Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy and Sarah and I.
Speaker 1: As usual, we're talking about books today and I had
Speaker 1: read The Lost City of z over the summer, which
Speaker 1: if you haven't picked it up, is amazing. It's all
Speaker 1: about the search in the Amazon for a what may
Speaker 1: or may not be a mythical city. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell you the answer, something we might actually want
Speaker 1: a podcast on in the future, but it got us
Speaker 1: talking about how the search for lost or mythical cities
Speaker 1: sometimes unearthed a lot of real stuff and we actually
Speaker 1: do some real exploring. And one of the best examples
Speaker 1: we thought of for this is the Golden City of
Speaker 1: El Dorado. The streets were supposed to be page in gold,
Speaker 1: and obviously all the gold hungry explorers went looking for
Speaker 1: it and consequently mapped a lot of South America. And
Speaker 1: another one was the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, which
Speaker 1: was supposed to have castles in the air, and in
Speaker 1: the hunt for this, explorers mapped a lot of the
Speaker 1: southwestern United States. And it's not true that space is
Speaker 1: the only unexplored frontier really, because according to Noah, of
Speaker 1: the underwater realm is still unexplored. So all you adventurers
Speaker 1: out there and get out your scoopa equipment. So today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about another lost city, Atlantis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that no effect probably should have glued you in.
Speaker 1: So Atlantis starts back with Plato. He's the first real
Speaker 1: primary source we have for any of this, and he
Speaker 1: started on what was supposed to be a trilogy of dialogues.
Speaker 1: Book one was Timaeus. He did half of his second book, Critius,
Speaker 1: and he never did book three. And all the dialogues
Speaker 1: talk about the creation of world, the nature of man,
Speaker 1: and they also mentioned Atlantis and Atlantis. The story of
Speaker 1: it starts with Poseidon, the god of the ocean, who
Speaker 1: was given the island of Atlantis when the Greek gods
Speaker 1: divvied up everything, and he fell in love with a
Speaker 1: mortal woman of Clito, and they had ten kids, five
Speaker 1: sets of twin boys. And he remakes the island that
Speaker 1: he's given for her, surrounding it with moats, and it's
Speaker 1: just the ideal utopian land, right, And it's very circular
Speaker 1: in design. There's an island in the middle, there's a moat,
Speaker 1: there's a strip of land in a circle, another moat,
Speaker 1: another strip of land in a circle, and then more water,
Speaker 1: and no one could get to the island because of
Speaker 1: course there weren't ships at the time, so it was
Speaker 1: cut off from everything else. But over time he gave
Speaker 1: the best part of this land to his oldest son, Atlas,
Speaker 1: and it grew to be an incredibly prosperous place. They
Speaker 1: had bridges and canals and connected it to the outside
Speaker 1: world again, and Um just built it up, so it
Speaker 1: was this splendid city with castles and um everything you
Speaker 1: could imagine horse tracks randomly or a sign of a
Speaker 1: really great city, so Um be assured Atlantis had them.
Speaker 1: But like with so many great civilizations, it became greedy
Speaker 1: and corrupt, and the Atlanteans began fighting wars and enslaving
Speaker 1: the people they conquered, and they even went after the
Speaker 1: great city state of Athens. And they finally got their
Speaker 1: come upance when an earthquake swallowed them in UH nine thousand,
Speaker 1: six hundred BC, which in my notes after that I wrote, bam,
Speaker 1: so that's the end. That's what happened. So that's the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the story. And to me it sounds like a
Speaker 1: nice story about a civilization that has become too corrupt
Speaker 1: and too violent, which, uh, from Plato's perspective, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good warning for the city of Athens. Watch out, Athenians.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're also coming too combative or too money driven. Um.
Speaker 1: But not everyone saw it as this allegory or myth. Right,
Speaker 1: some of his own students that he was telling this
Speaker 1: truth like Cranter, although Aristotle, Plato's most famous student, said
Speaker 1: he who invented Atlantis, also destroyed it trying to say,
Speaker 1: you know, come on, this is a story. So so
Speaker 1: most people at the time accepted it as a myth,
Speaker 1: as a story that Plato had created, a lesson, if
Speaker 1: you will. But as time went on, people started to
Speaker 1: get more interested in this myth and trying to interpret
Speaker 1: it is fact and hunt for the loscity of Atlantis
Speaker 1: and the idea that there was a huge continent that
Speaker 1: was past the Pillars of Hercules, which is the modern
Speaker 1: day Straits of Gibraltar, which is where Plato placed Atlantis,
Speaker 1: was pretty unlikely. As we got sophisticated or more sophisticated
Speaker 1: ocean mapping technology in the twentieth century and learning how
Speaker 1: the plates worked, and yeah, there there probably wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be this enormous continent under the Atlantic Ocean, and
Speaker 1: but that hasn't stopped lots of people from placing Atlantis
Speaker 1: pretty much anywhere in the world. We have. Recent candidates
Speaker 1: have been the Caribbean, South America, Antarctica, Ireland, French Polynesia,
Speaker 1: the Canaries, the Azores, Tunisia, West Africa, Sweden, Iceland, and Spain.
