# Atlantis????
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 26, 2006, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062 "2006-07-26T07:03:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/1 "2006-07-26T07:03:05Z")
I’m reading “Atlantis Found” by Clive Cussler.
He writes that around 7000BC a huge comet impacted at Hudson Bay resulting in world wide cataclysmic events. 95% of all animal and plantlife were extinguished and whole continents shifted from their original location, some to places more than 2000 miles away.
The book tells of an ancient civilisation who he calls the Amenes who were in fact the original Atlanteans, very advanced in all things.
So this got me to wonder what, if any, is the proof or otherwise that Atlantis did in fact exist.
BTW. It isn’t a great book by any stretch of the imagination but it aint so bad.
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### Author:  [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/2 "2006-07-26T08:21:58Z")
Ummm…
I think the reason you’re not getting any response yet is due to the fact that this came by way of Clive Cussler.
I have absolutely no doubt that it isn’t a great, or even good, book.
As far as Atlantis, you’d do far better by internet searches. Run screaming from anything having to do with Cussler and/or Dirk Pitt.
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### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/3 "2006-07-26T08:44:58Z")
While there certainly have been several mass extinctions from meteorites, wiping out a large proportion of earthly life, there hasn’t been one as recently as 7000BC. The prospect of the majority of evolutionary avenues becoming extinct fairly arbitrarily is an interesting one. Atlantis though is only as interesting as the imagination of groundless speculators. How would an impact suddenly shift tectonic plates? This sudden happening would surely be shown in (relatively fresh) geological records.
ps. BS.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/4 "2006-07-26T11:10:52Z")
There’s been some speculation that the Atlantis story is a memory of the catastrophe that ended the Minoan civilization:
[http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/economysociety/thetheracatastropheconsequencesforeuropeancivilization](http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/economysociety/thetheracatastropheconsequencesforeuropeancivilization)
Of course, Plato (who is the source of the Atlantis legend) placed it many thousands of years before the Thera event, and his description of Atlantean society and the layout of the city doesn’t correspond at all with what would have been possible at Thera. So it’s just a story, allegory, whatever.
If you Google “Plato Timaeus Critias Atlantis” you’ll find several translations of the source material. I’m not capable of determining which is the most accurate.
But seriously man, Clive Cussler!!! I like a trashy thriller as much as the next man, but Clive has been phoning it in for decades. Have you read Lee Child?
So basically it’s just yer run of the mill allegory
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/5 "2006-07-26T11:12:12Z")
Hmmm, disregard the last sentence fragment.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/6 "2006-07-26T11:32:10Z")
Recommended reading: _Lost Continents_, by L. Sprague deCamp. A very thorough exploration of every turn the Atlantis/Lemuria/Mu meme has taken over the years, from Plato to Blavatsky to Ignatius Donnelly to Cayce, with appropriate debunking. A thoroughly fascinating piece of work.
Atlantis apparently started life as a political/philosophical allegory created by Plato and provided with a believable fictional background (information brought by Solon from Egypt, imparted to the grandfather of someone at the dinner at which the dialogue is set). Aside from a couple of then-exposed now-submerged coastal areas in the Azores and Bahamas dating from the Pleistocene or before, there appears to have been no submerged lands in the Atlantic, and certainly no advanced ancient mid-Atlantic civilization drowned in a cataclysm.
Insofar as there might **be** a historical analog to the Atlantis story, the destruction of the Minoan civilization by events associated with the Thera eruption (a Krakatoa-style catastrophic eruption) matches in some amazingly accurate ways – provided that you assume an exaggeration factor of ten on both temporal and spatial number cites, and ignore some inconvenient details as being Platonic pontification superimposed on the legend.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/7 "2006-07-26T12:04:05Z")
> [@LiveOnAPlane](#):
>
> Run screaming from anything having to do with Cussler and/or Dirk Pitt.
Or Charles Berlitz
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/8 "2006-07-26T12:32:06Z")
> [@LiveOnAPlane](#):
>
> Ummm…
>
> I think the reason you’re not getting any response yet is due to the fact that this came by way of Clive Cussler.
