BeigeJournal

The January 2004 Skeptical Inquirer article “A Geologist’s Adventures with Bimini Beachrock and Atlantis True Believers” is up on the web site. It is an amusing story. Diving in Bimini was fun, but there were some frustrations: “Needless to say, none of these publications changed the minds of ‘true believers.’ I had foolishly believed publishing the facts would put an end to speculation and the numerous expeditions that were being financed by gullible donors.”

The geologists were a bit surprised by the behavior of some of the Atlantis enthusiasts:

A half dozen sailboats had already assembled at the site when we dropped anchor. The people on the sailboats had dropped more than their anchors: they were all naked. One nude boater swam over and asked, “Can’t you feel the force field? It’s strong here.” But this did not fully prepare us for what came later.

We suited ourselves in dive gear and soon found ourselves being filmed by two naked women. Apparently, humans just cannot get the feel of place while wearing clothes. In his 1997 book Paradise Fever, subtitled Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age, Ptolemy Tompkins, the same fourteen-year-old son from our first trip in the mid-1970s, talked about life with his father and his New Age beliefs. In the book Ptolemy describes how everyone felt they had to get naked to investigate the stones. He also mentions his father’s disagreements with the “clothed geologists.”

I think the whole Atlantis thing is hooey, but if I was sailing and diving around Bimini, I’d be nude, too.

Don’t the Orange County Choppers people, or for that matter, the Boyd Coddington folks, ever embark on a project with enough time to easily finish it before the deadline? I suppose a frantic race to meet a near-impossible deadline makes better TV. That way everyone is sure to get stressed out and yell constantly, though I suppose Pauls Sr. and Jr. will argue in any event.

I do side with Paul Sr. on neatness. That shop is a mess. It is odd, though, how he always waits until everyone is maximally stressed to rant and rave about it.

Do they really argue that much, or do we get every argument in a three week period edited together for each hour-minus-commercials episode?