of interest
are the main wall here, the secondary wall here, this
canal, and the summit itself. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): The first step is working out exactly
where to steer the tow fish with our side scan sonar
and sub bottom profiler. We decide to shoot for a
cross-section of the walls, rather than try to run
down the narrow length. It's critical that the
data we get is reliable, and we want to be sure that
we don't miss our target. If it's a hard structure
that has some kind of shape to it, like two walls, then
that's very clear proof. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Clear proof is what we're all after. And while we're all
excited, there's also a very serious
mood in the air. Everybody hopes that we come
back with something definitive. I'm an optimist,
and I'm a dreamer, and I hope that this works
out, but I want to make sure that because of the
manpower, dollars, and time it takes to do this kind of
exhibition, that whatever data we come away with is conclusive. So conclusively no,
it's not human-made, or conclusively yes. If there's something
hard underneath there, it will be clear. It'll be obvious. And if it's
organized in any way, like we'd expect in ruins-- Yeah. --it should be very obvious. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): The planning will continue
throughout the night. But we won't really be able to
tell what's down there until we get the sub bottom
profiler in the water. We'll be on site in
just a few more hours, so we don't have
much longer to wait. And good morning. Not that you can tell from the
darkness, but it's 5:15 AM, and we're approaching
our target area. We're making final preparations,
which means before we can put the tow fish in, we need
to know how much water is below the Ship so
on starboard side, they're putting in a very
high power depth gauge. It's an echo sounder, so that
we know exactly how much water there is, so that thing
doesn't hit bottom. Once we get our
bearings, then we line up and go up for the target zone. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
After all our preparations, our tow fish is finally
ready to check out the bit of real estate that
Robert Sarmast believes is the sunken Atlantis. Preparing the tow
fish for submersion. How's it feel? - It feels great.
- Yeah. The hour has come. The next time
you see that fish, we will know a lot more
about what's below us. That's right. Good luck, Robert. Thanks, Josh. We'll see how
it goes from here. Let's do it. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Now that the tow fish is in the water, it's just a
matter of letting out the cable and lining up to
make our first run. But almost immediately,
something goes wrong. What's going on? We're pulling it back in I understand that it's
not getting the signal. Hit 1,100 meters of
cable length and stopped. So it hit 1,100 meters,
and then inexplicably stopped talking. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Our only course of action is to reel the cable
back in and see what's wrong. With our time limitations,
this is the last thing we need. The next few minutes
are incredibly tense. We have no idea what happened. Oh, there it comes. That's not how I
remember it looking. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
As the cable rises out of the water, we can't
believe what we're seeing. Wow. I've never seen that before. Has this ever happened before? You ever see
something like this? JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The coaxial cable is hopelessly knotted. Clearly this is why
we've lost communication with the tow fish. The engineers have said
they've never seen this before. This could bring our expedition
to a screeching halt. How the hell did that happen? You ever see
something like this? JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
When we come back, we try to salvage our expedition
as the clock ticks down. I'm in the eastern Mediterranean
on the most advanced search for Atlantis ever conducted. We're using state of the
art scanning equipment to survey a strange anomaly
a mile deep that expedition leader Robert Sarmast believes
is proof of the lost continent. But our time is limited, and
just as we've gotten started, our expedition could be
coming to a sudden halt. Wow, I've never
seen that before. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): The cable that connects to the tow fish
holding our sonar and sub bottom profiler has
gotten horribly tangled. This ever happened before? How the hell did that happen? The fish is in the water.
