Paulina Zelitsky remembers the hot July day two summers ago and the sudden, unpleasant feeling that she had stumbled into a place she was not
supposed to be.
The research vessel Ulises sailed in the Yucatan Channel just off the west coast of Cuba that day, hired by the Castro government to look for undersea
oil and gas -- old treasure ships, too, if they could be found.
More than 2,000 feet beneath the surface, in total blackness, the vessel towed a boombox-sized sonar on an electronic tether. Pulsing sound waves, the
sonar sketched a picture of the sea bottom on a computer screen aboard Ulises far above.
As Zelitsky and her husband, Paul Weinzweig, watched the screen, the empty plain of sea bed suddenly gave way to images of massive geometric shapes,
apparently cut from stone. As more shapes came into view, some appeared to be arranged in patterns over a large area about 20-kilometers square.
Some stone appeared to be cut into blocks, and some blocks seemed perfectly aligned. They appeared to form corridors and the outlines of rooms, the
two scientists said. There were round stones and pyramid-shaped ones, too.
The sea bottom in that area is an undulating sand plain, Zelitsky said. What they were seeing should not have been there.
"We were shocked, and frankly we were a little frightened," said Zelitsky. "It was as though we should not be seeing what we were seeing. Our first
thought was maybe we found some kind of secret military installation." THE REST.....
SONAR image.The shapes appear to be arranged in patterns, the scientists say. The images, made with sophisticated sonar, show an area about 100 by
200 meters.