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The Bimini Road - Pseudo 142
497 Plays5 months ago
Continuing our fruitful discussion on famous geological formations that were not made by humans and don’t mean anything, I thought we’d take a cruise down the Bimini Road, AKA “The Stones of Atlantis.” Located in the Bahamas, this pile of stones is the big brother to last week’s pile of stones, the Yonaguni Submarine Ruins. Which one is stupider? YOU DECIDE.
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/142
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Transcript
Introduction to Pseudo-Archaeology
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode one hundred and forty two. I am your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella. And tonight on a very special episode of the pseudo archaeology podcast, we deal with the Bimini Road, also known as the road to Atlantis and also known as a big ass pile of rocks.
00:00:55
Speaker
All right, so going down, everyone. You know, it's funny as I sit here recording this at 11 at night on a Tuesday. And you know it's due on a Wednesday. But I'm last minute.
00:01:13
Speaker
I haven't recorded in a couple of weeks because I was actually on time for the previous show. So it's been like three weeks or something since I've talked, talked with you guys. And again, by talked, I mean talked at you guys. And I kind of miss it. It's so funny. I've had you guys. I've had like a long, just like an arduous last few weeks, man. And I'm just, I'm really
00:01:38
Speaker
burned out, I've been doing a lot of grading, and I know I don't work in the coal mines, man, but ask any teacher, any professor, any of those kind of people, and you will hear that grading is indeed... It takes a little bit of energy there doing that stuff. So just because I'm in this frame of reference, this state of mind,
00:02:07
Speaker
that's maybe a little rough around the edges, even more so than usual. You can believe it.
Unveiling the Bimini Road
00:02:15
Speaker
I thought we'd just do the Bimini Road because like the Bimini Road, it goes with what we talked about last time. Last time we talked about the the Yanaguni ruins in Japan, otherwise known as Yanaguni Outcrop. And I made the scintillating point that
00:02:33
Speaker
Stupid stories often come in twos, you know, and the Yannick Cooney ruins. Those were that was the newer one. That was the stupider one. But I thought we could backtrack a little and go with the old school stupid classic, the Bimini Road, also called, you know, the road to Atlantis or the road of Atlantis or the road by Atlantis that shall not perish from the Earth.
00:03:03
Speaker
Right. You'll also hear it called the Bimini wall, too. That was new to me. I hadn't heard that one. But yeah, it'll also be called that. So what's the deal with this place? You know, I looked into this and you're like, yeah, Kincala, like I hope you did. So you actually know some stuff. And it did. And you know what I thought was actually much, much more interesting than the Bimini Road?
00:03:33
Speaker
was actually other stuff that happened on the island of Bimini. It's like way cooler stuff. Shockingly, so we want to we want to set the stage for this thing. So where is this, right?
00:03:49
Speaker
The Bimini Road is right off the coast of the island of Bimini. Now there's a few little islands that kind of make up Bimini. There's like North Bimini and there's South Bimini. The island of North Bimini is about seven miles long.
00:04:06
Speaker
And it's only about 700 feet wide. And man, that takes me back. And what I mean by that is it reminds me so much of the islands off the coast of Belize. This is all the same stuff. Bimini is part of the Bahamas and Bimini is only about 50 miles east of Miami. Right. So this is Caribbean island. Just go with your Caribbean cliches. But, you know, when I read that seven miles by 700 feet, these things are always like this. They're long and skinny.
00:04:36
Speaker
and they're literally like two feet above sea level the whole thing you know it's a it's a weird
00:04:43
Speaker
experience being on an island like this when you're used to, especially when you're somebody who's kind of from the West Coast, who's used to be seeing mountains and that kind of stuff, or if you've ever ever been to Hawaii, you know, Hawaii's volcanic island. So something like Mauna Kea is like 13000 feet high, right? These islands, these coral atolls are way different. You know, they're just they're barely above sea level, flat, long and skinny.
00:05:12
Speaker
It to me, that to me is like the vibe of the of the Caribbean, you know, kind of open to the elements. You know, I mean, if if a hurricane is coming, man, get off that island. So interesting stuff. So that's the setting. Right.
Geological Mysteries of Bimini Road
00:05:31
Speaker
And the Bimini Road.