Speaker 1: So basically anywhere. I'm sure there are other ones, do
Speaker 1: you Basically, yeah, anywhere you can think of Atlantis. But
Speaker 1: my favorite connection with Atlantis is the fascination the Nazis
Speaker 1: had with it, which is completely insane. And it starts
Speaker 1: with a Swedish guy named Olaf Redback who said he
Speaker 1: had found Atlantis in Sweden, of all places, which of
Speaker 1: course has nothing to do with anything that Plato wrote
Speaker 1: Pillars of Hercules. Yeah, not so much. He said that
Speaker 1: the biblical Jaffe came to Sweden after the Great Flood
Speaker 1: and then gave birth to Atlas, which perhaps you remember's son, No,
Speaker 1: it's someone else's, according to Redback, and he came up
Speaker 1: with lots of rationalizations whenever his didn't make sense. For example,
Speaker 1: swee and is nowhere near the straits of Gibraltar. Well,
Speaker 1: perhaps that was a mistranslation then, and some of his
Speaker 1: research was picked up by a theosophist named Helena Blavatsky,
Speaker 1: who expounded on some of his stuff and added some
Speaker 1: more of her own. I was excited to see her
Speaker 1: name in Katie's outline because she popped up in an
Speaker 1: article I wrote a few years ago about karma and secularizing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's actually considered responsible for secularizing karma in the West.
Speaker 1: So it's not just a religious thing. It's something that
Speaker 1: can be in a pop song, right that we used
Speaker 1: someone incorrectly all the time. But this particular religion became
Speaker 1: popular when the Third Reich decided that Christianity had too
Speaker 1: much of a Jewish influence and maybe people should find
Speaker 1: some other religion to take a part in. And her
Speaker 1: idea was that when Atlanta sank because some of the
Speaker 1: elite priests escaped from the city and they went to Shambala,
Speaker 1: a mythical place in the Himalayas, and the Arians, a
Speaker 1: completely new race, learned from the Atlanteans all of their wisdom,
Speaker 1: which she said involved things like inventing airplanes and explosives,
Speaker 1: although I'd like to add the Theosophists also said there
Speaker 1: was an entire sunken continent named MoU. So perhaps they're
Speaker 1: the most reliable, and they were waiting for the Aquarian Age,
Speaker 1: a time of enlightenment and brotherhood. So it makes me
Speaker 1: want to see the Age of Aquarius. But I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1: We're gonna, We're gonna avoid that. So, of course, who
Speaker 1: likes this arian stuff. That would be the Nazis, especially
Speaker 1: Heinrich Himmler, who believed in all sorts of weird stuff,
Speaker 1: like glacial cosmogeny, which was the idea that the whole
Speaker 1: universe was a conflict between fire and ice basically since
Speaker 1: the dawn of time. It's kind of James Taylor esque,
Speaker 1: it is. I'm sorry, I don't want to compare him
Speaker 1: to the Knox. It's not what I was trying to hear.
Speaker 1: But he was in charge as part of the s S,
Speaker 1: as part of the National Heritage Institute, and so he
Speaker 1: had access to all sorts of scientists, scholars, and archaeologists
Speaker 1: who he sent out on missions to find Atlantis. He's
Speaker 1: we know for sure. He sent people to Tibet to
Speaker 1: look for this place in Shambala where perhaps the Atlanteans
Speaker 1: might have given their wisdom to the Arians. And that's
Speaker 1: a common theme in people who believe there was an
Speaker 1: Atlantis that uh, they passed on their wisdom to the
Speaker 1: great ancient civilizations. A lot of people have a hard
Speaker 1: time or I don't know if it's a lot some
Speaker 1: people have a hard time accepting that, uh, the megaliths
Speaker 1: in Great Britain were built, you know, just people were
Speaker 1: inspired to build them and think that maybe the people
Speaker 1: of Atlantis taught them how pyramids. That's another a popular example.
Speaker 1: Anything like that is saying, well, it's too advanced for
Speaker 1: the people at that time to and it must have
Speaker 1: been part of the super race. Anything that's too impressive.
Speaker 1: The Atlanteans must have helped out. Yeah, they didn't believe
Speaker 1: that particular Tibetan city that they went to could have
Speaker 1: been formed by the people who lived there, which is insulting.
Speaker 1: But another Himler associate named Edmund Kiss decided that it
Speaker 1: was in the Andes, and another one came up with
Speaker 1: some idea of polar shift in runs coming from the Atlanteans,
Speaker 1: and then Otto Huff decided it was in the Canary Islands.
