探索频道英语听力 遗失的大陆-21

In the summer of 1968, the occupants of a small plane flying off the coast of Bimini near Florida spotted beneath them mysterious shapes in the clear waters. The site quickly attracted huge interest, especially when fragments of ancient monuments were also found in nearby waters. Known as the Bimini road, could these strange misshapen rocks be the corroded ruins of ancient Atlantis? Their sudden dramatic appearance had been foretold by one of America’s most famous clairvoyants, Edgar Casey. Called the sleeping prophet because of the trance-like state in which he delivered his prophecies. Casey had predicted that Atlantis would rise again in 1967 or 1968. But the circumstances of the discovery cast a shadow of doubt on the risen Atlantis. Not only had the Bimini road been discovered by followers of Casey, it also turned out that Casey himself had been sponsored by a wealthy businessman to locate gold, oil, or other mineral deposits in the Bahamas. Unfortunately on this occasion, Casey’s power seemed to abandon him.

Edgar Casey was in the employ of a businessman who believed that he could actually find gold. And he, Casey, then decided to produce Atlantis as some kind of a substitute for that.

The fragments of ancient monuments also have another explanation that is far removed from the ruins of Atlantis. They are almost certainly the remains of a ship’s ballast, dating back to the time of Columbus when ships needed to take on board and later dump extra weight.

You don't want all that ballast in ship, you want buoyancy, you get rid of the stone. And there all the sudden is a Corinthian capital from Rome, or from whatever have you, in the, in the Caribbean.

Casey also prophesized that a long lost haul of Atlantean records would be discovered under the Egyptian Sphinx in 1999. Unfortunately these records have so far failed to materialize, further discrediting Casey’s prophecies that Atlantis would rise again.

The Atlantis legend, if you like, has become a new religion. It’s a new age religion. It’s for all those people who are dissatisfied with what the conventional churches have to offer. I think modern people looked to want to find something, something they can believe in even if it’s not reachable, not attainable, so they search for Utopia, a fabulous land, and they’re trying believing in that even though they can never really find it.

But hope's spring's eternal. Using a dazzling array of high-tech and low-tech equipment and spurning the skepticism of conventional experts, a new breed of fringe researcher continues to search for Atlantis.

Is it a search without end? Or would advances in new technology finally reveal the location of lost Atlantis?

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occupant: n. 占有者，拥有者
clairvoyant: n. 千里眼有假想的超视能力的人，如巫师
prophet: n. 预言者
trance: n. 恍惚
removed: adj. 离开的，与...无关的
ballast: n. 压舱物
buoyancy: n. 浮性
Sphinx: n. 狮身人面像
discredit: v. 使被怀疑；使不可置信
materialize: v. 物化，实现
spurn: .屏弃，弃绝