Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Underwater Structures Look Like Ancient Ruins
Orlando Sentinel ^ | October 21, 2002 | By Vanessa Bauzá

Posted on 10/22/2002 10:01:03 AM PDT by pistola

HAVANA -- Peering through her glasses, ocean engineer Paulina Zelitsky spent months studying the grainy, black and white sonar images on her computer screen, searching for a scientific explanation for the fantastic geometric patterns she found beneath 2,000 feet of water.

Suddenly her eyes caught a calendar by her desk featuring Mayan ruins. Something clicked. Could the massive structures Zelitsky and her husband, Paul Weinzweig, stumbled upon while hunting for sunken treasure really be remnants of an ancient city?

(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: atlantis; canada; catastrophism; cuba; godsgravesglyphs; paulinazelitsky; paulinazelitzky; russia

1 posted on 10/22/2002 10:01:03 AM PDT by pistola
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: pistola

Underwater structures look like ancient ruins

By Vanessa Bauzá | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted October 21, 2002




Email this story to a friend
Printer friendly version









HAVANA -- Peering through her glasses, ocean engineer Paulina Zelitsky spent months studying the grainy, black and white sonar images on her computer screen, searching for a scientific explanation for the fantastic geometric patterns she found beneath 2,000 feet of water.

Suddenly her eyes caught a calendar by her desk featuring Mayan ruins. Something clicked. Could the massive structures Zelitsky and her husband, Paul Weinzweig, stumbled upon while hunting for sunken treasure really be remnants of an ancient city?

"The structures we found on the side-scan sonar simply are not explicable from a geological point of view," Weinzweig said. "There is too much organization, too much symmetry, too much repetition of form."

The couple's company, Canada-based Advanced Digital Communications, has mapped the ocean floor surrounding Cuba for three years under contract with the Cuban government. Using their 265-foot ship, Ulises, they have found about 20 shipwrecks, including the USS Maine, and vast oil fields in deep waters around the island.

But they're stumped by the strange formations across an 8-square-mile area off Cuba's western tip. At her home in eastern Havana, Russian-born Zelitsky traced the sonar image with a pen to outline what she says could be an urban settlement with corridors and buildings. Videotape from a remotely operated, couch-sized mini-submarine deployed last summer shows cube and pyramid shapes behind a thin veil of silt and plankton.

Experts on both sides of the Florida Straits agree the formations are highly unusual but say there is not enough evidence to conclude they are manmade. A research expedition planned for July had to be canceled because ADC didn't get the Cuban government's permission to import additional equipment, including a manned submersible, Zelitsky said.

Cuban geologist Manuel Iturralde of Havana's National Museum of Natural History has analyzed the video, sonar images and rock samples from the site. While he has never seen anything like the repetitive patterns, Iturralde wants to see more samples before making any conclusions.

"We have some figures which are extremely unusual," Iturralde said. "But nature is much richer than we think."

The depths at which the structures were found pose problems for an Atlantis-type hypothesis, he added. At the maximum velocity of Earth's tectonic movements, it would have taken 50,000 years for ruins to sink 2,000 feet underwater. However, "50,000 years ago there wasn't the architectural capacity in any of the cultures we know of to build complex buildings," Iturralde said.

Michael Faught, assistant professor of anthropology at Florida State University and a specialist in underwater archaeology, agreed.

"It would be cool if they [Zelitsky and Weinzweig] were right," he said. "But it would be real advanced for anything we would see in the New World for that time frame. The structures are out of time and out of place."

Researchers at the National Geographic Society, whose planned trip to Cuba this summer fizzled because of bad weather and permit problems, say they hope to travel here next year.

"The formation of the Earth took such violent turns at times, it could be many, many things. You will always have people contending that, for example, the pyramids were built by aliens," said John Echave, senior editor at National Geographic magazine, who came to Havana last fall and studied the sonar and video images. "We're at a point where we would very much like to solve this riddle."

Vanessa Bauzá is a correspondent in Cuba for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a Tribune Publishing newspaper, and can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com.



2 posted on 10/22/2002 11:06:40 AM PDT by sharktrager
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: pistola
bump to blam
3 posted on 10/23/2002 7:18:32 PM PDT by LostTribe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LostTribe; RightWhale; #3Fan; JudyB1938
Thanks for the ping.

"A research expedition planned for July had to be canceled because ADC didn't get the Cuban government's permission to import additional equipment, including a manned submersible, Zelitsky said."

I read last night what happened to this July expedition. The US State department pressured National Geographic to pull their funding due to it's connection to Castro. They had pledged $2 million to this project.

4 posted on 10/23/2002 9:51:32 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: blam
HI Blam. Couple questions: 1) I don't think I've seen any pictures of these "structures" near Cuba, have a link to anything like that? I've seen the pictures of those "structures" off of Japan, several years back. Are these anything like those off of Japan? 2) Would National Geographic acutally pay any "big" money to Castro for conducting research/documentaries about this? I could see the State Department getting touchy about that, given the current world situation. It would seem to me that most of the $2M would be spent on oceanographic (is that a word LOL) equipment and production costs.

Thanks
5 posted on 10/23/2002 10:42:24 PM PDT by Boomer Geezer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Boomer Geezer
No pictures, just some squiggly lines on a sonar screen. I forgot where I read about the state department/National Geographic news but, it was definately related to this discovery. Look at the book marks on my profile page, near the end of the list, for previous postings on this subject.
6 posted on 10/24/2002 3:49:35 AM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: blam
Heard Graham Hancock last night flogging his new book, [didn't catch the title, but it should be on the shelf in the bookstore next to Fingerprints of the Gods, etc.] which is at least partly about the underwater ruins off Cuba. He generally writes interesting if inconclusive books.
7 posted on 10/24/2002 9:08:14 AM PDT by RightWhale
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: blam
Dadgum it! I was looking forward to her exploration.
8 posted on 10/24/2002 4:20:38 PM PDT by JudyB1938
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: blam
2000 feet down. hmmm. Looks like another Black Sea event.
9 posted on 10/30/2002 3:10:04 AM PST by #3Fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: #3Fan
"2000 feet down. hmmm. Looks like another Black Sea event."

Yup. I think 2,000 feet is to much for subsidence.

10 posted on 10/30/2002 6:17:24 AM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: blam
True.
11 posted on 10/30/2002 8:09:10 AM PST by #3Fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: #3Fan
Have you seen this underwater map with the world's oceans reduced by 110 meters?
12 posted on 10/30/2002 11:40:08 AM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: blam
Interesting!
13 posted on 10/30/2002 9:56:44 PM PST by #3Fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

Note: this topic is from 10/22/2002. Thanks pistola.

14 posted on 03/13/2016 6:56:03 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

Note: this topic is from 10/22/2002. Thanks pistola.

15 posted on 03/13/2016 6:56:06 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

FYI - https://www.facebook.com/TheWorldwideFlood/?ref=bookmarks


16 posted on 03/13/2016 7:00:36 PM PDT by mj81
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson