11,600 Years Ago. Plato Said It. The Data Confirms It.

Plato placed the destruction of Atlantis 9,000 years before Solon's journey to Egypt. Solon made that journey around 600 BC, approximately 2,600 years ago. The arithmetic is straightforward - 11,600 years before the present. That is the date Plato gave for a civilisation sinking beneath the waves during a catastrophic event.

It is also, within the margin of current dating precision, the period known as Meltwater Pulse 1B - one of the most dramatic episodes of rapid sea level rise in the geological record, during which coastlines around the world were being swallowed at a rate that would have been visible within a human lifetime.

Randall Carlson's point is not that this proves Atlantis existed. It is that Plato's date correlates precisely with a real, well-documented geological event characterised by exactly the kind of destruction he described. However, when historians and archaeologists notice this at all, it is filed under coincidence and set aside. At some point, Randall suggests, the convergence of independent lines of evidence deserves a more serious response than that.