MAN FINDS ATLANTIS USING GOOGLE MAPS
Residents annoyed, say their property taxes are about to skyrocket
MIAMI, FL – A 34-year-old software engineer from Duluth, Minnesota has sent shockwaves through the archaeological community after accidentally discovering the lost city of Atlantis while browsing Google Maps during his lunch break – and the ancient civilization’s residents are furious about the unwanted attention.
Derek Matthieson was initially searching for a decent seafood restaurant near his office when he noticed unusual geometric patterns beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 200 miles southeast of the Bahamas. What started as a casual zoom-in quickly revealed massive underwater structures that perfectly match Plato’s descriptions of the legendary sunken continent.
“I thought it was just some weird camera glitch at first,” Matthieson explained from his cramped cubicle, still clutching printouts of the satellite imagery. “But then I kept zooming in and saw what looked like roads, buildings, even what appeared to be parking meters. That’s when I knew something was seriously wrong – or seriously right.”
The discovery has reportedly caused an immediate panic among Atlantis’s current population of approximately 2.3 million residents, who have successfully maintained their secrecy for over 11,000 years through a combination of advanced cloaking technology and strategic bribes to various government agencies.
Sources close to the Atlantean Council reveal that emergency sessions have been called to address what they’re calling “the greatest security breach in recorded history.” The main concern isn’t just their exposure to the surface world, but the inevitable bureaucratic nightmare that will follow.
“Our property values were already through the roof because of the excellent schools and zero crime rate,” complained Aquarius Neptunson, a longtime resident of New Atlantis’s upscale Coral Gardens district, speaking through an encrypted underwater communication device. “Now that some surface dweller has blown our cover, the IRS is probably going to want back taxes for the last ten millennia. Do you have any idea how much compound interest accumulates over 11,000 years?”
The situation has attracted the attention of Dr. Helena Marshwater, a marine archaeologist at the Institute for Submerged Civilizations, who has been tracking unusual sonar readings in the area for decades. She believes this discovery validates years of suppressed research and government cover-ups.
“What Mr. Matthieson has stumbled upon confirms everything we’ve suspected about underwater civilizations,” Dr. Marshwater stated during a hastily arranged press conference. “The government has been hiding evidence of Atlantis for years, probably because they were getting kick-backs from the Atlantean tourism board. This changes everything we know about ancient history and property law.”
Intelligence sources suggest that Atlantean lobbyists have been quietly working in Washington D.C. since the 1950s, successfully preventing oceanic territory from being claimed by any surface nation. However, Matthieson’s discovery may have inadvertently triggered ancient maritime salvage laws that could result in massive tax implications for the underwater civilization.
Local Atlantean businesses are already feeling the pressure. The city’s famous kelp farmers report that surface-world agricultural inspectors have been circling their facilities in submarines, while the popular tourist attraction “Poseidon’s Lost Vegas” has been forced to obtain surface-world gambling licenses overnight.
Real estate agents in Atlantis confirm that several high-profile residents, including descendants of the original Atlantean royal family, are already looking to relocate to other hidden civilizations, possibly in the Bermuda Triangle or beneath the Denver International Airport.
The Atlantean Department of Surface Relations issued a terse statement late yesterday: “We demand that Mr. Matthieson immediately delete his browser history and pretend this never happened. We were perfectly happy being a myth, thank you very much.”
Google has yet to respond to requests for comment, though sources indicate the tech giant is already developing underwater Street View cameras.
The characters and events depicted in this story are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events is unintentional and purely coincidental.
