In Search of Aliens episode 1 – The Hunt for Atlantis

In Search of Aliens episode 1 – The Hunt for Atlantis: Ever since Plato first wrote about the mysterious island of Atlantis, it has captured the imagination of adventurers and academics alike. Was Atlantis merely a myth, or could it have actually existed in the remote past? Did Atlantis just disappear as Plato described? And could it have been the home of an advanced civilization that created the human race? Ancient Astronaut Theorist Giorgio A. Tsoukalos explores the most recent discoveries related to the centuries old story of Atlantis. By investigating a series of clues, Tsoukalos endeavors to narrow down the possible.

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IN SEARCH OF ALIENS follows Giorgio Tsoukalos, an Ancient Astronaut theorist and leading contributor to Ancient Aliens, as he explores the fascinating evidence behind some of the Earth’s most famous mysteries.

In Search of Aliens episode 1 – The Hunt for Atlantis

Atlantis is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato’s works Timaeus and Critias, wherein it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges “Ancient Athens”, the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato’s ideal state in The Republic. In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world, supposedly bearing witness to the superiority of Plato’s concept of a state. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite its minor importance in Plato’s work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis and Thomas More’s Utopia. On the other hand, nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato’s narrative as historical tradition, most famously Ignatius L. Donnelly in his Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Plato’s vague indications of the time of the events (more than 9,000 years before his time) and the alleged location of Atlantis (“beyond the Pillars of Hercules”) gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.

While present-day philologists and classicists agree on the story’s fictional character, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. Plato is known to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older traditions, as he did, for instance, with the story of Gyges.