00:05:33
Speaker
is at kind of the northern tip of North Bimini and the formation itself, again, I'm sorry, I gave it to you. It's a formation, a geologic formation. Did people make it?
00:05:53
Speaker
No, says the narrow minded archaeologist. Yeah, no, they didn't. So this one's shallower, though, than the Anaguni ones from last time. So the Anaguni ruins or formation, I should say that those were like 90 feet of water.
00:06:08
Speaker
This is only like 18 feet deep. And when I read that, I was like, sweet. I was right. And what I mean by that is I've I've kind of taught this for years. And I just guessed at it being really shallow, just based on the photos are really bright. You know, and sometimes you'd see people swim along and stuff. And I'm like, OK, that can't be that deep. That looks like 20 feet of water. And actually, I turned out to be correct. So these are very shallow, just right off the coast.
00:06:34
Speaker
And what is called the Bimini route is actually a geologic formation that is about it's about half a mile long, right? Long and skinny. It looks like what it is. It looks like what it is, which is a bunch. It's a formation that has kind of formed a bunch of square stones kind of along in a line. And sometimes they kind of go parallel to each other. Sometimes they're one.
00:06:59
Speaker
long skinny thing. That's why it's called like the Bimini Road. It does resemble or look like kind of a road formed of very large square stones. Some of these square stones can be like 10 feet by 10 feet, you know, that kind of thing. So picture just these large, to me they look kind of pillow shaped, right? They're eroded, they're kind of rounded, but you can see the squareness to the formation. Long and skinny and it goes for like half a mile, right?
00:07:28
Speaker
And that's, you know, the look of it. If you swim along it or something, it does look long and skinny, right? And full of squares.
00:07:39
Speaker
OK, you know, it was first recorded in 1968 by just some, I think, local divers or swimmers. Doesn't matter. So shallow, you know. But then after that, it just has stayed with us.
Cultural Myths and Atlantis Links
00:07:53
Speaker
Right. And it's just another one of those stories that once you go, oh, you see, this looks like a road. Oh, and look, found in 1968.
00:08:05
Speaker
That's right when Cherries of the Gods comes out, right? It's like within a year of each other. So it's found at a time when you kind of have that flower power movement that's going to define something like this as, ah, yes, made by the ancients, you know?
00:08:24
Speaker
So it all kind of makes sense. Once it hits, it gets that label as the road to Atlantis or the road of Atlantis, right? And it's never going to shake that label. And why would it? As always, we want this to be true, right? We want this to be a road to Atlantis, even though it makes no sense. Even if you say, OK, let's say it was mad made.
00:08:49
Speaker
How could this possibly have anything to do with Atlantis? It's in the Caribbean, right? If you need a real Atlantis, that's going to be in the Mediterranean, what I like to call half a world away. You know, so this isn't going to be connected in any scientific or reasonable way. It's just a line of squarish looking stones.
00:09:14
Speaker
You ever wonder why I might be a little afraid that shows like this might run a little short? Yeah. When we come back, much better stories about Bimini than the Bimini Road.
00:09:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 142. I'm still your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and I had just teased you guys right before this that I had some extra special stories about the Bimini Road. Now, why would I tease that to you? I've now put pressure on myself to deliver. Why do I keep doing this to myself? It's just, I don't know why I do this.
00:10:00
Speaker
Anyway, on top of everything, I've been having technical difficulties. Yeah, yeah, which you probably won't hear because Rachel, who's probably going to edit this, knows what she's doing. Unlike myself, it'll be like smooth. You won't hear all the brutality that's happening on this side. But anyway, I think one of the coolest things about the Bimini Road is actually the geology itself.
00:10:27
Speaker
because it's actually so new. They did carbon 14 of the Bimini Road Formation. And yes, carbon 14. And why do I kind of double down on that? Because we tend to say that carbon 14 does not work on rocks, right? It has to be something that was once organic. But check this out. The Bimini Road Formation is made out of seashells, among other things. So this is one of the rare times in geology
00:10:57
Speaker
where you can use carbon-14 to date. This like never happens. So I just think, I think this is awesome. So they're able to take some of the shell and these stones, the Bimini Road stones are, they're limestone, but they're super new limestone. And what do I mean by that? How do you make that? This is where you just basically have like a bunch of shells and beach sand and that kind of stuff.
