Anomaly•Registry
AR-0154

The Bimini Road

Debunked
Date Reported 1968. Examined by geologists from 1971; cored and dated in 1977 to 1979.
Location Off the west coast of North Bimini, near Paradise Point, the Bahamas
Coordinates 25.7648, -79.2800
Category Physical and Geological

Summary

A line of limestone blocks lies in about 5.5 metres of water off North Bimini in the Bahamas, running for roughly 800 metres. Reported in 1968 and promoted as a road or wall of Atlantis, it has been examined, cored and radiocarbon dated, and the geologists who studied it describe natural limestone broken up where it lies.

The stones are real and genuinely road-like from above. The Atlantis story attached to them is not supported: the rock is a cemented shell deposit that formed about 2,800 radiocarbon years ago, and the scientists who examined the blocks found no tool marks and no blocks set one upon another.

radiocarbon dates from Eugene Shinn's 1977 cores of the blocks 3,500 3,000 2,500 radiocarbon years before present (uncalibrated) shells 3510 ± 70 whole rock cement 2750 to 2840 NOTHING MADE OF IT IS OLDER THAN ITS CEMENT. shells about 3,500, cement about 2,800 radiocarbon years old. no tool marks and no stacked blocks were found.
Figure Drawn by Anomaly Registry from the University of Miami radiocarbon dates for cores Eugene Shinn took from the blocks in 1977 (Calvert, Introne and Stipp, Radiocarbon, 1979). Each point is one date with its stated error: shells about 3,500 and cement about 2,800 radiocarbon years before present.

What is documented

The find. In 1968 divers reported a road-like line of stones off North Bimini, 18 feet (5.5 metres) below the surface and stretching about half a mile. J. Manson Valentine's report appeared in Muse News in 1969. The site quickly entered the Atlantis literature: a 1971 paper in Nature cites Valentine's report alongside a December 1969 article in Argosy by R. F. Marx and D. Rebikoff and two books on Atlantis, Charles Berlitz's The Mystery of Atlantis (1969) and R. Ferro and M. Grumley's Atlantis (1970).

The Cayce connection. Popular accounts tie the site to the American psychic Edgar Cayce and his trance readings. The Association for Research and Enlightenment, the organisation devoted to those readings, states on its website: "Edgar Cayce referred to Bimini as one of the mountaintops of ancient Atlantis."

The first scientific look. In Nature in April 1971, W. Harrison concluded: "Underwater remains of an originally coherent formation of coquina limestone have been misinterpreted as an 'enigmatic' stonework emplaced by prehistoric men." Coquina is a limestone made of cemented shell fragments; "originally coherent" means the blocks were once a single layer. Harrison also addressed cylinders found nearby, which some writers had presented as pillars. He described them as "marble and cement cylinders", and wrote that those who required them to be "pillar fragments" of an Olmec or Atlantean culture "might consider a more mundane explanation."

The cores and the dates. In 1977 Eugene Shinn of the United States Geological Survey took cores from the blocks. The University of Miami radiocarbon laboratory dated them, as whole rock and as separated shell and cement, to find the maximum age of the formation, and published the results in 1979:

  • shells: 3510 ± 70 radiocarbon years before present
  • cement, at three depths in one core: 2750 ± 80, 2770 ± 80 and 2840 ± 70
  • whole rock, at three depths in another core: 2780 ± 70, 3500 ± 80 and 3350 ± 90

The shells are older than the cement that binds them, as they must be in a rock made of shells that were later cemented together. Whatever the blocks are, nothing made of them can be older than their cement. The dates are uncalibrated radiocarbon ages. In 1980 Shinn and Marshall McKusick returned to the subject in Nature, under the title "Bahamian Atlantis reconsidered".

The summary conclusion. A popular account of the site, Atlas Obscura's, summarises where the science ended up: carbon dating and analysis of the blocks showed they were formed naturally: "No tool marks were found on the blocks, and there was no evidence that the blocks had ever been stacked to build a structure."

Leading explanations

A natural cemented shell deposit, broken into blocks where it formed (the conclusion of the geologists who examined it; supported by coring and dating). Harrison's "originally coherent formation of coquina limestone" is a single layer of rock that has cracked into slabs. The cores show what the rock is made of and when it formed: shells from animals that lived about 3,500 radiocarbon years ago, cemented into stone about 2,800 radiocarbon years ago.

A road or wall built by a lost civilisation (proposed in the Atlantis literature from 1969; not supported). The case rests on how regular the line looks. The rock's make-up and dates point to a natural deposit, and the scientists who examined it found no tool marks and no second course of blocks.

What the popular version gets wrong

"It is a road, or wall, of Atlantis." It is natural stone. It formed where it lies, from shells cemented about 2,800 radiocarbon years ago, and the scientists who examined it found no tool marks and no sign that any block had been placed on another.

"The cylinders nearby are Atlantean pillars." Harrison's 1971 paper described them as marble and cement cylinders and suggested that believers in pillars "might consider a more mundane explanation."

"Edgar Cayce predicted it, and it came true in 1968." The Cayce organisation's site says his readings called Bimini a mountaintop of Atlantis. The reading usually quoted, said to predict that part of Atlantis would rise in 1968 or 1969, is widely repeated; the registry has not been able to check its wording against a transcript. Whatever it said, nothing rose. Divers found the stones on the sea floor, where they had lain since long before 1968.

Current status

Debunked. The Bimini Road exists, and it is worth a dive. The claim that it is a man-made road or wall, of Atlantis or any other lost culture, does not survive examination. A 1971 paper in Nature identified it as a natural limestone formation; cores taken in 1977 and dated by 1979 showed what it is made of and when it formed; and no tool marks or built courses have been confirmed. The registry has found no study establishing human work. What would change the finding is a published, independently checked demonstration of worked or transported stone in the formation.

Sources

  • Harrison, W. (1971). "Atlantis Undiscovered: Bimini, Bahamas." Nature 230, 287 to 289.
  • Calvert, P. M., Introne, D. S. and Stipp, J. J. (1979). "University of Miami Radiocarbon Dates XIV." Radiocarbon 21(1), 107 to 112. The Bimini series, samples UM-1359 to UM-1365, collected in 1977 by E. Shinn, USGS.
  • McKusick, M. and Shinn, E. A. (1980). "Bahamian Atlantis reconsidered." Nature 287, 11 to 12.
  • Association for Research and Enlightenment (Edgar Cayce's A.R.E.). "Atlantis." edgarcayce.org, consulted September 2026.
  • Atlas Obscura. "Bimini Road." atlasobscura.com, consulted September 2026.

Last reviewed: September 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.

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