>
> I have absolutely no doubt that it isn’t a great, or even good, book.
>
> As far as Atlantis, you’d do far better by internet searches. Run screaming from anything having to do with Cussler and/or Dirk Pitt.
This is the first book I’ve ever read by him and also the last, I understand exactly what you say.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/9 "2006-07-26T12:38:37Z")
I’m sorry really I am.
I stand before you a broken savagely castigated wreck of what once was a reasonably intelligent humanoid.
I’ll stick to my Mills and Boon from now on 😉
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/10 "2006-07-26T13:17:27Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> Or Charles Berlitz
Or Graham Hancock.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/11 "2006-07-26T13:49:57Z")
> [@chowder](#):
>
> I’m reading “Atlantis Found” by Clive Cussler.
First, the [cover](http://www.numa.net/images/covers/large/atlantis_found.jpg) says
Clive Cussler
Atlantis Found
A Dirk Pitt Novel
Which guy wrote it, and what the other guy do?
Second, it _is_ a novel, after all.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/12 "2006-07-26T13:57:50Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> First, the [cover](http://www.numa.net/images/covers/large/atlantis_found.jpg) says
>
> Clive Cussler
> Atlantis Found
> A Dirk Pitt Novel
>
> Which guy wrote it, and what the other guy do?
Is this a whoosh? Dirk Pitt is the hero in the book, the series character.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/13 "2006-07-26T14:01:46Z")
Cussler wrote it the other guy saved the world from being flooded (again) and what was left from being taken over by Nazis who had been hiding since 1945.
There is snow and ice and wind and no sex in the story altho’ a breast is mentioned once.
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### Author:  [@First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/First_Amongst_Daves)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/14 "2006-07-26T14:03:27Z")
Aquaman is shaking his head right now at you all.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/15 "2006-07-26T14:14:58Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> Is this a whoosh? Dirk Pitt is the hero in the book, the series character.
Old Dirk is being phased out of the stories in favour of his son, who by curious coincidence is also called Dirk!
(Errrr, so I believe)
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/16 "2006-07-26T14:44:47Z")
**Polycarp** summed up the whole “Plato wasn’t a writing a geography textbook” thing, but it doesn’t stop folks looking. For a list of the various places the’e looked at, [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_hypotheses_of_Atlantis) has a nice long list
> [@](#):
>
> In or near the Mediterranean Sea
>
> Andalucia
> Crete and Santorini
> Near Cape Spartel
> Near Cyprus
> Israel
> Malta
> Ponza
> Sardinia
> Troy
> Tantali
>
> Outside the Mediterranean
>
> Antarctica
> Azores Islands
> Mid-Atlantic Ridge
> Bahama Bank and Caribbean
> Bolivia
> Black Sea
> British Isles
> Canary Islands
> England
> India and Sri Lanka
> Indonesia/Sundaland
> Ireland
> Isla de la Juventud near Cuba
> Finland
> North Sea
> Sea of Azov
> Estremadura, Portugal
They can’t all be right 😉
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### Author:  [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/17 "2006-07-26T14:55:29Z")
Clive Cussler is a wonderful author. Try some of his earlier stuff - Pacific Vortex, Mediterranean Caper, Vixon 03. Good stuff that.
Ok, maybe “wonderful” is a bit much. “Fun” I think I meant.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/18 "2006-07-26T15:28:01Z")
> [@First Amongst Daves](#):
>
> Aquaman is shaking his head right now at you all.
Pfft! Arthur’s a pussy. It’s Namor you want running your undersea kingdom…he’s badbass…
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/19 "2006-07-26T15:32:36Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> Pfft! Arthur’s a pussy. It’s Namor you want running your undersea kingdom…he’s badbass…
Namor is a badass, true. But Arthur did cut off his own hand.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atlantis/366062/20 "2006-07-26T15:53:21Z")
Graham Hancock is a very entertaining author. He even brings up the occasional “good point.” It’s just that he plays logic hop-scotch into a swimming pool filled with drivel juice.
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