Philadelphia Daily News du lieu suivant : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 19

section amusements20-24 flair19 comics28-29 people 18 tv25-26 Monday August 21, 1978 17 Clys ft ami olldl wteow SET known description a beautiful island nation of great wealth and military might the ancient Carthaginians of Africa, Gauls of Europe and Mayas and Aztecs of South ard Central America, among others, record similar tales. And each calls the ancient people by a similar name, says Berlitz. "The letters 1 and are used in every case." Berlitz' hypothesis is that more than 11,000 years ago, long before the supposed birth of civilization, a powerful and advanced people flourished. Their culture, whose sphere of influence extended from the Americas to the Middle East, may have been based on a continent or set of islands in the Atlantic; and a massive fire, possibly caused by the Atlanteans themselves, melted the glaciers of the Third Ice Age and brought about a global flood that buried Atlantis beneath the waves. His own interest in Atlantis was sparked as a child when he overheard his grandfather, the founder of the Berlitz Language Schools, discuss the legend with archaeologist friends.

YEARS LATER, in 1945, Berlitz was in the Air Force when five Avenger fighter-bombers vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. The incident rekindled his curiosity and he soon decided to apply his book knowledge of archaeology to Caribbean explorations. Finally, Berlitz quit the family business and devoted his energies entirely to Atlantis and other archaeological mysteries. In the eyes of the public, Berlitz has established himself as the premier investigator of underwater mystery with three hugely successful books, "The Bermuda Triangle," "Mysteries From Forgotten Worlds" and his latest, "Without a Trace." Berlitz and his colleagues are hoping that the newfound pyramids contain concrete proof of the existence of Atlantis. The sunken structure, for example, "seems to be a repository for some strange electronic activity," says Berlitz.

Some people even suggest that the pyramids once housed electrical power plants so immense they may have triggered the great cataclysms that destroyed the entire civilization. Berlitz further speculates that the "activity" may be linked with the mysterious disappearances of ships and planes that have made the Bermuda Triangle infamous. The two expeditions give Atlanto-logists, as Berlitz calls them, the best chance yet to prove their theories. Whether Berlitz and his colleagues will unlock the puzzles of Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle isanyone's guess. If they do, remarks Ari Marshall, a wealthy Greek underwater archaeologist and member of the search, "we will have to rewrite all the textbooks.

It will be the' greatest story of all time." And Berlitz will have another best seller. Special to the Daily News WHEN AN 18-foot ship sets sail for the Bermuda Triangle this week, it will not be manned by adventurers, fortune hunters and curiosity seekers. Instead, the "Huntress" will carry a high-powered team of IS archaeologists, explorers and divers led by best-selling author Charles Berlitz. The team's goal is awesome: to find the lost civilization of Atlantis. While dozens of modern-day explorers have searched for the elu sive remains of the fabled prehistoric kingdom, none has had as much to go on as Berlitz.

The first solid clues came in 1968, when archaeologist J. Manson Valentine discovered the Bimini "Road," a Charles Berlitz: Premier investigator of Atlantis mosaic of gigantic, carefully laid stones in the Bahamas that may be an ancient harbor construction. In 1976, the ship captain Don Henry made an even more startling discovery. Fifty miles off the coast of Florida and 45 miles from the Bimini Road, he detected a huge pyramidlike structure on his sonar scope. Underwater photographs have shown that this pyramid stands an estimated 420 feet high nearly equivalent to the largest of Egypt's pyramids.

Meanwhile, 12 other pyramids have shown up in NASA satellite photographs of Peru's Amazon jungle. While Berlitz, Valentine and others venture out to sea, another party led by Fort Lauderdale explorer Philip Miller and supported by the space agency is making its way to them. The day-by-day progress of the 24-man jungle team will be recorded by a documentary film crew, and the two expeditions will be in constant contact with each other via a NASA communications satellite. THE LEGEND of Atlantis, one of the oldest in history, exists in every society that has touched the Atlantic Ocean. While the Greek philosopher Plato may have written the best- ft 4 WWW .1 if.