More recently, on 14th November 1963, the skipper of
a fishing boat off the south coast of Iceland radioed his base to report a large
cloud of black smoke rising from the sea. He and his crew went on to watch as a
huge explosion sent rocks hurtling into the sky, before a black land form
emerged from the ocean depths. Within twenty-four hours the new island was
higher than a house, and within a week its peak was 200ft above sea level. Eruptions continued and, by 1967, the new island, named
Surtsey (above) named after the Norse god fire god Surtur, had reached a height of 500 foot
and was over a mile long. Today, colonised by birds and vascular plants, the
island stands as proof that new land can emerge from the depths as quickly as an
old one can sink into legend:- and there is evidence to suggest that some of the
land now under water around the Azores was once above sea level, lending further
support to the idea that these islands could have been the home of a lost
civilisation.
But for a civilisation, there would not only
have to be land but lost artefacts discovered on that land, and, again there is
some evidence that such artefacts have been found. One such find was made by the crew of the
SS Jesmond, a British merchant vessel of 1,495 tons that set off for New Orleans
from Messina in Sicily at the end of the nineteenth century. In March 1882 the
ship passed through the Straits of Gibraltar into the open sea. Some 200 miles
west of Madeira, and a similar distance south of the Azores, the crew observed
numerous dead fish and muddied waters. Later the same day smoke was observed,
although it was assumed to be from another vessel. The following day, there were
even thicker dead deposits of fish and the smoke was more visible, appearing to
come from a land mass where charts and maps indicated there should be open
waters. The Captain of the Jesmond, David Robson, (Master's Certificate
No 27911 in the Queen's Merchant Marine), cast anchor about 12 miles from the
newly formed landmass, but far from sinking thousands of fathoms as the maps
indicated, the anchor hit the sea floor after only seven fathoms.
Robson subsequently took a landing party ashore the new island
to explore. When the ship ended its journey and docked in New Orleans and Robson
gave an account of his findings to a reporter from the Times Picayune. He
described how they had uncovered crumbling remains of massive walls and
recovered artefacts including "bronze swords, rings, mallets, carvings of heads
and figures of birds and animals, and two vases or jars with fragments of bone,
and one cranium almost entire ... [and] what appeared to be a mummy enclosed in a
stone case ... encrusted with volcanic deposit so as to be scarcely distinguished
from the rock itself (6).
Robson advised the reporters who examined his finds that he
intended to donate them to the British Museum, however at that point
verification of these claims becomes difficult for the log of the SS Jesmond
along with the offices of the ship's owners, Watts, Watts and Company
was destroyed during the London blitz of September 1940. The British Museum now
has no record of any such donation from Robson (7). Despite this lack of corroboration, there is other supporting
evidence of Robson's discoveries. The unfortunately named Captain James Newdick
of the steam ship Westbourne was sailing from Marseilles to New York
during the same period when it reported sighting a large uncharted island in the
area where Robson had landed. Other captains also reported floating fish which
were eaten by the sailors, indicating that the fish's demise was sudden and not
the result of some epidemic disaster (8).
History has also revealed that just as lands have emerged from
the depths in that area, other land now under water was once above sea-level.
One such piece of evidence was uncovered during the 1898 laying of a
transatlantic cable (above). As during earlier attempts, the cable snapped and
the workers were required to pull it to the surface for repairs. This incident
occurred some 500 miles to the north of the Azores. Whilst searching for the cable, the sea floor in the area
was found to be composed of rough peaks, pinnacles and deep valleys, more
reminiscent of land than the expected sea bottom. Grappling irons brought up
rock specimens from a depth of 1700 fathoms. These rocks proved to be tachylyte
- vitreous basaltic lava that cools above water under atmospheric pressure
(9).
According to Pierre Termier, a French geologist who made a
study of the incident, if the lava had solidified under water it would have been
crystalline instead of vitreous (10). Termier further surmised that the lava had been submerged under
water soon after cooling, as evidenced by the relative sharpness of the material
brought up. Although it cannot be ascertained exactly when this occurred, it was
certainly within the last 15,000 years as lava decomposes in that time. Further
evidence of more recent underwater activity comes from a discovery in 1923 when
technicians from a Western Telegraph ship searching for a lost cable in the
Atlantic detected that the rising ocean bed had thrown up the cable by 2.25
miles in only twenty-five years (11).
In 1949, Professor M Ewing of Columbia University was exploring
the mid-Atlantic ridge. At a depth of between two and three and a half miles, he
discovered pre-historic beach sand. This puzzled Ewing, as sand, being the
product of erosion should be non-existent on the seabed. The conclusion reached
was that either the land sank, or the ocean level was much lower in a past epoch
(12). There are other interesting finds. In the course of a submarine
probe by the Geological Society of America in 1949, about a ton of limestone
discs were lifted from the bed of the Atlantic, just south of the Azores Island
chain. Their average size was about 6 inches with a thickness of 1.5 inches. The
discs had a peculiar cavity in their centre. On the outside they were relatively
smooth, but, in the cavities, they were rough.
These sea-biscuits as
they were called, did not appear to be a natural formation and could not be
identified. According to the Lamont Geological Observatory (Columbia University)
"the state of lithification of the limestone suggests that it may have been
lithified under subariel conditions and that the seamount may have been an
island within the past 12,000 years." (13). Other claims that the Azores may have been the location of a
lost civilisation were supported by alleged sightings in the area of underwater
buildings and entire 'cities' made from aircraft as far back as 1942. These
sightings first started when air ferry pilots flying from Brazil to Dakar
glimpsed what appeared to be a submerged city on the western slope of mountains
in the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Explore forgotton clues scattered throughout history that are suggestive
of an alternative history.
Join the world-wide search for evidence
of a lost civilisation that predates
known history.
Has Earth already been contacted by other civilisations either in the distant past or in recent centuries?
A discussion of the emergence of advanced technologies and the bizarre invasion of Antarctica after WWII.
A discussion of sightings of UFOs in the sky above Earth and within the solar system, including Moon anomalies.
Evidence the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials and how the public had been subject to disinformation.
A list of credits and sources for the themes and issues explored
in Violations.
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