00:11:23
Speaker
As it gets pushed under the surface and not by much a meter, two meters, couple feet kind of thing, it starts to just sort of concrete together means it kind of stick together under kind of time and a little bit of pressure. No big deal. And it just kind of sticks together. They took some dates and they found that the Bimney Road formations, the main part of it is only like 3000 years old. That's really awesome. You know, it's hilarious.
00:11:52
Speaker
is that means you could theoretically find actual stone tools from 3000 years ago within the Bimini Road formations. And in other parts of it that are even newer, again, you guys, this stuff gets made so fast, they found like modern glass fragments in the Bimini Road formation. So I just think that's awesome. In terms of the geology, this has got to be some of the newest geological formations that we've
00:12:18
Speaker
Easily that we've ever dealt with on this show right so it gives you an idea of why why is it in such shallow water?
00:12:26
Speaker
How is it formed? These are just simply limestone that's kind of stuck together right at the beach. And then as it gets hammered by the ocean waves, you get sort of you sort of see it again. It gets uncovered again. It's this very small process right where it just gets covered up by a few feet. Then it gets uncovered by erosion just a few feet. And you have these little basically square shaped
00:12:51
Speaker
Stones, the world's you know, some of the world's newest stones. The only stuff newer, I think, is is cooling magma from volcanoes. Right. So very, very, very new interesting stones that you can date using carbon 14. I just think I just think that's cool. And we do find other formations like this, even in even in the Caribbean, you find some of these off the coast of the Dry Tortugas. And there are other places that you find this. So this is not
00:13:19
Speaker
This is not something utterly unique or something like that. I do have to say. If you compare the photos to the Yanaguni ruins, I actually prefer the Yanaguni ruins in terms of their overall look, they're both big.
00:13:33
Speaker
in terms of like this 10 foot by 10 foot thing, or, you know, the stones themselves look very massive. But the Yanaguni ones are much more sharp, if that makes sense, right? Their formation is like sharp. They go along and down and it looks it has that sharp box like look, right? The Bimini road is more pillowy because it's more eroded, you know. So I just if I'm picking my my fake rock formation, I'm going Yanaguni, man. That's just me. Now,
00:14:04
Speaker
Why do I think we should learn about Bimini?
Bimini's Colorful History
00:14:07
Speaker
It's not for the lame Bimini Road. It's for some of the other stuff that's happened there. So during prohibition, this was a big rum running site. And I just love that idea, that sort of Caribbean, we're going to take rum up to the United States and sell it during prohibition. And in terms of alcoholic beverages, it's the only one I really know, you guys.
00:14:34
Speaker
Like I'm not a wine drinker. I could give a damn about wine. I don't know. I mean, I don't get it. I think it's OK. But, you know, I never have. A hankering for wine. Like ever. I just don't care. And I totally feel the same about beer beer. I kind of just.
00:14:58
Speaker
I just don't like it that much. I just, I never have. I do have the taste buds of a seven year old and it's never really changed. And because of that, I do like rum and coke though.
00:15:10
Speaker
And rum has been my drink for years and years and years. So it's the one that I know the difference in. And I do have to tell you, there are certain Caribbean rums that are very fine, like some of the finest stuff comes from there. But I just love that image of prohibition, taking some little boat, you know, you're 50 miles off Miami under the cover of darkness, you know, rum running.
00:15:36
Speaker
Pretty cool. Also, Ernest Hemingway lived there for like two years, from like 1935 to 1937. Isn't that great? Hemingway's hanging out on Bimini. Good for him. Doing his Hemingway stuff, right? And then also, if you guys have seen Silence of the Lambs, and if you haven't, you need to turn off this podcast and go watch Silence of the Lambs.
00:16:03
Speaker
probably one of my top 10 movies of all time. What a kick-ass movie. If you remember the very last scene where Dr. Lecter's on the phone and that, you know, I think he says the line, you know, I'm having an old friend for dinner. That one. And then they pull away and you see it looks like some Jamaican town or something. That's, that's Bimini.
