Elusive Truths
Davy Crockett and Amelia Earhart are not alive and well on Atlantis. Or are they?
Guesswork. The University of Texas-Austin is now testing the manuscript for authenticity anyway. But even if the paper and ink are the right age, de la Pena might have lied--it would have behooved him to make Santa Anna, who lost the war in Texas, look incompetent. "People want clear-cut answers," says Carleton. "But history's really messy."
The story of Atlantis makes de la Pena's account look neat and tidy. The destruction of the island is based solely on a Platonic account of a utopia gone bad. Most scholars think it's a fable. Yet the search for Atlantis is the historical mystery cottage industry. There are hundreds of books on the subject, and it's been "found" in dozens of locations.
Scientists allow that Plato could have been inspired by the Minoan civilization of Crete, which declined rapidly after a nearby volcanic eruption. The rest, most say, is hooey. Ken Feder, professor of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University and author of Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, surveys college students every few years, and the results are always the same: About 1 in 3 believes in Atlantis. The grand unification theories that cluster around Atlantis beliefs--that superhuman or extraterrestrial Atlanteans seeded civilization and built the Great Pyramids and everything else--annoy him. "Was there nothing interesting in the past?" asks Feder. "You look at a place like Stonehenge or Giza--the beauty and awe and majesty of those places--it's there, but it's entirely human."
So is the urge to keep looking for something that can never be found. Most determined are the Bimini searchers, spending copious amounts of their own money and vacation time on their quest. (Psychic Edgar Cayce once predicted that Atlantis would be found in the Bahamas, off the coast of Bimini.) "People say, `No, you'll never find anything,' but that feels like a really dogmatic approach," says Douglas Richards, a veteran of several Bimini expeditions. Joan Hanley, a retired elementary school principal who has led seven Bimini missions since 1989, cites evidence such as shark- and cat-shaped mounds and place names using the letters "ATL." But there's nothing conclusive. There probably never will be. But even if not, it's fun, says Richards. "It's much more interesting than diving to look for fish."
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