We can see it. It's not that far
below the ship, but we can't get it up on
deck because of that knot. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): There is no way the knotted cable
can fit through the pulley on the A-frame, so the
immediate problem is, how do we get the fish back on the
ship, let alone fix the cable? It's filled with seawater
and probably weighs over 1,000 pounds. They don't write books
for this kind of mess, but we're gonna do
our best to fix it. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
With fewer than 24 hours left before we have to
head back to port, this is about the worst thing
that could have happened. We have no idea how bad
the damage really is, and there's no guarantee we
can even get the fish back on the ship. Our expedition could be over. They said pop yourself
another batch of popcorn. We're gonna be here awhile. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): We could be on the verge of proving
that Atlantis was a real place, exactly as Plato described
it, if we can get up and running again. Meanwhile, let me take you
back to another theory. Before we set sail, I went
to the Gulf of Corinth, the narrow strip of water
between mainland Greece and the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Many people believe that events
during Plato's own lifetime and in the same
area where he lived may have inspired his
story of Atlantis. This part of Greece is renowned
for its seismic activity. To find out whether an
Atlantis-style disaster took place here, I met
up with a geologist from the local University
of Patras, Dr. Ioannis Koukouvelas. We are standing here in the
northern coast of Peloponnese, and this area is
progressively subsiding, the gulf right there, but the
northern coast of Peloponnese and the other side
progressively uplifted. So we have this effect, this
narrow gulf in between two landmasses. Is the activity fast
enough and violent enough that an entire city could
go down very quickly? Yes, of course. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The geological processes that created the Gulf of
Corinth have been going on for nearly two million years. Ioannis tells me that a
major earthquake happens here on average every 125 years. I ask him if such an
earthquake could have occurred during Plato's lifetime. He says that the geological
history of the area is literally written in stone. And down by the
shore of the gulf, he shows me how to read it. We are approaching a
rock, an outcrop, where you can see all these notches. It eroded this shape. Exactly. And then this went up, and it
did the same thing down here. Yes. So-- And then again,
and again, and again. And again. Well, I'm standing here, and
like that one, and another down here. So all of this, boom,
well, maybe within one night? Yes, exactly. If the earth moves
up this much here, then it moves down that
much at sea, right? Yes, we will see
happen here the buildings to be collapsed by earthquake,
and at the same time, we will see a tsunami coming
in and hitting these houses and collapsing them down. So this is the exact
event that Plato describes for the destruction of Atlantis? Yes, exactly. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Ioannis tells me that this whole area
is riddled with active faults. He's been able to trace the
record of seismic activity here from the present day
all the way back to the time of Plato. Plato had ample opportunity to
witness destruction firsthand. That is another fault
within the sea bottom, within the gulf, that is
activated during the 373 BC earthquake. So in 373 BC there
was an earthquake? There was an earthquake that's
devastating the classical city of Helike. Of Helike? Of Helike. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Helike was an advanced and wealthy
city-state here about 100 miles west of Athens. On a winter night
in 373 BC, it was said to have been
swallowed by the earth and covered by the
sea, just as Plato says happened to Atlantis. All its inhabitants perished. This real disaster, the
near instant loss of one of ancient Greece's
greatest cities, happened just a few
years before Plato wrote his dialogues
Timaeus and Critias. Could Atlantis have
been a fictional device that Plato used to tell
the story of Helike? To find out more about
this possibility, I meet up with Dr. Dora
Katsonopoulou, co-director of the Helike Project. The site is dated
to the 3rd century BC, which is a very rare find. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Dora takes me to her dig headquarters, where she
stores the artifacts she finds in her search for Helike. Here we are, where we keep
the materials from excavations. So that is the pottery
and other finds. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Helike had a number of important
similarities to Atlantis. Ancient sources say the
patron deity of the city was also the god of
the sea, Poseidon. He was even pictured on a coin
of Helike found in this area. And it's unimaginable
that Plato didn't know about the terrible disaster
that befell a city just 100 miles away, and
was, like Atlantis, a fierce rival of Athens. Plato, first of all, lived
when the earthquake here happened, in 373 BC. He wrote his dialogues Critias
