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Gulf Coast Atlantis? Archeologist believes underwater city is located neatttChaifrd^ By RICH ADAMS A Baton Rouge, La. man who says he has discovered an underwater dty which may date back 15,000 years off the Chandeleur Islands has appealed to the National Space Technology laboratories Diving Club for equipment and manpower to verify the find. George L. Gele?, an architect and planner for Ix>uisiana State University who works with that state?s Depart-mf \Urban and Community Affairs, Thu. _jay told the NSTL Diving Club he has discovered some 40 or 50 structures buried in the sand and silt near the Chandeleur Islands off the Mississippi Sound. Gele?, who became interested in ancient archeology in 1966 during a trip to Mexico, has known about the submerged structures for seven years, but weekend excursions to the site have produced no concrete evidence showing an underwater dty exists. Gele? said Thursday work by the Soviet Union and a group of people in Wisconsin indicate religious sites worldwide run in a ?network,? forming an alligned geographical sequence around the world. Working on the mathmatical assumption that an andent dty should exist somewhere in the Mississippi Sound, Gele? and his fellow modern-day adventurers began a search in the area near the Chandeleur Islands where, theoretically, the dty should be located. After studying Landsat infared photographs of the area, Gele? discovered a spot on satellite photographs which indicated a dark mass located near the islands. The site at which the archeologist believes the dty is located is 120 degrees from the Giza Pyramids in Egypt on the same latitude, and directly opposite on the Earth from Iassha, Tibet, the most important religious dty in that country, according to Gele?. ?This furthers the belief that the major religious centers are equally distributed around the world,? Gele? told the divers. The Baton Rouge archeologist said, depending upon which layer of sea bottom the structures are sitting, the dty may date back to the Ice Age some 15,000 years ago. ?If the foundations are resting on the Pleistocene Sand of the Ice Age, the structures may date back 15,000 years,? Gele? said. ?If the foundations are found to be resting on silt deposited by the Mississippi River, the structures will probably date back some 3,000 years,? he added. ' Gele? said he and a crew studied the I-andsat photographs and noted a 1.2-nautical-mile area in which shadows fadng north-south and east-west appeared. He and the crew took a magnetic survey of the area and discovered a magnetic anamoly, or site of strong magnetic activity, in the area where the dty is believed to be located. A magnetic anamoly indicates either a steel ship went down in the area or that stones with magnetic properties are present, Gele? explained. ATLANTIS?Page 4A
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