5/31/02 7:01:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Dear Kent,

Well, it was rather sketchy, still not providing the kind of data we would like to hear and not long on specifics.  Of interest was Zelitsky's initial reaction when her team saw the images of the structures, fearing that they were some sort of classified project artifact "that we were not supposed to see."  Indeed, the Cuban scientists to whom they referred the matter refused to discuss it on the premise that they had not been told of such a thing and therefore feared to address it until they received authorization from their superiors.  It was an interesting comment on the mindset of those working in a Communist system.  Apparently, the authorization was later received, as at least two Cuban scientists have since commented upon it to the press, although in a scientifically guarded (and, I believe, appropriate) way.  Zelitsky, however, is unequivocal in stating that they are ruins of some ancient civilization.  Without access to the data, it is hard to evaluate that surmise.

A marine geologist was quoted as saying that even assuming that the objects sunk from geological action that process alone would imply the objects being at least 50,000 years old.  It was not completely clear from his edited comments whether he was referring to the earthquake and landslide effects taking that long (which seems intuitively unlikely) or he meant that the ocean has not been low enough to expose land that deep since then.  Unfortunately, broadcast media often do not dwell on the details.

Zelitsky was dismissive of the contacts she had received from the Atlantis-obsessed pseudo-archeologists and folks hoping that these ruins would somehow be connected with UFOs.  She pointed out that there were no little green men down there and that there was no reason to believe that these things were anything other than ancient ruins of human civilization.

The American scientist interviewed for the piece said that he had seen the tapes and was impressed that whatever was down there was very unusual indeed, but cautioned that the only way to determine if it was a human artifact was to bring it up and look at it after the surrounding cover of the ages was taken off, a sensible observation.  Oddly, however, as the varied reaction to the undersea structures near Okinawa demonstrates, even close examination of the site and its structures may very well not resolve anything.  This is especially true if the evidence presents a challenge to the paradigm in which almost the totality of the academic community is deeply invested.  However, the scientist acknowledged that if these prove to be artifacts of an ancient civilization, that would be quite exceptional, since most evidence of civilization dates back only 5,500 years or so (although there is that one town of 8,000 people in Turkey which is about 8,000 years old, and, of course, there are the Okinawa structures which the Japanese scientists claim to be 8-12,000 years old, which seems consistent with depths at which they are located.

There was no discussion of what Zelitsky's plans are for bringing the data to light, or what is being done right now with the site.  It was basically a superficial piece, offering little new data from that already covered in the print press, except for the limited interview with the American scientist.

The larger significance of the broadcast is that these ruins are at least getting some mainstream air time, which is more than can be said for all of the other anomalous sites discovered in recent years.  For that, at least, we can be grateful.

I guess that we will just have to wait until Zelitsky and Fidel can agree upon how these matters are to be made available for public assessment.  Given how things are done in Cuba, it may be a long wait.