00:16:27
Speaker
That's the main main town. I believe it's called Alice Town on Bimini. And you just see these people walking and they just let the camera roll for like two or three minutes as the credits roll. Right. You just see these people walking and you see Dr. Lecter walk into the crowd and finally be lost. But if you want that feel like, oh, what's what is a Caribbean, you know, what's a Caribbean island look like?
00:16:53
Speaker
That's Bimini. I got to say, when I watched Silence of the Lambs, I saw that last scene and I'm like, man, that reminds me of Belize. You know, same kind of vibe.
00:17:02
Speaker
So just super cool. After studying this, I'm like, man, I got to put the Bahamas on my list just to visit sometime just for a little bit. You know, I think it sounds super cool. And I got one more for you in terms of coolness of Bimini. It is also where the purported fountain of youth is. That would be on South Bimini Island. But yeah, no, a name like Bimini.
00:17:27
Speaker
That word can be a bastardization of a million places, you know, and we're talking about a legend that's from mainland Mexico or that that area. Right. And, you know, whatever. I put I put no weight into that whatsoever. I mean, we're the pseudo archaeology podcast, dude. We don't believe in fountains of youth, but that is one of the purported locations. And I know at this point you're like,
00:17:56
Speaker
Wow, man, you've actually talked about a long skinny pile of rocks for a while now. Well, I got a little bit more to go. We're going to do it in just a moment. Hello and welcome back one last time to the pseudo archaeology podcast, episode 142. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and we have been talking about the Bimini Road or lack thereof. And. I think here with this last little bit
00:18:27
Speaker
We can touch on why this never goes away.
The Pseudo-Archaeological Fame of Bimini
00:18:32
Speaker
And I was leaving out one chunk, you guys, and I know. Do send your hate mail for this. But it's about some stuff that happened in 1971. So if we remember back, way back when to the first part of this,
00:18:51
Speaker
I did say that the Bimini Road was kind of quote unquote found in 1968, you know, and it's right at the time when you have Eric Von Dineken doing his thing with Cherries of the Gods, you know, and it kind of works into that whole thing. But why does it stay with us? Of course, it deals with Atlantis. So Atlantis never goes away. So that gives it a little extra little extra mojo.
00:19:16
Speaker
But one thing that really propped it up in the pseudo-archaeology world was a report from Robert Marx from 1971. Now Robert Marx, he just died recently. He was quite old. I think he was in his 80s. He just died in 2019.
00:19:33
Speaker
And he was kind of a cliche, old school shipwreck archeologist, right? He would, he was sometimes labeled a treasure hunter. And he was one of these guys, I know guys like this, kind of inhabits the gray area. You know, there were definitely some stuff he did that was a bit ethically little shaky, shaky. You know what I mean?
00:19:59
Speaker
But at the same time, then he'd do things that were smart or thoughtful. Like I think he worked with UNESCO at one point to try and protect some site or something like that. But on the flip side, he definitely had that kind of old school mentality of looking for treasure. You know, I do think he did that. And
00:20:21
Speaker
He had that mentality of like that sort of look at me, look at me mentality, right? He was on a ton of TV shows. He wrote a ton of books. Basically the kind of person I'm trying to be, you know, let's be honest. I know I'm among friends. Now I can, I can tell the truth. I just, I just want to be Robert Marx. Look at me. I'm on television. And you can listen to my sultry tones here on this podcast. I know you're like, shut up narcissist. But,
00:20:51
Speaker
In his dithering, Robert Marks in 1971 visits Bimini and talks about how the Bimini Road is man-made. And you're like, dude. And then he also connects it to Atlantis and Robert Marks is a huge fan.
00:21:10
Speaker
of the white god's idea. Oh, we've heard this one friends, you know, the idea that like, like in Mexico, that Quetzalcoatl was a white guy who came to show them civilization, you know, they needed the white guy.
00:21:29
Speaker
Robert Marx really doubled down. Robert Marx was a full on Atlantis acolyte. He was completely brainwashed into this stuff. And the over the top, you know, white gods racist approach. Dude, come on, man. But these guys again, I've dealt with guys like this.
00:21:50
Speaker
They're very just kind of self centered in their own way and they do not listen like they can. Oh, and they cannot take criticism. I guarantee you this guy when he was alive could not take, you know, an ounce of criticism. I've dealt with these kind of people.