and Timaeus, where he describes the catastrophe of
Atlantis, about 10 years after the catastrophe
of Helike, very close. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The destruction of Helike was so traumatic that it must
have made a profound impression on the residents
of nearby Athens. Plato could have hardly
written about the destruction of any city without
thinking of Helike. Definitely Plato in writing
the destruction of Atlantis had in mind the earthquake of
373 BC, which hit this area and completely
destroyed and made the city of Helike disappear
from the face of the earth. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
If Helike was the inspiration for Atlantis as
Dora argues, I want to know what evidence she
has that she's actually found Helike. After all, most people
believed it was underwater, and most searches have focused
on the Gulf of Corinth. Dora reread the writings of the
Greek geographer Strabo, who recorded eyewitness accounts of
visitors to the destroyed city. He said the city was swallowed
by a porus, a Greek word that most people
translate as "strait". That's why everybody
was looking for Helike in the Corinthian Gulf. In the water. In the water. But a porus does not
mean the Corinthian Gulf, because the ancients
knew the Corinthian Gulf, and they would call
it Corinthian Gulf. OK. So porus is a narrow
passage of water. What could this be? This could be a lagoon,
as I interpreted it. It could be a lagoon, which
was formed in the area Helike after the earthquake. And of course this lagoon
had a narrow strait that was connecting
this lagoon to the sea. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Dora believes a unique geological process
created a lagoon here, a process that matches Plato's
description of Atlantis being swallowed up. It's called liquefaction. The only time this
strange phenomenon has been caught on film
was during an earthquake in Japan in 1964. The pressure of
the subsiding land pushes underground
water to the surface, liquefying the earth
like quicksand. Buildings sink into the ground. At Helike, a rush of water
from the Gulf of Corinth to the suddenly lower
land finished the job. The city became a lagoon. Over time, the Selinous
River that still runs next to the site filled the
lagoon with sediment, gradually transforming the
sunken city into a buried city. This is a reality. It is a discovery. We found it. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Helike is a fascinating test case for Plato's Atlantis
story, proof positive that a city really can disappear
underwater in a single night of earthquakes and tidal waves. But for the man
leading our expedition, the suggestion that
the story of Atlantis is an allegorical tale
just doesn't hold water. Next, it's back to the
eastern Mediterranean as we try to untangle the
knot that's tied up our quest for the real Atlantis. I'm in the eastern Mediterranean
between Cyprus and Syria, on an exclusive Digging
for the Truth expedition. Have you ever looked
for lost civilizations? Uh, no. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): We're here to look for definitive proof
that the lost continent of Atlantis has finally
been found, one mile below the surface of the sea. We've brought sophisticated
side scan sonar and sub bottom profiler technology
to scan the seafloor and hopefully to
reveal man-made ruins. But just as we've
gotten started, we've hit a major snag. Wow, I've never
seen that before. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
The coaxial cable that tows our equipment and
transmits the data up to us has gotten horribly tangled. If we can't solve this
problem, our expedition is over before it's even begun. Now the most important thing
is to get the tow fish back onboard the ship. About four hours. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
With our time slipping away, one of our deckhands,
Axel Scholer, takes matters into his
own hands, literally. Using a pair of welding goggles
and an emergency scuba rig from the ship, Axel ties
a rope to the tow fish. Once he's out of
the water, we're gonna pull it up ourselves. Good. Now I'm gonna single handedly
pull the tow fish back up. Not a chance. It's probably a thousand pounds
with the water in the capsule. So we're gonna use
a little leverage. 20 feet and rising. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Everybody pitches in, and we successfully get
the fish back on deck. Now the only problem
to solve is the cable. The techs can fix it. They'll have to cut the
knot out and re-splice the coaxial cable. They're confident it'll
work, but it eats up more of our precious time. We're back in action. Four hours later, the tow fish
is going back in the water. Good luck, gents. OK. Everything look OK? JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
We've lost a lot of time. Now that the tow fish
is back in the water, we still have to
lower it to depth and line up for another run. That'll take
another three hours. We planned to make four
passes over Robert's site. With this delay, we'll
be lucky to get three. But once we start getting
readings from the seafloor, everyone's excitement returns. We're back on track. Excellent. Things are working. Good, very good. Robert, excited? About 10, 15 minutes away
