Atlantis in the Caribbean: And the Comet That Changed the World

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An in-depth investigation of the mounting evidence that Atlantis was located in the Bahamas and Caribbean, near Cuba in particular • Explains how Atlantis was destroyed by a comet, the same comet that formed the mysterious Carolina Bays • Reveals evidence of complex urban ruins off the coasts of Cuba and the Bahamas • Shows how pre-Columbian mariners visited the Caribbean and brought back stories of Atlantis’s destruction • Compares Plato’s account with ancient legends from the indigenous people of North and South America, such as the Maya, the Quiché, and the Yuchi of Oklahoma The legend of Atlantis is one of the most intriguing mysteries of all time. Disproving many well-known Atlantis theories and providing a new hypothesis, the evidence for which continues to build, Andrew Collins shows that what Plato recounts is the memory of a major cataclysm at the end of the last Ice Age 13,000 years ago, when a comet devastated the island of Cuba and submerged part of the Bahaman landmass in the Caribbean. He parallels Plato’s account with corroborating ancient myths and legends from the indigenous people of North and South America, such as the Maya of Mesoamerica, the Quiché of Peru, the Yuchi of Oklahoma, the islanders of the Antilles, and the native peoples of Brazil. The author explains how the comet that destroyed Atlantis in the Caribbean was the same comet that formed the mysterious and numerous elliptical depressions, known as the Carolina Bays, found across the mid-Atlantic United States. He reveals evidence of sunken ruins off the coasts of both Cuba and the Bahamas, ancient complexes spanning more than 10 acres that clearly suggest urban development and meticulously planned road systems. Revealing the identity of Plato’s “opposite continent” as ancient America, Collins argues that Plato’s story was first carried back to the Mediterranean world by trans-Atlantic mariners, such as the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, as early as the first millennium BC. He offers additional ancient trans-Atlantis trade evidence from Egyptian mummies, Roman shipwrecks in the Western Atlantic, and the African features of giant stone heads in Mexico. Piecing together the final days of Atlantis and the wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, days of darkness, and advancement of ice sheets that followed the ancient comet’s impact, Collins establishes not only that Atlantis did indeed exist but also that remnants of it survive today, most obviously in Cuba, Atlantis’s original central island. Review: A Great Piece of Intellectual Atlantean "Chew Food" - Excellent book. This is actually a revised update of Collin's earlier book, "Gateway To Atlantis", which I found totally engrossing several years ago. The update incorporates a lot of data from the late German scientist Otto Muck's ("The Secret Of Atlantis") research into the crashing of a huge comet or breaking-up planetoid into the earth's atmosphere 12,000 years ago (leaving the remarkable, elliptical Carolina Bay" formations along the SE U.S. coast) and catastrophically blasting the geological Atlantis to smithereens as well as rising havoc with the sea levels all around the world (and inspiring all the world-wide Universal Flood legends). Collins focuses on the Caribbean area but I have to think you cannot rule out the Amphere seamount locations as well (the Azores and Canary Islands BEG to be included in Atlantology). Collins demolishes the hokum of the "Bimini Road" area being "natural beach rock" as well and points to similar breakwater structures in the Mediterranean long pre-dating the Romans. This book is a SERIOUS antidote to the rear-guard "save the Mediterranean" paradigm as an Atlantean "explanation" (the old Thera/Santorini humbug) whereby writers like Gavin Menzies and others bend over backwards and sideways to try and "transform" the MINOANS into the "real" Atlanteans (which requires you to believe the ancient Egyptians were idiots and couldn't tell east from west or that they were CLUELESS that the Med opened into a larger outer sea). I'd find this insulting if I were an ancient Egyptian. I would also ask....pointedly....if the Atlanteans were based on the Minoans Mispercieved, why was no Minoan mythology incorporated into the Atlantean "myths". Mythology is ASSIMILATED; the Biblical Noah stories go back earlier to Sumerians and such. Why, then, is Minos not named a king of Atlantis? Why no sacrificing of captive youths to the Minotaur? Why isn't the killing of the Minotaur by Theseus not included in Atlantis mythology? I would suggest because the ancient Mediterraneans knew full well that the so-called "Minoans" and the Atlanteans were two different things altogether. That's my two cents, but Collins does a damn good job of reconstructing the past on his own. Recommended. Review: As Far as It Goes, an Excellent Treatment - I found this book to be an excellent update on the subject of discovering the historical reality underlying Plato's tales of Atlantis. The author discusses extensively the evidence for pre-Platonic contact between the mariners of the Mediterranean and the Western Hemisphere. Likewise, he examines carefully the religions and stories of Mesoamerican cultures relating to contact with travelers from Caribbean islands. Considering also the known histories of indigenous Caribbean and Bahamian peoples discovered by the Spanish explorers, there is much evidence presented that the location of legendary Atlantis lies somewhere in the Greater Antilles or Bahama Bank, rather than in the Mediterranean. Dismissed as less likely locations for the fabled city and culture are the mid-Atlantic Azores and the recently discovered piles of stone in the Yucatan Channel west of Cuba--mostly because of the depth of the surrounding seabeds. For this and other reasons, the author clearly favors western Cuba, including the area now under water between the main island and the Isle of Youth/Pines, as the most likely locus of ancient Atlantis. To be honest, I would have liked to see more discussion of the possible connection between Atlantis and such Mediterranean cultures as Minoan Crete, Egypt and Mycenian Greece. There is essentially no discussion of Plato's assertion of a major war between Atlantis and Athens. How could a culture that suffered a serious catastrophe in 10,600 BCE (or even its remnants) have posed an existential threat to a culture that is not likely older than 2000 BCE. Perhaps a clue can be found in the fresco of a Minoan "prince," whose appearance, especially his headdress, strongly suggests that of Mayan king. A naval clash between Minoan and Athenian armadas, perhaps over trading rights, does not seem outside the realm of possibility. (The naval war between England and the Netherlands in the 17th century CE comes to mind as a parallel.) Note that I'm not suggesting that either Crete or Thera were Atlantis, but only that they may have had some cultural inheritance from that possibly antediluvian polity, including an orientation toward long-distance seafaring.