Speaker 1: But this wasn't even about history. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: about Atlantis. People read what they want to into it,
Speaker 1: and for the Nazis and especially Himmler, it was a
Speaker 1: way to figure out the racial superiority, giving the pseudo
Speaker 1: scientific reason or pseudo historical reason as to why Atlantis
Speaker 1: was so great and so was the Arian race. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the theories that's a little
Speaker 1: more accepted than than those the Aliens and teaching ancient
Speaker 1: civilizations is that Atlantis was increte. Uh. The accomplished Minoan
Speaker 1: civilization there collapsed in the middle of the second millennium
Speaker 1: bc UM, probably from a volcanic eruption that was on
Speaker 1: the era which is the modern santorini Um, So that
Speaker 1: that theory has holds a little more weight for some
Speaker 1: people than the more off the wall ideas as the aliens,
Speaker 1: which I seriously think that's my favorite one, and the
Speaker 1: idea goes that they accidentally blew themselves up with a
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb. It's another and more or lesson about the
Speaker 1: dangers of technology, but a little bit different, or the
Speaker 1: one that they were behind the cro magnan and cave paintings. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of these potential Atlantis locale sound not very
Speaker 1: hospitable Antarctica especially. I'd say, um, there's one in particular
Speaker 1: that might be the Atlantis you would most want to
Speaker 1: visit should it be true, or even if there's not,
Speaker 1: an Atlanthara and I are happy to go and explore
Speaker 1: this to our fullest abilities. And that's a Bimini in
Speaker 1: the Bahamas. Edgar Casey, who was a clairvoyant psychic, he
Speaker 1: would go into trances and read fortunes and predict things.
Speaker 1: He had a vision that Atlantis was located from the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico to Gibraltar, so at least we have
Speaker 1: the pillars of Hercules in there, unlike the Sweden theory.
Speaker 1: But it was destroyed in a final catastrophic event circa
Speaker 1: ten thousand BC, which again puts it about where Plato
Speaker 1: said or earlier, right, yeah, a lot earlier. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: he founded an Association for Research and Enlightenment, and that
Speaker 1: group today has focused their efforts on the Biminy Island
Speaker 1: chain Uh. They go on dives and search for traces
Speaker 1: of Atlantis, and they actually believed that bminy Uh were
Speaker 1: mountaintops in Atlantis they were really high ground, and that
Speaker 1: the world's oceans were a lot lower. And he claimed
Speaker 1: that there was a record hall on Bimony, Uh that
Speaker 1: was identical to one under the Sphinx, which just sounds
Speaker 1: like a really tangential connection. Um, and this housed all
Speaker 1: of the ancient records of Atlantis. But it's interesting how
Speaker 1: that so many of them seemed to try to tie together,
Speaker 1: all these cultures that have nothing in common, Like they
Speaker 1: couldn't have sprouted up independently of one another. They must
Speaker 1: have come from that one original source. One civilization basically
Speaker 1: gave everyone the blueprints for advanced civilization. And of course
Speaker 1: it must have been Atlantis. But you said something cool
Speaker 1: that was a little bit more recent. Yeah, just earlier
Speaker 1: this year, Google Earth launched a new underwater search tool,
Speaker 1: and so, like people do on Google Earth, they start
Speaker 1: looking around, and um, folks started noticing a grid like
Speaker 1: pattern off the western coast of Africa, which of course
Speaker 1: is another suspected Atlantis site. I mean, what isn't and uh?
Speaker 1: The product manager of Ocean in Google Earth debunked the
Speaker 1: rumors and said that the lines were quote artificial data
Speaker 1: remnants left by sonar equipped boats collecting data from the
Speaker 1: ocean floor. That's kind of a lot of technical jargon
Speaker 1: for me. But um, as far as he knew, the
Speaker 1: research from those boats, or the research that those boats
Speaker 1: were conducting, was not Atlantis related at all. It does
Speaker 1: look cool though. I saw a picture of it. It
Speaker 1: looks kind of like an underwater street grid. Well, and
Speaker 1: if you're looking for that kind of thing, that would
Speaker 1: be a good place to start. But you also had
Speaker 1: a really good quote that you told me earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is why people aren't going to give up
Speaker 1: searching for Atlantis. Richard Ellis, who is the author of
Speaker 1: Imagining Atlantis, wrote that Atlantis lives on in people's minds
Speaker 1: largely because you cannot prove it doesn't exist. You can't
Speaker 1: search every inch of the ocean bottom, and so the
Speaker 1: hope remains alive and the promise of finding treasures in
Speaker 1: sunken palaces. It's like that pot of gold at the
Speaker 1: end of the rainbow. You're going to continue looking, except
Speaker 1: under all of the world's oceans, which is a little
Speaker 1: harder to find perhaps. But let us know what you
Speaker 1: think about Atlantis and what your ideas are. Because I
Speaker 1: talked to a couple of people who actually thought that
Speaker 1: Sarah was a plausible explanation, So email us at has
Speaker 1: three podcast at how stuff works dot com, and if
Speaker 1: you're into conspiracy theories and Nazis and all that, you
Speaker 1: should check out our newest podcast, Stuff They Don't Want
Speaker 1: You to Know on iTunes. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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