from many years of work and-- Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Finally, our first data from the sea floor. But it's not what
we were expecting. It seems that all the
kinks in the system haven't been worked
out after all. I don't know if we have
a good reason why it seems to be quite this irregular. Unfortunately, we think we're
seeing a lot of, let's say, noise and tool performance. So it's pretty hard
to know whether or not you're seeing something
real or just seeing again, tool performance. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Patrick thinks that essentially we're seeing nothing more
than noise in the system, meaning the data we've gotten
from this first pass is useless. We've just lost another
four hours with nothing to show for it. Because when we
were approaching, we had to slow down
the ship to make sure the fish goes a little bit
lower, because it was too high. That creates disturbance. In other words, that
fish was wobbly. To put this in
perspective, you've got to keep in mind that
that fish is 2 and 1/4 miles behind us. It's like going fishing off
the Empire State Building and trying to catch a very small
object while the whole building is moving. Not an easy task. First pass doesn't
look like it made it. I'm guessing at some point we'll
recalibrate and come around for a second try. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
This is easier said than done. Permission to
enter the bridge. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Turning the ship around and lining up for a second pass
we'll take up another three hours, time we can't afford it. This is what we're in the
process of doing right now, is a modified Williamson turn. What's a Williamson turn? A Williamson
turn has been used to pick up a man overboard. It's very important to be able
to turn the ship around and get right back on the same track
on a reciprocal course. Isn't there a concern, though,
that since we're trailing two and a quarter miles of
cable that we'll create whiplash for that tow fish?
- But here-- That cable is gonna
have to be somehow-- we're gonna have to take that
into consideration, right? Well, we've actually modified
the Williamson turn just a little bit, so the
tow fish can catch up with what we're doing. And once the tow fish knows what
we're doing, we're good to go. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): By the time we're lined up for
our second pass, we're really up
against the wall. We have only about nine
hours left before we have to head back to Cyprus. We need a lucky break. Welcome back. We are on our second approach,
and everything's working. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Patrick and the technicians have fixed the glitches that
made our first past a bust. Everyone's confidence
has returned. And as we make our final
approach, we're all systems go. It's pretty exciting. And this time, we
should hit it dead on. So with this kind
of coverage, we will see what's
under the sediment and what that thing is made of. We're somewhere right on
this flank, right in here. Right here. Yes. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): We
are all anxiously anticipating our first real look. Then Patrick sees something
promising on the slope just before the ridges
we've come to investigate. A square-corn impression that
looks like it's almost terraced at the bottom.
- It is. It's very square-shaped. And it almost has
stairsteps down inside of it. All right, let's
not get carried away. I see people waving. [interposing voices] I gotta say, squares
are unusual shapes to find on the floors of oceans. Yeah, but also I've
learned over time to be really, really careful. And all of these guys will tell
you, be careful, because there are a lot of things that
appear to be something, especially from a top view,
and then we'll superimpose it over a 3D model,
and all of a sudden, it's something
completely different. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Robert is trying to temper
his enthusiasm, but he's not fooling anyone. It's going towards the summit. We're approaching the target,
about to cross the red line, give or take 400 meters. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Under centuries of sediment, there could be an
actual structure. The anticipation is palpable. Robert has been
working for 15 years to see the data that's
about to arrive. Then something terrible happens. What's the problem? The computer
shut off by itself at the heat of the moment. Something really
has it out for you. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Coming up, time is ticking away as we
work to get our computers back online. We got one more chance. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
And try to save our expedition to find out if we've
really found the lost civilization of Atlantis. I've spent the last three
days on an expedition looking for proof that the legendary
Atlantis was a real place, and that American Robert
Sarmast has finally found it. There is no doubt in my mind
that we have found the island of Atlantis and the area
where her cities were located. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER): We
