Retired US Navy admiral Tim Gallaudet has claimed that the lost city of Atlantis could be hidden beneath an undisclosed stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, based on detailed underwater seabed scans. Gallaudet said he is collaborating with researchers who believe high-resolution bathymetric maps contain terrain features matching ancient descriptions written by the Greek philosopher Plato.
Speaking on the American Alchemy podcast hosted by Jesse Michels, Gallaudet revealed that the research team possesses privately held, high-resolution bathymetry of the ocean floor. "We believe we found the region in the Atlantic. We have some proprietary bathymetry [underwater topography], and it's very high resolution," Gallaudet told Michels. "There are a lot of features that correspond to exactly how Plato described it."
Gallaudet said a well-funded researcher equipped with a ship and a remotely operated underwater vehicle has expressed interest in hearing the team's proposal. However, the exact location remains secret because a nondisclosure agreement prevents him from revealing the site. He emphasized that his account describes a potential search target rather than a confirmed discovery of the lost civilization.
Plato, the classical Greek philosopher who studied under Socrates and taught Aristotle, first introduced Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias around 360 BC. He described it as a technologically advanced, wealthy island empire with a capital built around concentric rings of land and water, placing its existence 9,000 years before his time, or more than 11,000 years ago.
According to the legend recounted in Timaeus, violent earthquakes and catastrophic floods swallowed the island empire into the ocean in a single day and night. While the story has fascinated searchers for generations, most mainstream historians and ocean scientists have concluded that Plato's account was a fictional philosophical allegory rather than a historical record.
Secrets of the Seabed Scans
Gallaudet previously led the US Navy's oceanography work and served as acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the primary American scientific agency for oceanic research. In November 2024, Gallaudet testified before the US Congress regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, commonly referred to as UAPs or UFOs.
Gallaudet had previously hinted at an underwater investigation during an August 2025 appearance on the Danny Jones podcast, stating, "We actually have a special project I can't talk about." At the time, he outlined plans to map an ancient submerged site, examine it with a remotely operated vehicle, and attempt to date the location, though it remains unclear whether he was discussing the same site described to Michels.
During his interview on American Alchemy, Gallaudet pointed specifically to the dimensions of the canal system recorded in Plato's writings, stating that features in the target area "correspond to exactly how Plato described it." However, he did not provide specific measurements or identify the other topographical features being compared.
In the earlier Jones interview, Gallaudet noted that he wanted to "see some data on Atlantis," adding, "I have a few leads."
Algorithm and Deep-Sea Explorers
The current research effort is being led by an emergency-room doctor who spent more than a decade gathering geological and archaeological information, according to Gallaudet. He did not name the physician, but described how the researcher began reading Plato's original dialogues in his spare time before assembling a panel of specialist advisers.
Gallaudet connected the researcher with physicist Max Derakhshani to explore using a specialized computer algorithm designed to analyze three-dimensional terrain data. Gallaudet believes the mapping technique could help distinguish natural geological formations from artificial structures on the seabed, although he reported no analytical results establishing that the ocean floor features were man-made.
A physical deep-sea expedition would allow researchers to investigate the site directly rather than relying on map images. Gallaudet revealed that deep-sea explorer Victor Vescovo, known for diving submersibles to the deepest trenches in the world's oceans, had also heard the team's presentation and expressed interest.
"We gave him the presentation on Atlantis, and he said, 'All right, I'm in,'" Gallaudet recalled. However, he did not announce a confirmed departure date for the proposed voyage.
The Azores Hypothesis
During the podcast conversation, Michels suggested the Azores archipelago as a possible location for the target site, though Gallaudet did not confirm that the team's target was located there. The Azores Plateau is a massive, triangular underwater highland in the North Atlantic Ocean that supports the volcanic peaks of the Azores islands.
Supporters of the Azores theory believe the islands are the surviving mountaintops of a vast landmass that sank beneath the Atlantic. Proponents point to the region's position at the Azores triple junction, where the North American, Eurasian, and African tectonic plates meet, as a possible explanation for the catastrophic earthquakes described in Plato's account.
Some researchers also suggest that lower sea levels during the last ice age exposed a larger area of land that was later submerged as global ice melted, although geologists note this does not establish that the islands are the remains of Atlantis.
Gallaudet also argued that a rapid sinking of land could have submerged a city over a period of years rather than millennia, though he did not disclose the geological mechanism behind that hypothesis. The overall proposal rests on treating Plato's account as a possible description of a real physical place rather than simply a philosophical story.
