Atlantis Beneath the Ice Read Online Free Page A
Author: Rand Flem-Ath
1966 entitled Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. Since you are considering presenting your article to the Royal Geographical Society (of which I was a member until I stopped paying my dues), you should examine this book, and I am mailing a copy of it to you.
What I found, after long research, was that many maps considered of medieval or Renaissance origin are in fact copies of copies of maps drawn in very remote antiquity, and among them is one showing a deglacial Antarctica. I was able to solve the projections of these maps with the help of a mathematician, and have them confirmed by the Cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. . . . It may be that after examining this book you may decide to reduce somewhat your emphasis on Atlantis, that is on the myths, for the book contains enough hard evidence to stand by itself.
Let me congratulate you on the work you have done!
Sincerely,
(signed)
Charles H. Hapgood. 9
A week later a copy of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings arrived. Far from dampening our enthusiasm for the idea that Antarctica may have once been Atlantis, the book had the opposite effect. We concluded that the ancient maps of subglacial Antarctica provided stunning evidence in support of our theory.
After the publication of the first edition of When the Sky Fell in January 1995, we returned to the Piri Reis map with two purposes in mind. First, to determine if there were grounds to support Mallery and Hapgood’s claim that the source maps used in the construction of the Piri Reis map were hundreds of years older than the 1513 date of its construction. And, second, to discover where these source maps, if they still existed, might be today.
SOURCES FOR THE PIRI REIS MAP: HOW OLD?
Hapgood and his students found to their surprise that this ancient map, which should have been full of errors, was remarkably accurate. It possessed a standard of technical excellence beyond what Europeans could have achieved in 1513.
It wasn’t until the 1730s, when John Harrison invented and perfected the marine chronometer, a highly sophisticated mechanical clock, that determining longitude at sea was even possible. The incredible mechanical obstacles that the chronometer’s inventor had to overcome are documented in Dava Sobel’s Longitude. 10
One of the oddities about the Piri Reis map was that it had been drawn using an extremely sophisticated projection. An “equidistant projection” depicts the features of the earth from a single point on its surface. This projection can be calculated from any spot on the globe. Perhaps the most familiar equidistant projection is the blue and white flag of the United Nations, centered on the North Pole. To draft a map using this method requires advanced mathematics, instrumentation, and knowledge unrealized by the Europeans of 1513.
Figure 1.1. Twenty-four points on the 1513 Piri Reis map are accurate within one-half of a degree of longitude. This level of longitudinal accuracy wasn’t achieved by Europeans for more than two centuries after the time of Piri Reis.
The equidistant projection was one that was very familiar to the cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. It was used to target Soviet military and economic assets. For example, a map drawn using Moscow as its center allowed the military to calculate the quickest delivery time for a missile to travel from any NATO base to the Soviet capital. In November 1962, when Soviet missiles were introduced to Cuba, an equidistant projection map centered on Castro’s island revealed in terrifying detail how much United States territory could be targeted. Hence, the Cuban missile crisis.
Charles Hapgood explained to Arch C. Gerlach (chief of the Map Division at the Library of Congress) that the Piri Reis map “requiredmore astronomy than was known in the Renaissance. The mathematics require that whoever constructed it had to know the linear
What I found, after long research, was that many maps considered of medieval or Renaissance origin are in fact copies of copies of maps drawn in very remote antiquity, and among them is one showing a deglacial Antarctica. I was able to solve the projections of these maps with the help of a mathematician, and have them confirmed by the Cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. . . . It may be that after examining this book you may decide to reduce somewhat your emphasis on Atlantis, that is on the myths, for the book contains enough hard evidence to stand by itself.
Let me congratulate you on the work you have done!
Sincerely,
(signed)
Charles H. Hapgood. 9
A week later a copy of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings arrived. Far from dampening our enthusiasm for the idea that Antarctica may have once been Atlantis, the book had the opposite effect. We concluded that the ancient maps of subglacial Antarctica provided stunning evidence in support of our theory.
After the publication of the first edition of When the Sky Fell in January 1995, we returned to the Piri Reis map with two purposes in mind. First, to determine if there were grounds to support Mallery and Hapgood’s claim that the source maps used in the construction of the Piri Reis map were hundreds of years older than the 1513 date of its construction. And, second, to discover where these source maps, if they still existed, might be today.
SOURCES FOR THE PIRI REIS MAP: HOW OLD?
Hapgood and his students found to their surprise that this ancient map, which should have been full of errors, was remarkably accurate. It possessed a standard of technical excellence beyond what Europeans could have achieved in 1513.
It wasn’t until the 1730s, when John Harrison invented and perfected the marine chronometer, a highly sophisticated mechanical clock, that determining longitude at sea was even possible. The incredible mechanical obstacles that the chronometer’s inventor had to overcome are documented in Dava Sobel’s Longitude. 10
One of the oddities about the Piri Reis map was that it had been drawn using an extremely sophisticated projection. An “equidistant projection” depicts the features of the earth from a single point on its surface. This projection can be calculated from any spot on the globe. Perhaps the most familiar equidistant projection is the blue and white flag of the United Nations, centered on the North Pole. To draft a map using this method requires advanced mathematics, instrumentation, and knowledge unrealized by the Europeans of 1513.
Figure 1.1. Twenty-four points on the 1513 Piri Reis map are accurate within one-half of a degree of longitude. This level of longitudinal accuracy wasn’t achieved by Europeans for more than two centuries after the time of Piri Reis.
The equidistant projection was one that was very familiar to the cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. It was used to target Soviet military and economic assets. For example, a map drawn using Moscow as its center allowed the military to calculate the quickest delivery time for a missile to travel from any NATO base to the Soviet capital. In November 1962, when Soviet missiles were introduced to Cuba, an equidistant projection map centered on Castro’s island revealed in terrifying detail how much United States territory could be targeted. Hence, the Cuban missile crisis.
Charles Hapgood explained to Arch C. Gerlach (chief of the Map Division at the Library of Congress) that the Piri Reis map “requiredmore astronomy than was known in the Renaissance. The mathematics require that whoever constructed it had to know the linear
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