00:22:05
Speaker
We've also, you know, on this podcast dealt with in terms of the white gods saying Thor Heyerdahl with Contiki Thor Heyerdahl had a lot of that going on, too. But in this 1971 expedition, Robert Marx also had a number of psychics from the Edgar Casey Foundation come with them. So, you know, it's scientifically valid. Yeah. Yeah. You just because that's what I do. You know, when I have an archaeological excavation, I'm like, wait, what's missing? I know psychics.
00:22:33
Speaker
And so that kind of bolstered the Bimini Road thing, the Atlantean thing, and then it just comes around and comes around. There was another story that came up a bit more recently within a book called 1421, the year China discovered America.
00:22:56
Speaker
The idea being that somehow this Chinese fleet stopped in Bimini in 1421 and they built the Bimini Road to kind of help get their junks, their ships, like onto dry land to fix their ships or something. It's like, what?
00:23:14
Speaker
That's the wrong ocean. That's the wrong side. China has to come from the Pacific. And I swear to God, you guys, it's so funny. When I saw this, I'm like, well, they have to come over from China. So, well, there's a couple of ways they could do this. I was going to look it up, but then I just didn't look it up. You know why? Because I just totally didn't give a shit.
00:23:44
Speaker
You know, it's just a stupid, stupid story. And I'm not going to go into it and be like, wait, well, you see, actually, they went around the Cape of, you know, they went around the bottom of South America. It's like, no, they just, you know, because they didn't. Because that's a waste of everyone's time. Speaking of a waste of everyone's time.
Media Spotlight on Bimini Road
00:24:07
Speaker
Graham Hancock also has got to go on the Bimini Road, right? And what's funny is when I was thinking of putting this together, I'm like, wait, didn't I already do the Bimini Road? And I just touched on it for a minute when I was talking about Graham Hancock's ancient apocalypse. So I didn't do a whole sweet show until now about the Bimini Road. But if you guys remember back to the ancient apocalypse in one of the true
00:24:33
Speaker
Foolish moments. You get two stupids for one. And what that is, is where Graham Hancock takes the Bimini Road. And I'm laughing already. And he matches it on the Piri Rees map.
00:24:52
Speaker
So the period map, you know, it's like made in the 1500s and it's got a bunch of just lumps and bumps and bullshit on it. You know, it's just, it's just, it's kind of like the RB dragons. And it's just, it's like,
00:25:07
Speaker
I love the Piri Rees map because it's so dopey and it just it is what it is of the time. But you cannot take it seriously. It's like taking 17th century medicine seriously. You know, just give me some leeches because I have some problems with my humors. Right. That's that's what we're talking about with this. So Graham Hancock takes the Piri Rees map and there's this like little bump.
00:25:32
Speaker
It's got some like lines in it. And he's like, ah, yeah. So in 1519, they drew like the Bimini Road on the Piri Rees map. Just two bits of wasted time. Bullshit stupidity for everyone is so lame. Oh. I didn't die. I'm still with you. So.
00:26:01
Speaker
As we see, as we always see, it just never ends, right? You stick the word mystery to this and then you just go Bimini Road mystery.
00:26:14
Speaker
It's been answered and debunked a million times. It's super easy. It's also attractive, of course, because it dig in. It deals with Atlantis. And also you get pictures of good looking people in swimming suits, you know, snorkeling above it, that kind of thing. But it's it's on. It's one of those many, many pseudo archaeology themes that's on like a three year cycle or whatever just comes up and comes up and comes up. It's like the mystery of Bimini Road.
00:26:42
Speaker
Is it the road to Atlantis? Question mark. No, it's not. And this is why. Right. But then it's going to come right back. And and it's always on us, my friends, you know what I mean? It's on us to do all the work, be like, hey, look, the geology is actually kind of cool. Oh, the geology is actually really recent, you know. But after you do that. A week goes by, they're going to be like.
00:27:09
Speaker
And tonight, the mystery of the Bimini Road. Does it lead us to Atlantis? You decide. Well, at least it keeps me employed. And with that, I'll talk to you guys next time.
00:27:31
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella teaches archeology. See you guys next time.
00:27:52
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.