Atlas Of Cursed Places

Arguing with my 11-year-old is like stepping

Into an alternate dimension of reality.

You have to deal with these urban legends and myths that

Get passed around school or over video game chats.

And you have to take 'em serious,

Because he can find a tiktok video that proves what he's

Saying is right and I'm wrong again about everything.

The internet was supposed to save us,

With information, all of human knowledge is in your pocket,

But it's turned into something else,

Something we don't even understand.

I'm gonna prove once and for all the earth is flat.

Did anyone predict flat earthing would make a comeback?

On the internet you can find whatever soothes your soul.

You can make the world whatever you want.

If you wanna live in a world of magic,

No problem.

If you wanna live in a world where aliens walk amongst us,

You got it.

And if you wanna talk about atlantis,

The fabled island of unlimited wealth that sank beneath the

Sea 12,000 years ago because of poseidon's curse,

Well there's a chat room with your name on it.

But atlantis is different than slenderman and flat earthing,

What gives atlantis power is that plato wrote about it in

His famous dialogs,

The foundation of western philosophy.

So it's not just modern day conspiracy theorists or

Amateur sleuths.

There's so much evidence of atlantis.

It's scientists, priests, mathematicians and academics.

Oh look at this.

Another clue.

They've all found the idea of a real atlantis fascinating.

Isn't that amazing?

Where is it? What's the spot?

And the search for this perfect island has persisted

Since plato wrote about it 2,500 years ago.

It's considered a red zone by governments around the world.

It's gonna be very tricky to get a

Team of archaeologists in there.

It's arguably the most famous curse

In the history of the world.

It does weird things to people.

And examining the intersection point between

Myth and science is what this show is all about.

So hell yeah, bro,

Let's go look for atlantis.

The island paradise called atlantis

Washed away into the ocean 12,000 years ago.

This mythical place has been ingrained in

Popular culture for generations.

But just like aquaman, there's an origin story.

Plato described in great detail atlantis.

The landscape of the islands and the mountains and the sea.

And for a long time people have thought it was here in

The azores.

We're going down the internet wormhole following plato's clues

And taking cues from those who've searched before us.

Is there any evidence that atlantis was a real place?

Many people on the internet are excited about what they

Say is evidence of an ancient sea-faring culture lying on

The ocean floor, right here in the azores.

They believe this could be where atlantis washed away

Into the sea.

We're gonna do some diving on some

Ancient sea-faring civilizations.

This is where they would anchor.

So we're gonna go see what we see.

Geographically, some believe the azores matches

With plato's description.

He said you go through the pillars of hercules,

Which is the gateway from the med into the atlantic,

Or what we now call the strait of gibraltar.

But then out in the atlantic somewhere lies the

Island of atlantis.

So, there were a lot of old anchors down there.

Some as maybe old as 16th, 15th century.

But nothing was old enough to be in the atlantian era.

So we'll keep looking.

In plato's texts, timaeus and critias,

Written in the 4th century b.C.

He describes an island of limitless wealth that was

Built by the greek god, poseidon.

Now one of the clear signifiers of atlantis was

That it was built in these great concentric circles.

There were three giant rings of land and three rings of water

And in the middle of all that was a temple that had

Walls of silver and gold and a pillar inscribed with

Commands from poseidon.

Now on the pillar were mighty curses to be invoked on those

Who went against the will of the gods.

So when the atlantians eventually fell from grace,

Zeus and poseidon were rightfully pissed and they

Caused the entire island to be swallowed up by earthquakes

And floods and it sank into the sea.

So atlantis existed as a myth, you know,

As an allegory, but plato insists that atlantis is real,

Repeatedly and then it was 10,000 years ago

Or 9,000 years ago.

That's a long time for accuracy if you're plato.

I've gotta say he's not doin' a lot of hydrocarbon dating.

I'm skeptical of plato's accuracy on that assessment.

But he insists it's real.

Now that's the question that's caused a lot of debate in the last,

I dunno, 2,500 years.

Most scholars think that plato invented atlantis as a way to

Teach people about morality.

But others believe that the island could have been

Inspired by an actual place or several different places.

I'm gonna investigate whether there's any scientific

Evidence that atlantis truly existed,

Because if there is it could be found.

Nuno ribiero is an archaeologist and he thinks

These piles of rocks found on pico island in the azores are

Evidence of a lost sea-faring culture.

So there's things inside of these pyramids?

Yes.

Oh right, like a uterus or a womb.

Yes.

- The womb of a woman, right. - Yes.

So maybe like a special place for rituals or doing a

Ceremony of some kind or religion or whatever.

This is that old?

That's, that's crazy.

- It's fantastic. - Very fantastic, yeah.

But when it comes to ground-breaking theories,

By definition you court controversy.

And nuno believes that the portuguese government maybe

Seeking to discredit his findings.

So you have these artefacts and

- You're gonna test them? - Yeah.

Why does he think the government resists?

Nationalism.

Nuno claims that he initially had support from the local

Authorities to research these structures,

But then the government in lisbon intervened and shut him down.

So, in your opinion, how old are these pyramids?

What sort of things did they find in there?

The arrowheads, what were they made of?

Stone? Iron.

Iron? Yes.

And would they find iron here?

No, no.

There's no iron. So they came from somewhere.

Yes.

Probably that shows signs of a sea-faring people,

- Came out of the med. - Yes.

Through the pillars of hercules.

Yeah.

Mm-hm.

Starting to sound like atlantis to me.

Plato's utopian society called atlantis,

Is said to have been lost to the world 12,000 years ago.

Now is it possible that this mythical city may actually be real?

Well an internet search for the answers may point you in

The direction of the azores, an archipelago in the

Mid-atlantic, controlled by portugal.

But there, mysterious ruins have sparked a heated debate.

The portuguese government did an official archaeological investigation

And they concluded there was

No evidence of settlements older than 600 years.

But one archaeologist, nuno ribiero thinks someone

Else inhabited the azores long before that.

He's brought me to another island,

Just east of the structures we saw on pico,

To try and prove it.

Oh wow, wow!

You see the, the stones.

- The arch? - On the top, yes.

Yeah, this is 100% for sure pre-roman this structure.

They are bronze age or maybe old.

I think it's more old.

So this structure proves that there were people here

Before the portuguese came.

Yes.

Although not everyone agrees with nuno's theory,

If there was in fact a mysterious people that lived

Here millennia ago, is there any evidence that they could

Be connected to the story of atlantis?

There. Oh yes.

What is this? What is it the symbol for?

It's a symbol that some people think is atlantis?

Yes.

Yeah, I mean potentially there could be a whole,

You know, civilization that was in these islands.

Yes.

Oh really?

Wow.

While the theory of a lost civilization here is pretty compelling,

There are a lot of competing theories out there

And we can't just focus on the azores.

We found a lot of interesting stuff here,

But really if we're gonna test this idea of atlantis,

We have to do a more critical breakdown of

What plato wrote about atlantis.

And luckily for us, we found a guy in morocco who has done a

Ton of statistical research about plato's writings about atlantis.

So we're gonna go to morocco and we'll have the real clues.

Hey guys, pack up, we're goin' to africa.