All language subtitles for The UnXplained S02E10 The Search for Atlantis 1080p HULU WEB-DL AAC2 0 H 264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Atlantis, a legendary utopia,

and a model for urban
efficiency.

The city of the future.

And then one day it was gone.

According to the ancient
Greek philosopher Plato,

it was the glittering capital
of an advanced civilization,

and then, suddenly, it vanished
from the face of the earth.

Some believe it was
destroyed by an earthquake,

others are convinced that
it sunk into the sea.

And then there are those
who believe

it rose up off the ground
and went...

But was it only a myth?

Or did the so‐called lost
continent of Atlantis

really exist?

Well, that is what we'll try
and find out.

♪ ♪

SHATNER:
Within this modern city
stands the ruins of a citadel

that was once the center
of ancient Greece.

The ancient Greek civilization
lasted

for more than three centuries.

The Greeks developed
a sophisticated culture,

which had a profound impact
on Western politics,

science and philosophy.

One of the best known
Greek philosophers was Plato,

who wrote more than 20
important philosophical texts,

known as "dialogues."

RIC RADER:
Plato was doing his
major writing

in the fourth century BCE.

And Plato's works are
very serious,

very sober philosophical
reflections

on major, major questions.

He is really the most
important philosopher

in the Western world.

RICHARD FREUND: For most
of Western civilization,

Plato is the basis for
our thinking and philosophy.

But he's also partially
historian.

And his work is still used

in order to identify
the way life was in antiquity.

SHATNER:
Of all the influential writings
of Plato,

the one that is perhaps
the most fascinating

and the most mysterious
is his account

of a lost civilization
that existed centuries before

the rise of ancient Greece...

Atlantis.

Atlantis is a very important
story in Western imagination.

In the year 359 before
the Common Era,

Plato, the great philosopher,
told a story

about a continent,
a large island,

out in the Atlantic Ocean,

and it became
a very powerful nation.

It was home to
a fabulous civilization

that began as the byword
for justice and compassion.

It had a huge navy
that it used to travel

from place to place
around the Mediterranean.

ANDREW COLLINS:
Plato tells us in his dialogues

that the information came from
a famous statesman

who visited Egypt
by the name of Solon

a few centuries before.

SHATNER:
Plato wrote that Solon
traveled to northern Egypt

and entered a sacred temple

dedicated to the Egyptian
goddess Neith.

Within the temple was a column

completely covered with
hieroglyphics

on which the history
of Atlantis was recorded.

Egyptian priests told Solon
the story of

this lost civilization,

which predated the Egyptians
themselves.

The Egyptians would recount
the story of Atlantis

as a major, major part of where
their civilization came from,

where they got a lot
of their knowledge.

This was a very advanced
and technological civilization.

And Plato is reporting this
as a very, very important story

for the ancient Egyptians.

Pretty much like the next day
after Plato writes this,

people start debating
whether or not it was true.

Did Plato mean this
as a fictional story,

or was Plato talking about
a historical occurrence?

SHATNER:
While it may sound like
the stuff of fantasy,

in his dialogues
Timaeus and Critias,

Plato provides a wealth
of detail

about what many believe
was a very real island nation.

HUGH NEWMAN:
Plato described Atlantis
as being a huge landmass,

potentially in
the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the main design specs
of Atlantis was

this huge area at the center
of the main city of Atlantis

that had concentric circles of
land and canals.

It had a canal coming out
that went to the sea,

and a great port was
built there.

YOUNG:
The concentric circles
of navigable canals

suggest a well‐planned
early marina.

It is strongly oriented
to the sea.

In the temple on the acropolis
at the center of Atlantis,

there is a statue of Poseidon,
the creator god of the place.

And he's got winged horses;

a chariot with horses
that can fly.

So there is also a transcendent
dimension implied.

SHATNER:
But if such a transcendent,
awe‐inspiring place

actually existed,
what happened to it?

According to Plato,
the Atlanteans angered the gods

with their pride,
what the Greeks called "hubris."

‐(thunder crashes)
‐And you definitely
don't want to do that.

YOUNG:
Atlantis got more and more vain,

more and more abusive
in their hubris.

A kind of arrogance
that was saying, "We are gods."

That vanity of thinking that we
are as important as the gods

tends to upset the gods,
and then the downfall comes.

The downfall that is in every
Greek tragic play

is the same thing.

People of great privilege
are brought down.

(thunder crashing)

PICKNETT:
Atlantis disappeared

in a day and a night

due to some natural catastrophe,

and ended up under the waves.

YOUNG:
The gods came and destroyed
the whole place.

The people were killed,
the navy was destroyed,

all in a day.

And Atlantis sinks into the sea.

FREUND:
When Plato talks about
this catastrophic destruction

of Atlantis, I have to
take him seriously.

And the people would say, "Oh,
it's just a metaphor, Atlantis."

Every metaphor has at its base
a nucleus

of historical information.

So even if he fictionalized it,
even if he elaborated it,

at its nucleus,
it's a real historical place.

SHATNER:
Obviously, the best way to prove
whether or not Atlantis exists

is to find it.

And rediscovering
mythological cities

isn't as far‐fetched
as it might sound.

Other than the myth of Atlantis,
the other great myth was

the existence of Troy,

a city that rivaled the Greeks
in power.

We know about the Trojan horse,
we know about Helen of Troy,

we know about Achilles.

SHATNER:
For centuries, scholars
scoffed at the notion

that Troy was a real place.

That is until amateur
archaeologist

Heinrich Schliemann went
looking for it in 1871.

And believe it or not,
Schliemann found Troy.

Pretty much where Homer said
it would be.

KAKU:
And that spawned
a whole industry

of trying to find
other ancient cities.

But I think it also
raised false hopes

that we would find Atlantis
the same way we found

the city of Troy.

It may not be so easy.

SHATNER:
The modern search for Atlantis
was kicked off

back in the late 19th century

by a rather curious
amateur scientist

named Ignatius Donnelly.

CHRISTOPHER BADER:
Ignatius Donnelly wrote a book

called Atlantis:
The Antediluvian World

back in 1882.

And this was a book that really
brought Atlantis out of

Plato's fables and into
modern consciousness.

He said Atlantis really existed,

really did have advanced
technology.

SHATNER:
For Donnelly, researching
the story of Atlantis

became such an obsession
that he even went so far

as to claim that
he knew precisely

where Atlantis would
one day be found.

YOUNG:
Ignatius Donnelly said
Atlantis was in

a very specific place
in the Atlantic Ocean,

that it sank,
and that the Azores,

the islands out there off Spain,

are the tips of the mountains.

Now we have good undersea
exploration.

We can go down and see
the heavy silt

that is at the ocean bottom

that took millions of years
to build up.

It couldn't have been
a civilization that sank

a few thousand years ago.

So he was wrong.

But Ignatius Donnelly
advanced the idea

that Atlantis may have
physical history to it.

SHATNER:
Many researchers believe that
the best way to find Atlantis

is to look for it
where Plato said it was located.

FREUND:
Plato gives us very specific
geographic locations

for where Atlantis was.

He says it's by the Pillars
of Hercules.

And the pillars were
actually two mountains,

one located at
the Rock of Gibraltar,

and the other located
in Morocco.

And these two rocks were
the Pillars of Hercules.

So he's putting it in
a very specific location

that every single reader
knew about.

SHATNER:
Does the key
to rediscovering Atlantis

lie in exploring the area
near the Pillars of Hercules,

or what today we call
the Strait of Gibraltar?

Perhaps the answer
can be found by examining

the findings of a team
of archeologists

who believe that the lost city

is buried in Spain.

SHATNER: In southern Spain,
just a few miles off the coast

of the Atlantic Ocean
lies Doñana National Park.

Considered to be one of
the finest biological reserves

in the world, the park
is filled with marsh wetlands,

sand dunes
and many forms of wildlife.

But in recent years,
archaeologist Dr. Richard Freund

has come to believe
that this marshland

hides a profound secret:

the remnants of Atlantis.

FREUND: We started our work
with the Spanish archaeologists

in Doñana Biological Park.

It's one of the largest marshes
in all of Europe,

about 250 square miles
of just marsh.

The most important thing
about Doñana

is it's located right next
to the Strait of Gibraltar.

This is the area
where Plato says Atlantis was.

So, archaeologists in Spain
started to look

in Doñana Biological Park.

And they invited us to come...

...with our geoscience team

to see if we could
narrow down the search

using electrical
resistivity tomography,

ground‐penetrating radar

and other geoscience.

SHATNER:
The archaeologists hoped

that underground scans
would reveal the presence

of the ruins of Atlantis
buried underground.

The results
of the underground scans

showed that there were
distinct changes, or "breaks,"

in the density and conductivity
of the soil.

Richard Freund claims
that these breaks

indicate the location
of underground stone walls.

FREUND:
We were able to look
through the different layers

and identify what we thought

were the markings
of the ancient city walls,

concentric circles
that one can see

using electrical resistivity
tomography,

where they were
below the surface.

Where the ancient city
might have been.

Then, we did core samples

that went down into the dirt

30, 40, 50 meters
below the surface,

and it told us
there was organic matter

that dated back
to about 5000 BCE,

some of the most ancient remains

in this now close
sedimented marsh.

So, now we have
the concentric circles,

we have dating, so we know
that this is probably the area

where Atlantis was centered.

SHATNER:
But if there are
circular structures

beneath the mud at Doñana,
how did they become buried?

According to Freund,
the marshes were once the site

of a large bay,
and the island of Atlantis

sat in the middle of it.

He theorizes that,
at some point,

an earthquake
and a tsunami struck.

‐(people screaming)
‐The island sunk into the bay,

and mud eventually covered
the lost city.

FREUND:
Plato seems to be describing,
in the destruction of Atlantis,

an earthquake
with a major mega‐tsunami

that basically inundated

the entire island
with dirt and stone

and they were not able
to get all the people out.

It was a catastrophic event,

and that catastrophic event
should be recorded in the marsh.

SHATNER:
Incredibly, Freund also claims

to have found
evidence underground

not just of the structures
of Atlantis

but of the cataclysm that
supposedly destroyed the city.

It just so happens that
in the middle of the circle

where the walls
of Atlantis were located,

there was a consistent
methane layer in the marsh.

SHATNER:
But why is the presence
of a layer of methane

in the Doñana marsh
a significant find?

Well, methane is a gas made up
of carbon and hydrogen.

And in other studies,
archaeologists have concluded

that the detection
of methane in soil

can indicate the presence
of large numbers of dead bodies

buried underground.

And Richard Freund believes
that his discovery

of a significant amount
of methane at Doñana

means that the bodies of
the Atlanteans are buried there.

40 feet below the surface,

suddenly to find
this sealed layer,

this is what confirms
not only the date,

the time, but what happened
to most of the people.

Humans, animals, agriculture

had been sealed
and disintegrated.

And that is one of the
indicators, the methane layer.

SHATNER:
Does Richard Freund's discovery
of a methane layer

beneath the Doñana marshes
suggest that Atlantis,

and the Atlanteans themselves,
are buried there,

waiting to be found?

It's an intriguing possibility.

However, since the Doñana marsh
is a wildlife reserve,

the archaeologists
are not permitted to dig there

to try and prove their theory.

But Freund
and the Spanish archaeologists

were determined to keep
searching for answers.

So, they sent underwater divers
to investigate

the nearby ocean floor

where they found
extraordinary evidence

that an ancient city
once existed in this area.

FREUND:
What they were able to discover

was there were massive walls,

all in the area
right off of the coast.

You have to wonder
"Where did they come from?"

So, what we were able
to piece together

is this came from a major city
on the coast.

And that city is,
most likely than not, Atlantis.

SHATNER:
Is it possible
that Richard Freund

has found the site
where Atlantis was located,

finally proving that
this lost civilization

was, in fact, real?

FREUND:
The most mysterious thing
about Atlantis

is everybody knows
that it was destroyed,

and yet most people
are looking for evidence

that it wasn't
completely destroyed.

In my opinion,
this site in southern Spain

is where Atlantis was.

SHATNER:
Richard Freund believes
he is on the cusp

of uncovering
the ruins of Atlantis,

but his theory faces
stiff competition

from those posed
by other researchers.

In fact, there are some
who argue that Atlantis

was located at another site

that is roughly 100 miles west,
in Portugal.

And according to the man
who discovered that site,

it fits virtually every clue
left by Plato,

in a way no other place on earth
can possibly match.

SHATNER:
British resarcher
Peter Daughtrey

publishes a book titled
Atlantis and the Silver City.

In it, Daughtry argues
that if Atlantis existed,

the best way to find
its location is to take

a much closer, more detailed
look at Plato's writings.

Daughtrey has been
exhaustively studying

Plato's dialogues for decades,

and is confident
that he has found enough clues

to solve the mystery
of Atlantis.

When I analyze Plato, and in
the second dialogue, Critias,

it gave an awful amount
of detail.

In fact, there are 100 clues,
but about 40 of them

you couldn't hope to possibly
find today

because they would have
all gone a long time ago.

So I distilled it down
to just 60 clues

that we could reasonably hope
to match today.

SHATNER:
When Daughtrey drilled deeper
into Plato's writings,

he concluded that Atlantis
wasn't located

along the coast of Spain,

but rather, the idyllic
Algarve coast of Portugal.

DAUGHTREY:
When I'd finished
researching the 60 clues,

all 60 fit with this area.

One of the few crops
he speaks of in detail

is‐is chestnuts,
sweet chestnuts.

That's one of the evocative
smells in the Algarve.

And the sweet chestnut
was endemic in Portugal,

and, well, Iberia.

He also said
it had another clue,

which was great wealth.

Well, that area
of southern Portugal

was one of the wealthiest areas

for precious metals
in the world.

Phoenicians were there trading

with the Algarve
for the precious metals.

In fact, at one stage,
so much silver

had been taken
by the Phoenicians

from this region
of southern Portugal

back to Babylon,
the bullion market crashed

because there was so much of it.

SHATNER:
But what about
the biggest clue of all?

Didn't Plato say
that Atlantis was an island?

DAUGHTREY:
A lot of people were
looking for an island,

and the word that Plato used,
the ancient Greek word,

was nêsos, N‐E‐S‐O‐S.

In actual fact, the Greeks
had three definitions

of the word nêsos.

One was an island.

The other was a big estuary

with mudflats
and rivulets of water.

And the other one
was a peninsula.

And right outside
the Straits of Gibraltar

you got the Iberian Peninsula.

So that had been bedeviling
the search for Atlantis

for a long time, people
were looking for an island.

It probably wasn't an island.

SHATNER:
But if the land, the nêsos,
of Atlantis

is located in southern Portugal,

where exactly
is the capital city?

The one
with the concentric rings,

the massive harbor
and the temple of Poseidon?

DAUGHTREY:
I turned to the clues
for the city,

which were 18 of the 60 clues,

and they're very precise
and detailed.

Plato said that the capital city
was less than a kilometer wide.

It had mountains at the back
of it, it was on a flat plain.

It was encircled by three rings
of water and two of land,

and the outer ring of water
was a big harbor.

SHATNER:
As Daughtrey searched,

he found only one place
in the region‐‐

or for that matter,
in the world‐‐

that fits every single one
of his 18 clues.

And to his surprise,
that place was a city

that is located in Portugal,

not on the bottom of the ocean,
nor buried under layers of mud:

the old Portuguese town
of Silves.

This ancient city,

in the Algarve region
of southern Portugal,

is set on the Arade River,

which links inland Portugal
to the open ocean.

DAUGHTREY:
Silves town itself is just
less than a kilometer wide.

One of Plato's clues was that

it was only nine and a quarter
kilometers from the sea.

The river that runs past Silves

and goes, you know,
out to the sea,

it's exactly nine
and a quarter kilometers.

Plato said that they built
the buildings

from white, black and red rock.

In fact, if you go to Silves
now, you can see the pavement

is in white, black
and red stone.

Plato said there was a palace
at the top of the island.

And Silves,
there's an old castle there,

the biggest in Portugal.

The current castle
is on a brow of a hill

that is the same
land measurements

as he gave for the palace.

So all these clues
match to the city.

There couldn't be two of them.

And it really is the final
clincher, if you like,

that that was where
Plato was talking about.

SHATNER:
According to Peter Daughtrey,

the city that is now
called Silves

was at the center
of a vast empire that stretched

to include the area
of the Doñana marsh,

so it's entirely possible
that both he and Richard Freund

have uncovered remnants
of Atlantis.

But questions remain.

For instance, if Atlantis
was a far‐reaching,

seafaring nation that traveled
throughout the Mediterranean,

then how come
no ancient artifacts

from their civilization
have ever been recovered?

Well, a recent discovery

may have finally revealed
the ancient artifacts

that archaeologists
have been searching for.

Marine archeologists
recover dozens

of mysterious metal bars

from an ancient shipwreck
on the seafloor off of Sicily.

Metal bars that, incredibly,
match the description

of a metal that was said to be
treasured by the Atlanteans:

orichalcum.

NEWMAN: One of the mysteries of
Atlantis that Plato talked about

was a type of metal
called orichalcum.

This has been a big mystery
and a big debate,

you know, for many decades
about what this really is.

FREUND:
The archaeologists said,

"We want to know if this
is really orichalcum."

So I sent a geoscientist

with an X‐ray
fluorescence machine

that basically can
tell me the content

of that metal
without destroying the sample.

And what he discovered was
it had all the characteristics

of what orichalcum
traditionally had.

It had zinc, it had lead,

it had copper, it had tin.

And these are all materials
that made orichalcum so famous.

Could the very existence
of orichalcum

really be tangible evidence
that Plato's fabled

lost continent actually existed?

There are many who believe
the answer is yes.

But does that suggest
that Atlantis was located

somewhere off the coast
of Spain, in Portugal, perhaps?

Or could it have been
somewhere else?

Somewhere that few people
would ever imagine?

SHATNER:
Dayton, Ohio, November, 1923.

Edgar Cayce,
an American psychic and healer,

famous in the early 20th century

for his ability
to see into the future,

has a profound vision
while in a self‐induced trance.

‐(babbling)
‐But on this particular
occasion,

Cayce's vision
was not of the future

‐but of the distant past.
‐(mumbles): Atlantis.

SHATNER:
He saw Atlantis.

But the Atlantis that Cayce saw

did not resemble
an ancient city.

Edgar Cayce talks about Atlantis
in his psychic readings

as being a place
of high culture.

Civilization beyond
even what we have today.

They had everything
from crystals

that could affect
your healing in the body

to death rays, even airships.

BADER:
He described Atlantis

as a place of a much greater and
much more advanced technology

than either Plato
or Donnelly claimed.

He claims that they were able
to levitate

and have psychic powers.

The downfall of Atlantis,
according to Cayce,

was that Atlantis had developed
giant crystal death rays

and there was an internal
civil war on the island,

that during that war,
the crystal death rays

were set off and sunk the island
beneath the waves.

SHATNER:
Giant crystal death rays?

As strange as it sounds,
that is what Cayce said.

Researchers believe that one way
to test his incredible claims

is to look for the ruins
of Atlantis

where Edgar Cayce
thought it was located.

Cayce said that Atlantis wasn't
centered near the Mediterranean,

as most people believe,

but rather, on the other side
of the Atlantic Ocean.

PICKNETT:
Edgar Cayce described Atlantis

as being just off
the coast of Cuba,

and there is some
quite persuasive research

about, um, Atlantis
actually being off Cuba.

COLLINS:
In September, 1998,

I went to Cuba and I hired
the help of a local archeologist

who was able to take me
out to these caves.

We found a veritable Sistine
Chapel of the ancient world.

Seven chambers full
of the most incredible rock art

showing these weird
concentric circles

that were a complete mystery
to the archeologists.

It was almost as if
I had a eureka moment,

and I realized that this could
be the key to finding Atlantis.

SHATNER:
In addition
to archaeological evidence

linking Cuba to Atlantis,
researchers argue

that there is also
historical evidence,

in the form of accounts
written by Spanish explorers

in the 16th century.

In 1552, a Spanish historian

by the name
of Francisco López de Gómara

actually wrote that when
the Spanish did arrive in Cuba,

they found
that the indigenous peoples

had a tradition
that once all of these islands

were one huge continent...

...that had been broken apart

by the waters
during a great cataclysm

and split apart into the islands

and the cays that we see today.

SHATNER:
According to geologists,

such a cataclysm did take place

in the Atlantic Ocean,
near Cuba,

more than 10,000 years ago.

During the last ice age,

sea levels were about
400 feet lower.

Many of today's islands were
joined into large landmasses;

island continents,
you might say.

Then the ice began to melt,
creating sudden surges

in ocean levels called
meltwater pulses.

One particularly violent pulse
wreaked havoc

on coastlines and islands
everywhere.

Meltwater pulse 1B.

Some people think that
meltwater pulse 1B took place

precisely when Atlantis
was supposed to fall.

Now, of course,
this is a theory,

'cause we're going back
10,000 years.

Some people have claimed
that perhaps it was

the sudden meltwater
being released

that caused the flooding
which destroyed Atlantis.

Plato tells us that Atlantis
was somewhere

out in the Atlantic Ocean.

But where, exactly?

Is it possible that Atlantis
awaits discovery

off the coast of Cuba?

I actually think
the answer is yes.

SHATNER:
If Edgar Cayce was right,
and the ruins of Atlantis

can be found in the ocean
near Cuba,

then is it also possible
that Atlantis possessed

incredibly sophisticated
technology, as he described?

Perhaps even technology

that is more advanced
than our own.

Airships, levitation,
psych powers.

Sounds like something
out of science fiction,

until we remember that,
according to Plato,

Atlantis was created
by Poseidon,

the Greek god of the sea,
and ruled by his children.

And there are some
who believe that

those same Greek gods
were actually

extraterrestrial visitors.

But that's all too far‐fetched
for rational minds

like ours to accept.

Or is it?

SHATNER:
Standing in the center of the
National Archaeological Museum

is an ancient statue
that is referred to as

Poseidon of Melos.

Dated to the second century BC,

it depicts the Greek god
Poseidon who,

according to Plato, was both
the ruler of the sea

and the founder of Atlantis.

We hear from Plato
that the gods drew lots

and divided up the world
into areas

that they would be
responsible for.

And Poseidon receives an island,

and he finds a human woman
on the island,

falls in love with her,

and they have five sets
of twins.

And the firstborn of the first
set of twins he names Atlas,

and he makes him
the king of Atlantis.

So the island is named for
that Atlas,

as is the Atlantic Ocean

in which the island
was situated.

The original inhabitants
of Atlantis,

the Atlanteans themselves,
because they are

the descendants of a god,
they are like gods themselves.

They're not gods
on the level of Poseidon,

but they are endowed with
supernatural powers of sorts.

BURDORFF:
They have the best technology,
they have the most resources,

they have civilization
crafted by a god

for their greatest benefit.

SHATNER:
Were the Atlanteans
really supernatural beings

with advanced technology
who descended from a god?

Sounds like a wild fantasy.

But, just like the rest
of the Atlantis story,

it begs the question:
is there any way

that it could possibly be true?

Plato said the Atlanteans were
the children of the gods.

They were hybrid beings.

They were part human, part god,

where the gods have created
this race of beings.

Many people have long believed
that this story is true,

but they weren't really gods,

they were actually
extraterrestrials,

and they mated with
human females

and created a hybrid race.

This is a story that has
all kinds of hallmarks

of genetic engineering
and the influence of

an extraterrestrial
with this technology.

It sounds like quite
a far‐out idea,

but there's a lot of analogies
in myths

that don't really make sense
unless you look at it

‐from a technical perspective.
‐(thunder crashes)

HENRY:
In Plato's dialogues,
he makes it clear that

Atlantis is a place
of genuine history.

So what the story is
actually telling us

is that there were
actual beings that came to Earth

and influenced human affairs
by creating hybrid offspring.

SHATNER:
Extraterrestrial hybrids.

