Remote Controlled Sub
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Canadian researchers using a miniature submarine to probe
the sea floor off the western tip of Cuba have discovered
stone structures deep below the ocean surface that may
have been built by an unknown human civilization as far in
the past as 6,000 ago, about 1,500 years earlier than the
great Giza pyramids of Egypt.
?It?s a really wonderful structure which looks like it could
have been a large urban center,? says Soviet-born Canadian
ocean engineer Paulina Zelitsky, of Advanced Digital
Communications (ADC). She says the structures may have
been built by unknown people when the current sea-floor
actually was above the surface. Volcanic activity may have
caused the site to sink to 2,100 feet beneath the Caribbean
Sea.
In July 2000, ADC researchers used sophisticated sonar
equipment to identify a large underwater plateau with clear
images of symmetrically organized stone structures that
looked like an urban development partly covered by sand.
From above, the shapes resembled pyramids, roads and
buildings. Cuban scientists had long known the structures
were there, but did not have the money or equipment to
investigate them. American companies are not allowed to
operate in Cuba due to the long-running U.S. embargo of the
island. ADC plans to return to the site in January.
This past July, ADC researchers, along with the firm?s Cuban
partner and experts from the Cuban Academy of Sciences,
returned to the site. They sent a miniature, unmanned
submarine called a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) down to
film parts of the 7.7-square-mile area.
The images confirmed the presence of huge, smooth, cut
granite-like blocks in perpendicular and circular formations,
some in pyramid shapes. Most of the blocks, measuring
between about 6.5 and 16 feet in length, were exposed,
some stacked one on top of another. Others were covered in
sediment and fine, white sand. This description closely
matches the recent discovery of sunken pyramids of the
coast of Japan.
This discovery provides evidence that Cuba at one time was
joined to mainland Latin America via a strip of land from the
Yucatan Peninsula, another area where pyramid building was
common. Zelitsky says, ?There are many new hypotheses
about land movement and colonization, and what we are
seeing here should provide very interesting new information.?
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