set out from the southern coast of Cyprus to a location 50
miles from the coast of Syria. We found a potential lead. Then, just as we
reached our target area, the unthinkable happened. Our computers crashed. We're like, you
know, bated breath, waiting for something to
show up on the screen, and an unnamed piece
of technology crashed. It's rebooting. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): The timing couldn't have been worse. We have a gap in our
data in exactly the spot we spent all our energy
and a lot of money to see. We've gotta go back and
see if we hit something else. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
It's almost as if there's someone or something that
doesn't want us to know what's underneath all that sediment. Given the time, we need to
go back and have another look. Yeah, one more pass. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
We have only a few hours left before we have
to head back to port. We've got time to
do one more pass. Gotta be back by 2:30. So we got one more chance. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Robert puts on a brave face, but I can only imagine what's
going through his mind. --front section of the ship. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): On the bridge, Captain Bob plots the fastest
turn we can safely make. All of Robert's time and
effort are coming down to this. It's now about 2:00 AM. Everyone's exhausted. But we're back in position and
ready to make our final pass. It only the captain
about three hours to turn around
since the last pass. And we're now seeing
what we're thinking is the first, the
northernmost wall. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
This time, everything seems to be running smoothly. We're finally able to
get our first good look at the area in question. But now the question is whether
the black lines and dots that are streaming across
the screen will give us the definitive answers
we're looking for. We're looking at waves just
bouncing off because of changes in the sediment. It's not the actual geology. Patrick can make more
sense of what we're seeing, because to me,
and probably to you, it just looks like a bump. Nothing seems
unnatural, but perhaps. We have it perhaps. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Patrick has found something
encouraging in the sonar data from one of the ridges. He points out that the top
darker layers of sediment are continuous, but
inside the ridge is a projection with a
different pattern of layers. That's an awfully
pronounced feature in the middle of this ridge. The sharp edge, yes. The sharp, vertical edge. If it's an intrusion, it's
awfully well organized. But imagine if it's toothpaste
squirted up in here, you would expect it to have
flow structures and things to be irregular. This scale shows some
type of lamination, which is surprising. So it'd be nice to
know what this is. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Patrick trick thinks this disturbance
in the sediment may be too regular to
be a natural feature. Could it be this stone
remains of a retaining wall from a man-made canal? As I've drawn the lines in
here, it's pretty definitive. We can see the edge of something
here in the middle of the ridge that is distinctly contrasted
therein possibly a wall. Or is this something
geologically dynamic that intruded into this area
and pushed up the sediment? So we know we see
something different here. The exact interpretation
of that is gonna be open. It is absolutely there. There is a corner there. There is no question about
it, and we've proven it. It's there. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Robert is confident he's
found his smoking gun. Patrick wants more
time with the data before he draws a
final conclusion. At any rate, we've succeeded
in gathering the data that we need. With our limited time at
sea, and after almost losing our entire expedition
because of the knotted cable and our computer
problems, the fact that we're coming back
with any good data at all is an accomplishment. As we start the long
trip back to port, Patrick gets to work
crunching the data. When we come back,
we find out once and for all if we've really
found the legendary Atlantis. I've been to both
sides of the Atlantic, testing theories about what and
where Plato's Atlantis really is. Our exclusive Digging
for the Truth expedition is testing Robert
Sarmast's belief that the lost
civilization is a mile beneath the eastern
Mediterranean sea. We see something
very pronounced here. The latest in
scientific exploration could have us on the verge of
an answer to the 2,300 year old mystery. Is Atlantis a real place? And have we found it? As we return to port in
Limassol, Cyprus at 8:00 PM, Patrick Lowry has the news
we've all been waiting for. He's been looking at the
cross-sections we got from our sub bottom
profiler and comparing them with the characteristics of
the rest of the sea floor. After carefully
analyzing our data, he's come up with a Result The objective was
to go into that site, look into those ridges, and see
what was at the heart of them. Right, and we did that. And we did that. What we saw today
were patterns that suggest that the sediment
in the core of those ridges is just that. It's the same sediment
that we see on either side. Oh, really? So the hill, what we
were calling a wall-- Yes. --was just displaced sediment. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
Patrick's analysis hasn't brought the news
Robert was hoping for. It's the exact opposite. Our profile of the
ridges on the seafloor shows an exact match with
deeper layers of sediment all around them. We were looking at a
simple though unexplained displacement. So everything was
like this at one point. It was all flat. And then a piece
of it came up. And a chunk about
100 meters wide was forced upwards through
the surrounding rock, and it comprises the core
of these ridges or walls. With respect to
the objective, we can say that those ridges are
cored by something natural, not man-made. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Robert actually takes the
news in stride, and vows to continue
his quest undaunted. Because like you, I wanted
to bring irrefutable evidence, but by no means does this take
away from the general theory that the island itself was here. And we'll keep moving forward. It's just one more-- JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Our expedition didn't bring back the
results he'd wanted, but that's science. It's about truth, not dreams. But it's also about
the drive to know, and I'm confident that Robert
will keep moving forward. As for me, my quest isn't
totally over either. I've got one last
lead to check out. Amazingly, during the
making of this program, our producers came
across an incredible find that may point
to a new possibility. So I've come back to Greece, to
a small village whose name I've promised to keep secret. I'm meeting up with
the town pharmacist. 20 years ago, while
spear fishing, he found a huge quantity
of ancient roofing tiles on the sea bottom that
he believes could be the ruins of an ancient city. Not wanting to attract looters,
he's kept his discovery a secret until now. His name is Giannis Raptis. He tells me about
the day he first saw the ruins 20 years ago. If you look for fish,
you don't look around. Anywhere. Yeah, you just look for fish. A moment there is a
fish go down in the cave. Yeah. In a cave, yes. I go down in the cave and
with my lamp and look around, and I-- You saw tiles? Yeah, I saw tiles. So for 20 years, 20 years
ago, you found these tiles, and you didn't tell anybody? Wow. I know. And no one has discovered
this, excavated this, explored this, except for you
very quietly over the last 20 years? So when you dive there,
do you feel special? I think it's very
special, unique in my life. I never see that tiles
in all the museums, in all the sea when I dive. For that I think it's
something special there. I think it's Atlantis. You think it's Atlantis? Yeah. The Atlantis that
Plato was writing about? And why not? Why not? Don't tell anybody. We may have found it. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
I think he's pulling my leg, but still it's
pretty intriguing. No one but Giannis
knows where the site is. It's never been visited
by any archaeologist. So we'll be the first outsiders
to see what's down there, but we had to promise to
keep the location secret. I meet up with Giannis
the next morning. Yeah, yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
This is gonna be good. The area we're heading
for has only recently been open to
recreational divers. I feel like a superhero. JOSH BERNSTEIN
(VOICEOVER): Giannis tells me that local fishermen
have told him that they avoid the area because their nets get
caught up on whatever is down there. One fisherman even claimed
to have raised a statue before throwing it back
in to avoid attention. Sunken city, roof
tiles, statues? Sounds promising. 50 feet down in the warm water,
we start to see the tiles. Giannis says they can be found
spread all over this rise in the sea floor, as if
it were a building that used to sit atop a hill. Giannis shows me
that many of them are blackened, like this one,
which he believes could have been caused by a fire. It's an eerie feeling to
be floating over the site. Many of the rocks
look suspiciously like architectural features. Steps, maybe? But it's impossible for me to
tell exactly what's down here. Could this be an
unknown lost city, or could it just be
a lonely shipwreck? Whatever it is, this
place definitely needs some serious
archaeological work done. It's hard to look at
these forgotten ruins and not recall Plato's words. READER: "In a single day
and night of misfortune, all your war-like men in a
body sank into the earth, and the island of
Atlantis, in like manner, disappeared in the
depths of the sea." JOSH BERNSTEIN (VOICEOVER):
After everything I've seen, it is that sea floor
scattered with roof tiles that is the most tantalizing. I may not have found
Plato's Atlantis, but from the Bahamas
to Santorini, from the Gulf of Corinth to
the eastern Mediterranean, I feel like I have
caught glimpses. Perhaps there are pieces
of Atlantis in all of them. What we do know is that
new theories are always being proposed, just as new
discoveries are constantly being made. It's this promise of what
the sea could someday reveal that keeps us
searching for Atlantis.
