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The following pages are intended to be a round-up of the news and recent developments in various studies of the mysterious pyramid structure that was discovered in 1985 by dive tour operator, Kihachiro Aratake, off the coast of Yonaguni-jima, Japan. Since the Morien Institute first set up some webpages detailing the '1999 Yonaguni Expedition' of Dr Robert M. Schoch, a tenured associate professor of science and mathematics at Boston University's College of General Studies, we have been inundated with enquiries from all parts of the world. Those initial pages contained only the opinions of Dr Schoch, and were liberally illustrated with underwater photographs taken by Dr Schoch during that 1999 expedition. Others who have dived at Yonaguni have different opinions of the structure, and we intend to present their views on these pages in the coming weeks and months.

The Morien Institute has kept a close watch on developments since 1999, and has been just as excited about the many new batches of underwater photographs that have emerged of the Yonaguni structures (yes! there is more than one), as we have been dismayed by the many citings of the structure's existence as somehow representing 'the final proof' of the existence of Atlantis and/or Lemuria. We have consistently taken the simple view that, following the dramatic series of rises in sea-levels that marked the ending of the last Ice Age, it is 'inevitable' that more and more evidence of ancient civilisation will be discovered on the continental shelves, and in the shallow seas, everywhere around the world.

Peoples in ancient times were not much different from those of today. They had a preference for building their settlements near to the sea for exactly the same reasons as we do - ports for the ships conducting foreign trade, and nearby urban developments for those involved with sea-borne trade, fishing, as well as a simple liking for living near the seaside on coastal plains. But most of the coastal plains of the Ice age have long since been underwater, and the Morien Institute can confidently predict that the future for marine archæology certainly looks very bright indeed ...

Over the last few years, many visitors to the Morien Institute website have sent us a wide selection of other images of this enigmatic underwater structure, though few have included details of the sources of the images. If you recognise any of the images on the following pages as your copyright, please send us details so that we can credit the true sources.

On May 19 2001 a report on Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country brought news that Frank Joseph, editor of "Ancient American Magazine", would speak that night on "Dreamland" about a conference he recently attended in Japan at which Japanese geologists and archæologists argued that the sunken pyramid structure off the coast of the island of Yonaguni near Okinawa, Japan, has been found to be man-made. It reported that:

"The structure was found by dive tour operator Kihachiro Aratake in 1985 and has been a source of controversy ever since. It appears to be a construction made of wide terraces, ramps and large steps. However, American geologists have contended that the structure is not manmade, but a natural formation.

According to the report, Japanese scientists have documented marks on the stones that indicate that they were hewn. Not only that, the tools used in this process have been found in the area, and carvings have been discovered. A small stairway carved into the rocks appears to render the theory that this is a natural formation implausible."

Copyright 1999 Dr. Robert M. Schoch.

The report that this enigmatic underwater structure has shown more evidence of being man-made, also offered the opinion that 'American geologists' have claimed that the structure is not man-made, and is a natural formation. But this contention was itself out-of-focus: "It appears to be a construction made of wide terraces, ramps and large steps. However, American geologists have contended that the structure is not manmade, but a natural formation." Presumably, they were referring to Dr. Robert M. Schoch, a geologist who has dived on the structure for inspection a number of times since 1997, and whose comments seem to have been misunderstood by some academics, while being dismissed totally by increasingly desperate Atlantis-seekers.

Dr Schoch has made it clear that he feels the structure was primarily a natural structure that people in ancient times had carved out of the 'living bedrock' and enhanced to suit their purposes. His actual comments in 1999 were:

"We should also consider the possibility that the Yonaguni Monument is fundamentally a natural structure that was utilized, enhanced, and modified by humans in ancient times."

This type of activity seems to have been widely used in ancient times all over the archaic world, and has become known as 'terra-forming' - nature suggests a shape, and human hands go to work to modify it as they want or need it to look. This could have been done for ritual purposes, or for purely practical ones. No-one can yet say for sure ...

According to the report of the 2001 conference in Japan, there have been a number of discoveries recently that add a great deal of weight to the theory that the structure was certainly 'terra-formed' at least by ancient people:

"Japanese scientists have documented marks on the stones that indicate that they were hewn. Not only that, the tools used in this process have been found in the area, and carvings have been discovered. A small stairway carved into the rocks appears to render the theory that this is a natural formation implausible.

The problem with all of this for western scientists is that it implies that an unknown eastern culture had developed a high degree of organization thousands of years before the earliest western civilizations. Geologically, the Yonaguni pyramid sank into the ocean at the end of the last ice age, around ten thousand years ago. Some western geologists have theorized that, if it is manmade, it must have risen from the sea in more recent times, and been carved then.

However, the discovery of other, similar structures beneath the sea of Japan was also announced at the conference. If these prove to be similar to the Yonaguni pyramid they may rewrite the history of early man."

Studies of the structures, such as that conducted over the past ten years or so by Professor Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences at the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, were responsible for initiating the debate that currently rages about the Yonaguni 'monument'. In September 1997 Dr Schoch dived on the structure for the first time. He had been invited there by Graham Hancock, who was then researching "Heaven's Mirror", filming a series of TV programmes, and presumably laying the groundwork for his recent book "Underworld".

Prof. Kimura & Dr. Schoch on Yonaguni Island 1999

Whilst there, Dr Schoch debated the structure, and the local geology of nearby Yonaguni Island, with Professor Masaaki Kimura, whose work on the underwater structures in that area had come to the attention of Graham Hancock some time earlier, and had featured in his books and on the television programmes that he presented. The controversy that had developed over the next few years was covered in The Japan Times on July 19 2000, which also reported on the ancient myths and legends of the Okinawa region: "In Okinawan folklore, there are tales of traditional gods and a land of the gods called Nirai-Kanai, an unknown faraway land from where happiness is brought. Kimura said the Yonaguni Monument may have been built to serve a similar deity."

In order to progress the debate further, the Morien Institute contacted Professor Kimura in July 2002, and in a series of emails over the next few months conducted an interview with him about his work on the Yonaguni structures, and similar discoveries in the same geographical area. Below you can access the exclusive Morien Institute interview with Professor Kimura completed in October 2002, and also take a closer look at the opinions of Dr. Robert M. Schoch in his own words: