1 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:19,640 [Graham] If you look me up on Wikipedia, 2 00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:24,600 you'll find that I am described as a pseudoarchaeologist or a pseudoscientist. 3 00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:28,000 I find this frankly absurd. 4 00:00:28,880 --> 00:00:32,680 I'm no more a pseudoscientist than a dolphin is a pseudo-fish. 5 00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:37,119 I'm an investigative reporter. 6 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:41,320 My job is to investigate the official story. 7 00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:43,960 What is there in the past 8 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:47,360 that the existing model of prehistory doesn't explain? 9 00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:51,840 Anomalies and paradoxes are of great interest. 10 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:57,160 That's what's brought me here to the Bahamas. 11 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:18,600 I'm fascinated by parts of the world that haven't been looked at properly yet. 12 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:21,320 That's why I spend years scuba diving on continental shelves 13 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:23,560 'cause there's ten million square miles of land 14 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:26,800 that was above water during the Ice Age that's underwater today. 15 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:31,000 Including here, in the Bahamas. 16 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,600 These are the Bimini Islands. 17 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:40,080 Just under 60 miles off the coast of Miami, 18 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:43,560 Bimini is separated from the mainland of America 19 00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:47,800 by a deepwater channel known as the Straits of Florida. 20 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:53,560 You might think this is an unlikely place 21 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:56,200 to search for clues to a lost civilization, 22 00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:59,960 but something incredible has been discovered beneath the waves here. 23 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:08,000 Just half a mile off the shoreline, not far from the Gulf Stream current, 24 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:11,840 is a massive structure of carefully laid giant stones... 25 00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,520 with every appearance of being a megalithic roadway or paved terrace... 26 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:25,520 which is how it earned its nickname, the "Bimini Road." 27 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:33,400 The formation was first discovered in 1968 by a group of divers 28 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,080 who'd been looking for the fabled lost city of Atlantis 29 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:38,880 beneath the waves of the Bahamas. 30 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:44,760 In their excitement, they announced to the world 31 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:47,600 that they had found the road to Atlantis itself. 32 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:52,000 This state of Atlantis is supposed to have existed in 8000 BC, 33 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:55,880 and supposed to have attacked Athens. Greeks didn't exist in 8000 BC. 34 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:58,080 This is all simply absurd. 35 00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:01,440 I'm afraid there is no history in this story whatsoever. 36 00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:08,480 [Graham] Predictably, all this talk of Atlantis caused archaeologists to discount 37 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,520 what seemed to be an underwater megalithic structure 38 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:14,400 as no more than breathless hype. 39 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:20,960 To this day, archaeologists insist 40 00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:25,400 that this underwater formation is just a stretch of fractured beach rock 41 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:30,400 probably formed around 3,000 years ago by natural processes. 42 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:35,160 Unwilling to risk their reputations, 43 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:38,320 few scholars have seriously investigated it. 44 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:41,880 I have no such reservations. 45 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:44,280 Because whether or not 46 00:03:44,360 --> 00:03:47,600 the Bimini structure is part of some underwater city, 47 00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:51,360 it would be reckless to ignore it completely. 48 00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:58,400 Which is why I've come here 49 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:01,120 with some state-of-the-art technology and a team of experts 50 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:03,920 to reopen this cold case. 51 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:08,760 My dive buddy is Dr. Michael Haley... 52 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:11,000 [Dr. Haley] Hand me the mask. 53 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:14,960 [Graham] ...a marine biologist who's been exploring the waters of the Caribbean 54 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:16,720 for over 40 years. 55 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:35,560 [Dr. Haley over comms] Graham, let's swim over here. 56 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:41,320 [Graham] The so-called Bimini Road lies just 18 feet, 57 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:43,720 five-and-a-half meters, below the surface. 58 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:46,760 An easy dive. 59 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:51,760 While Mike and I head for the mysterious structure, 60 00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:55,920 up above, another member of our team, Kyle Dufault, 61 00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:00,560 is preparing to scan the area using his sonar array. 62 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:04,560 Kyle's a marine investigator 63 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:07,880 with years of experience hunting the world's seabeds 64 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:09,640 for wrecks and anomalies. 65 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:10,720 [Kyle] Good to go. 66 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:15,160 [Graham] His sonar should reveal the road like an X-ray, 67 00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:17,040 giving us a much clearer view 68 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:19,800 of how these blocks may originally have been laid out. 69 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:26,760 I'm hoping to show something that has never been seen before. 70 00:05:26,840 --> 00:05:31,440 If this is in fact a man-made object, I'd like to see precise lines 71 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:35,760 because usually 90-degree angles do not occur in nature. 72 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:37,080 It's very rare. 73 00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:42,560 All right, what I would like to do is just go right down the middle. 74 00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:54,840 [Dr. Haley] Graham, look at this. 75 00:05:57,280 --> 00:06:00,640 [Graham] Below, Mike and I close in on the line of massive blocks 76 00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:02,600 on the otherwise empty seabed. 77 00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:08,280 Recent storms have stirred up sediment, reducing visibility. 78 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:13,560 Even so, it's easy to spot the well-organized rows of megaliths. 79 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:28,000 [over comms] They are laid out perfectly symmetrically. 80 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,440 I can swim along the side of the row 81 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:35,200 and I can see absolute level and precision. 82 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:37,440 It's a very impressive sight. 83 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:44,080 The slabs are remarkably straight-edged and parallel. 84 00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:52,000 These very large blocks are really enormous. 85 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:56,000 They're about 15 feet on one dimension, 86 00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:59,200 and about 12 feet on the other dimension. 87 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:05,840 This isn't the top of any larger buried structure. 88 00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:10,680 Most of the blocks are laid out directly on the ocean floor. 89 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:15,120 What's so unusual 90 00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:17,720 is that some of the undisturbed sections of the structure 91 00:07:17,800 --> 00:07:22,400 appear to be level, despite the massive size of the megaliths. 92 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:28,480 And when Mike and I take a closer look, we discover why. 93 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:33,080 There's something underneath them. 94 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:37,320 [Dr. Haley] Come over here, Graham. Look at this. 95 00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:50,400 [Graham] A series of smaller stones are wedged beneath these huge slabs, 96 00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:53,240 keeping them level above the sea floor. 97 00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,680 [Dr. Haley] You can see these foundation stones very clearly. 98 00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:02,080 [Graham] There's no way those stones could have gotten under these slabs, 99 00:08:02,160 --> 00:08:04,560 some of which weigh up to ten tons, 100 00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:07,920 unless they were put there intentionally. 101 00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:14,040 There's no doubt about it, in my view. 102 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:19,440 Nature just cannot explain the regularity, the organization, 103 00:08:19,520 --> 00:08:22,160 the planning and the precision of this structure. 104 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:35,960 It's clear that we're looking at a man-made structure. 105 00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:37,679 Huge efforts were made to create 106 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:42,240 a leveled-off megalithic platform on a sloping land form. 107 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:44,159 And in order to level that platform, 108 00:08:44,799 --> 00:08:49,080 they used foundation blocks underneath the large megaliths. 109 00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:55,280 Up close, it was difficult to make out 110 00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,880 what the overall intended shape of the formation might have been. 111 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:07,120 But Kyle's sonar scans should give us further perspective. 112 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:17,120 So, now you're starting to see the blocks of the main section of the road. 113 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:19,760 - [Graham] Okay. - And you can definitively see the cracks... 114 00:09:19,840 --> 00:09:20,680 [Graham] Absolutely. 115 00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:23,040 ...and the uniform shape of the road. 116 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:24,800 [Graham] Definition is amazing. 117 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,280 - Most of the rocks are very uniform. - [Graham] Yeah. 118 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,400 They're usually about ten to twelve foot long, 119 00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:32,880 by ten to twelve foot wide. 120 00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:36,280 - [Graham] So, really substantial pieces. - [Kyle] Absolutely. 121 00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:37,880 Look at this straight edge here. 122 00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:39,080 [Kyle] Right, absolutely. 123 00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:41,640 Yeah, you can definitively see the lines between the blocks 124 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:43,656 - like they were actually made... - [Graham] Yeah. 125 00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:46,960 - ...and then laid into a road pattern. It... - Almost perfectly square. 126 00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:47,920 Absolutely. 127 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,120 Like I said, you can definitively see that they're blocks. 128 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:52,040 [Graham] Yes. 129 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:54,680 [Kyle] I've scanned both sides on either side of the road 130 00:09:54,760 --> 00:09:57,600 and there's nothing like that anywhere around. 131 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:04,440 [Graham] If this formation was simply the product of natural tidal forces, 132 00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:07,840 as geologists insisted when it was first discovered, 133 00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:13,040 why would the shorter section of the road lie at an angle to the main one? 134 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:14,680 Wouldn't they be parallel? 135 00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:19,080 And why don't we see other such formations nearby? 136 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:24,480 I mean, not only the weathering or just the uniformity of them all, 137 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:28,120 - but nothing around it looking like this... - Yeah. 138 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:31,880 - Somebody put it there. - Yes. 139 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:35,920 So my personal opinion is that it is man-made. 140 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:46,200 So, Mike, what do you make of it? 141 00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:48,000 What have we been looking at? 142 00:10:48,080 --> 00:10:50,560 Well, I've dived all over the world 143 00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:53,160 and it's the only structure I've ever seen like that. 144 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:54,800 Anyway, it's completely unique. 145 00:10:56,440 --> 00:10:59,760 When I listen to the arguments of those who think it is a natural structure, 146 00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:01,240 they argue that it's beach rock. 147 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:06,440 Oftentimes a shelf of beach rock will fracture into pieces 148 00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:09,160 while still maintaining its overall shape. 149 00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:13,120 But the blocks at Bimini are clearly distinct from one another 150 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:15,400 and uniformly pillow-shaped. 151 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:19,920 It's very hard for me to see how nature could have made it. 152 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:22,280 I've never seen beach rock fracture in that way. 153 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:23,560 - Have you? - Me neither. 154 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:26,640 And it speaks to me loudly of human workmanship. 155 00:11:26,720 --> 00:11:29,520 Looks like it very well could be a man-made structure. 156 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:34,160 [Graham] If I'm right, it must have been made at a time 157 00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,440 when this part of the Bahamas was above water. 158 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:41,880 And extrapolating from all the available data, 159 00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:46,320 we can get a good idea of what it might originally have looked like 160 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:48,720 when it lay atop the coastline. 161 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:58,720 The hook-shaped formation runs roughly northeast to southwest, 162 00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:01,360 about 1,600 feet long. 163 00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:03,960 Nearly four-and-a-half football fields. 164 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:09,520 The biggest blocks are anywhere from ten to thirteen feet long 165 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:11,480 and seven to ten feet wide. 166 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:16,760 And on both terraces, there appear to be intentional gaps. 167 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:22,600 But there's no way to know if there was any wooden superstructure built on top. 168 00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:25,680 All that remains are the blocks. 169 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:33,160 But the very existence of such a massive man-made structure here 170 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:35,160 has extraordinary implications. 171 00:12:36,760 --> 00:12:41,560 Because this part of the Bahamas has been under water for thousands of years. 172 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:49,840 In fact, most of the islands making up what we now call the Great Bahama Bank, 173 00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:52,040 were connected during the Ice Age 174 00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:55,840 in places rising 100 meters above sea level. 175 00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:00,440 Part of a vast rectangular Bahama Island, 176 00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:03,120 just off the mainland of what today is Florida, 177 00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:09,280 an island that existed here for more than 100,000 years. 178 00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:15,960 Sea levels rose 400 feet at the end of the last Ice Age 179 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:17,600 and in the process, 180 00:13:17,680 --> 00:13:21,560 swallowed up millions of square miles of some of the best land on Earth. 181 00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:25,480 And if we're trying to tell the human story while not taking account 182 00:13:25,560 --> 00:13:28,720 of those submerged continental shelves and what was happening on them, 183 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:32,080 then we could be missing a great deal of important information. 184 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:36,720 The new data we've gathered on the Bimini Road 185 00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:42,320 strongly suggest to me an ancient date for this now underwater structure. 186 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:47,440 And yet, archaeologists have been slow to take up the challenge 187 00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:52,000 of looking for evidence of older civilizations here in the Bahamas. 188 00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:55,560 They refuse to consider the possibility. 189 00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:01,440 If there was an advanced civilization that lived, say, 30,000 years ago, 190 00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:03,480 which is what Graham thinks, okay, 191 00:14:03,560 --> 00:14:05,960 where is their trash? Where are the homes? 192 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:09,960 You know, where are their stone tools or metal tools? 193 00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:11,360 Where's their writing? 194 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:17,080 [Graham] There could be such evidence of an advanced civilization of the Ice Age 195 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:22,960 waiting to be found beneath the waves on land later flooded. 196 00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:26,240 But you're not going to find it if you don't bother to look. 197 00:14:26,320 --> 00:14:28,760 [Dr. Haley] You're not talking about a civilization on Bimini. 198 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:32,000 You're talking about civilization on the entire bank, which is huge. 199 00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:34,080 - The research has simply never been done. - Yeah. 200 00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:37,760 Because archaeology doesn't feel there's any point in doing that research. 201 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:39,960 Because archaeology feels that 202 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:42,440 the timeline of human civilization is already sorted out. 203 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,480 So, there's no reason to investigate that. 204 00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:52,640 The Bimini Road does overlook the deepwater channel 205 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:57,160 that once ran between the Ice Age Bahama Island and North America. 206 00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:00,320 A channel through which the Gulf Stream flows, 207 00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:05,000 making it a hugely important landmark for any ships heading northward 208 00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:07,600 out of the Gulf of Mexico toward the Atlantic. 209 00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:13,240 Like the legendary boat with no paddles of Quetzalcoatl. 210 00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:18,640 The stone slabs could have been part of some larger monument or place marker. 211 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:21,400 A legacy of a seafaring culture 212 00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:25,000 that witnessed the rising waters at the end of the last Ice Age. 213 00:15:26,640 --> 00:15:31,000 A culture that may actually have mapped this important spot. 214 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:40,640 I've asked Mike to join me on shore 215 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:44,600 to look over replicas of some of the oldest surviving world maps. 216 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:50,720 He may be a seasoned navigator, 217 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:54,040 but I'm betting he's never used maps like these. 218 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,000 The story of these maps is quite complicated. 219 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:01,640 These maps were typically drawn 220 00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:05,320 in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries of our era. 221 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:09,840 But the mapmakers admitted freely that they were copying from older source maps 222 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:13,560 and compiling it together with new information from the Age of Discovery. 223 00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:19,400 Let's start with this one, which is a very famous map. 224 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:23,200 This is the Piri Reis map drawn by a Turkish admiral... 225 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:25,320 - Right. - ...in 1513. 226 00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:29,400 He tells us in his own handwriting on the map 227 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:34,840 that he based it on 20 older source maps. 228 00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:41,960 In addition to those ancient sources, 229 00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:47,000 Piri Reis also referred to charts from recent voyages to the Americas 230 00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:49,000 by Christopher Columbus and others. 231 00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:53,520 The end result was a world map, 232 00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:57,000 but today, only the western third of it survives. 233 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:04,120 This is really interesting, Graham, because you got this coastline 234 00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:07,320 showing the rivers in South America quite accurately. 235 00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:09,160 [Graham] Yeah. Very good, really, 236 00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,160 representation of the coast of South America. 237 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:15,800 But what stands out for me as a huge anomaly, 238 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:17,800 is this very large island 239 00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:20,680 shown off the southeast coast of North America. 240 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:25,280 Parked off the coast of a truncated Florida, 241 00:17:25,359 --> 00:17:29,240 is a large, vertically-oriented, rectangular island. 242 00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:34,960 It doesn't look like anything Columbus should have encountered or drawn. 243 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:40,000 Efforts have been made to explain it as a badly drawn map of Cuba. 244 00:17:41,080 --> 00:17:44,640 And that just doesn't fly for me because you can't get it wrong. 245 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:47,120 Well, it's long and thin and oriented on a different axis. 246 00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:51,160 And oriented east-west. Whereas this is oriented north-south. 247 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:55,360 There is no such island and it didn't exist in 1513 either. 248 00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:58,880 But an island of exactly that size and shape 249 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:01,720 did exist during the last Ice Age. 250 00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:05,240 The large part of the Grand Bahama Banks that were above water. 251 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:12,760 And if you take a closer look at what Piri Reis drew along the island's spine, 252 00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:17,280 it's a series of blocks lined up in a row. 253 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:20,600 Remind you of something? 254 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:30,240 This row looks to me 255 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:34,960 very much like the rows of megaliths on the Bimini Road. 256 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,320 That would not be uncharacteristic of maps of this period 257 00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:46,600 because they took what they saw as a characteristic feature of that area. 258 00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,400 Like we see this elephant in West Africa, 259 00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:54,200 curious animals here in South America. 260 00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:57,960 And this feature here, which is not mountains. 261 00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:01,000 It's not how Piri Reis shows mountains. It's something else. 262 00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:04,080 I think it's the Bimini Road. 263 00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:10,240 I don't care whether the Bimini Road is natural or man-made. 264 00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:11,920 My claim about the Bimini Road 265 00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:14,920 is it's really fucking weird that it appears on a map above water. 266 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:15,840 [Joe] Yes. 267 00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:19,040 A map that was drawn in 1513 based on older source maps. 268 00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:24,320 This strange appearance of an Ice Age island 269 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:28,760 isn't the only unusual feature on Piri Reis' extraordinary map. 270 00:19:31,320 --> 00:19:34,560 As you move to the south, you've got this large landmass here. 271 00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:35,480 [Graham] Yeah. 272 00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:38,320 And that seems extremely strange. 273 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:40,280 [Graham] You're putting your finger on 274 00:19:40,360 --> 00:19:43,280 one of the most controversial aspects of the Piri Reis map. 275 00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:48,920 It's a coastline extending out from South America 276 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:51,560 along the southern edge of the Atlantic. 277 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:56,440 No one should have known about it in 1513. 278 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:01,360 Take a look at this other world map. 279 00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:04,560 The Pinkerton map, published in 1812. 280 00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:08,680 It's impressively accurate except for one thing. 281 00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:11,560 No Antarctica. 282 00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:17,400 Because our civilization didn't discover Antarctica until 1820. 283 00:20:19,360 --> 00:20:23,200 This is why historians refuse to acknowledge the possibility 284 00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:27,160 that it might appear on a map drawn in 1513. 285 00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:34,280 The area of the map which people say might be Antarctica, 286 00:20:34,360 --> 00:20:36,880 well, it just isn't Antarctica. 287 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:38,800 It's South America. 288 00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,880 All that happened is that Piri Reis was drawing the coastline, 289 00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:46,000 the paper ran out, so he changed the direction. 290 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:48,320 [Peter Barber] He just did a doodle. 291 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:51,000 And I think we've been taken in by the doodle 292 00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:52,560 into thinking it's something more. 293 00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:59,760 [Graham] That might make sense, if the Piri Reis map was the only example. 