If this fascinating theory
is true,

could it be that
the advanced technology

associated with Atlantis
was brought to Earth...

from another world?

And perhaps more profoundly,
if the Atlanteans

descended from
extraterrestrials,

could it be that
they didn't just disappear,

but actually went home?

One of the big problems
of Atlantis

is where is it?
Where did it go?

There's so many places
around the world

that Atlantis is said
to have existed:

Antarctica, the Mediterranean,
Cuba and other places.

One of the ideas is that
it actually was

some kind of spaceship
that lifted off

and then would go and land
in another location.

So many of the stories
we often find in Greek myths

do talk about these stars
falling from the sky

and creating these islands
in the ocean.

So Atlantis could have actually
took off and left Earth.

HENRY:
Cultures all around the world
talk about humans deciding

to ascend or leave the planet
because of

an impending cataclysm;

a coming apocalypse,
like a great flood

or a cataclysm of that nature.

And this is what we might be
seeing in Atlantis,

where they know
this cataclysm's coming,

and they decide it's time
to move into the stars.

SHATNER:
Atlantis a spaceship?

It's an audacious theory.

Which, perhaps,
is what you must expect

when an entire continent
vanishes

from the face of the earth.

But... did Atlantis
really leave no trace?

Or, in fact, could there be a
reflection of the lost continent

in the modern world,

and in the last place

anyone would expect to find it?

SHATNER:
Orlando, Florida. 1966.

Only months before his death,

Walt Disney announces his
most ambitious project to date.

DAVE BOSSERT:
In 1966,

really one of the last things
that Walt talked about publicly

was his designs for EPCOT,

which stands for Experimental
Prototype City of Tomorrow.

And he had been amassing
property

in the Orlando area of Florida
for a number of years

before he finally made
this announcement.

SHATNER:
In the years
following Disney's death,

the EPCOT project moved forward.

But without Disney's
personal guidance,

his ambitious plans
were scaled back.

In his original vision,

EPCOT was to be
not just a tourist attraction,

but an actual city,

a place where thousands
would live and work‐‐

a utopia.

BOSSERT:
The designers, the Imagineers,

Walt Disney,
were all looking to see

if they could create
this utopian society.

And you have to remember,
as they were designing this,

there was the cultural upheaval
of the 1960s starting to go on.

SHATNER:
But there's one thing

few people know about EPCOT.

Both Disney's original design

and the version
that was ultimately built

resemble,
to a remarkable degree,

Plato's description of Atlantis,

right down
to the concentric rings.

So, with EPCOT,
you had this center core,

which would have been
the office buildings

and live industry,

and you had
these concentric rings

that radiated out from that,

with greenbelts separating
different areas,

and this is very similar to
the description that Plato gave.

And instead of greenbelts,
they were waterways.

SHATNER:
Was Walt Disney creating
a modern‐day Atlantis,

perhaps without
even realizing it?

BOSSERT:
No one really knows

what were those thoughts
that floated through his head

about the lost city of Atlantis.

What was he thinking about it?

What did he believe?

We'll never know that.

I firmly believe
that if Walt Disney

had lived another 20 years,

we may have seen
his vision of EPCOT

really be a modern‐day version

of the lost city of Atlantis.

♪ ♪

McNEILL:
The idea of a utopian society

has always captured
imaginations.

And the way that this
intentionally planned community

was conceived and designed
and executed

speaks to the power

of those models of utopian
societies that have come to us

out of antiquity and tradition.

Whether it's actually
still there to be found,

or whether it's been
so badly destroyed

that no evidence of it remains,

what's really happened
to Atlantis, we don't know,

but I think one day
we'll find evidence of it.

Could an advanced civilization,

with technology
beyond our wildest dreams,

have existed here on Earth
thousands of years ago?

It's certainly
a compelling notion.

But maybe Atlantis
was always meant to be a myth,

a utopian city that
was conceived as an elusive goal

for mankind to achieve,

like Camelot or Shangri‐la.

In any case,
if Atlantis did exist,

let's hope that
someday we find it.

It would be a shame
if all those legendary wonders

stayed hidden
and those secrets remained...

unexplained.

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