294 00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:04,400 But Antarctica shows up in other 16th century maps, as well. 295 00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:10,040 Here it's clearly detailed and even labeled 296 00:21:10,120 --> 00:21:13,520 on the Orontius Finaeus map drawn in 1531. 297 00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:17,360 Once again, based on ancient sources, 298 00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:20,960 before any modern explorer had ever laid eyes on it. 299 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:30,160 But if that is Antarctica on the Piri Reis map, 300 00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:34,400 why is it so oddly oriented and connected to South America? 301 00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:41,360 Have a look at Antarctica's coastline, not as it is today, 302 00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:46,640 but as geologists think it was when sea levels were lower 303 00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,600 and the southern ice cap extended north during the last Ice Age. 304 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,320 If you trace out Antarctica's Ice Age coastline, 305 00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:58,440 it looks a lot like the one on the Piri Reis map. 306 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:05,360 Antarctica, its appearance rather accurately, 307 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,680 and much as it looked during the Ice Age on ancient maps, 308 00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,440 is a real paradox and a problem which needs to be explained. 309 00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:15,120 And to me, the obvious answer to that problem isn't coincidence, 310 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,840 it isn't fantasy on the part of the mapmakers. 311 00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:21,560 It's those source maps they were drawing from. 312 00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:23,840 I think these maps suggest 313 00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:26,040 a major forgotten episode in human history. 314 00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:33,400 In Indonesia, in Mexico, and on Malta, 315 00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:39,400 we've seen advanced megalithic structures associated with civilizing heroes 316 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:46,120 who arrived by boat, teaching the locals about agriculture, laws and engineering. 317 00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:52,720 Now, these maps suggest that long before Magellan's famous expedition, 318 00:22:53,360 --> 00:22:57,240 an advanced culture did circumnavigate that Ice Age world. 319 00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,520 This is all evidence that we shouldn't dismiss the possibility 320 00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,200 that our ancestors had achieved a level of technology 321 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:07,480 where they could explore and map the world's oceans. 322 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:08,560 Shouldn't be dismissed. 323 00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:10,960 Is there anything else compelling in the immediate area 324 00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:13,720 that seems to indicate there was a man-made structure? 325 00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,640 [Graham] There is another unexplained man-made wonder here. 326 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:24,160 Hidden deep inside Bimini's dense mangrove forest, 327 00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:27,680 an area accessible only by boat. 328 00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:33,480 Rising ten feet out of the swamp is a series of mounds 329 00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:39,080 set off by empty stretches of sand, creating a curious 500-foot long shape. 330 00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,160 Like the famed Nazca Lines in Peru, 331 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,000 it's a phenomenon best viewed from the air. 332 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:54,600 The unmistakable shape of one of Bimini's most famous ancient residents. 333 00:23:55,760 --> 00:24:01,120 This effigy of a shark, carved into the mangrove swamp, 334 00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,720 has been here as long as anyone remembers. 335 00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:07,760 Though, archaeologists have never seriously studied it 336 00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:09,880 since they cannot confirm its origins. 337 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:15,720 And yet it's a predator that any ancient seafaring culture, 338 00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,080 including the lost civilization I've been looking for, 339 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:21,640 would certainly have feared and respected. 340 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,080 So, who were these ancient navigators? 341 00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:44,240 Well, at the risk of yet again incurring the wrath of those in mainstream academia... 342 00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,080 Let's talk about Atlantis. 343 00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,400 I don't believe Bimini is the site of Atlantis, 344 00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,280 or that Atlantis lies anywhere near the Bahamas. 345 00:24:56,360 --> 00:24:59,880 But the legend of the drowned city is intriguing, 346 00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:04,200 precisely because it offers us the most detailed description of something 347 00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:05,720 I believe really existed. 348 00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:10,560 A lost advanced civilization of the Ice Age. 349 00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:13,440 The Greek philosopher Plato 350 00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:18,200 is the oldest surviving source for the story of Atlantis. 351 00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,320 Which he describes quite vividly. 352 00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,440 Atlantis was a precocious civilization. 353 00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,520 Boasting beautiful architecture, advanced technology, 354 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,240 and city planning on a monumental scale. 355 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,840 It also commanded a vast fleet capable of navigating the world, 356 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:45,200 projecting its power near and far across oceans. 357 00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,480 Until the city was struck by a series of massive earthquakes and floods, 358 00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,320 a truly cataclysmic event, 359 00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:57,640 and sank beneath the waves. 360 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:04,880 Plato tells us that the story of Atlantis reached him through his ancestor, Solon. 361 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,160 That Solon visited Egypt. 362 00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:10,280 And we know the date of that visit. It was 600 BC. 363 00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,240 And during that visit, he visited a temple 364 00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:18,200 and the priests spoke of a lost advanced civilization 365 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:19,800 which they called Atlantis, 366 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,480 which was destroyed in a flood 367 00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,920 9,000 years before the time of Solon's visit. 368 00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:39,800 So we have a date for the destruction of Atlantis, 9600 BC. 369 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:44,640 That's exactly the same time as an episode of global cataclysm 370 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,240 and catastrophic sea level rise 371 00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,480 that occurred at the end of the Ice Age. 372 00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,880 Coincidence? Maybe. 373 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,480 But for the tale of Atlantis to accord so precisely 374 00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,720 with the latest scientific evidence on the end of the Ice Age, 375 00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,320 should give even the harshest of skeptics pause for thought. 376 00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,560 Isn't it much more likely it is just some sort of allegory? 377 00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,360 I might think that if it wasn't for the fact that the Plato story 378 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:15,400 is echoed all around the world by people who had no contact with Plato. 379 00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,880 And what I suspect is that they are all drawing on a common source, 380 00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,480 a common memory of a real event. 381 00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:30,000 When Plato tells us the story of Atlantis, he also tells us why Atlantis went down. 382 00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,280 It wasn't just because of a cataclysm. 383 00:27:32,360 --> 00:27:35,840 It was because of the arrogance, the hubris, the pride 384 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:37,880 that had grown up within Atlantis. 385 00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,360 This is why Atlantis was destroyed. 386 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,160 Because it had fallen out of harmony with the universe. 387 00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:54,160 And I think that our civilization today is in a very similar predicament. 388 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,240 We have fallen out of harmony with the universe. 389 00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:00,120 Our conceit at our own achievements, 390 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:04,440 our willingness to impose our power around the world 391 00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:06,120 on other less powerful peoples. 392 00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,000 All of these things in mythological terms 393 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,160 would suggest that our civilization is in very great danger. 394 00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:13,520 [explosion] 395 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:23,000 When I published Fingerprints of the Gods in 1995, 396 00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,440 I thought that there was nothing more for me to say 397 00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:28,720 about the possibility of a lost civilization. 398 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,000 I became aware of an enormous and really quite astonishing 399 00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,280 newly-discovered megalithic site in Turkey. 400 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:43,160 One that proved that our Ice Age ancestors 401 00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,840 were capable of far more than historians ever dreamed. 402 00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,000 To me, it very strongly speaks of a lost civilization 403 00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:53,600 that archaeology hasn't got to grips with. 404 00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,800 It's a site now thought to be the oldest surviving 405 00:28:57,880 --> 00:28:59,920 megalithic structure in the world. 406 00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:05,000 One that also may have left us a warning encoded in stone, 407 00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,440 that the ancient apocalypse of the last Ice Age 408 00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,360 that nearly destroyed humanity... 409 00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,680 [thunder rumbling] 410 00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:14,000 could return. 411 00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,000 So, Turkey is where I'm heading next.