Yonaguni

Situated between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea, about 300 miles from Okinawa, is the island of Yonaguni-Jima. Off it’s coast is a huge apparently manmade (god-made?) monument about 100 ft below the surface. Its a platform pyramid 600 ft wide, 90 ft high constructed of precisely hewn megalithic stones. The pyramid, apparently a part of a ceremonial center, has been dated to 8000 bc, 5000 years before the oldest pyramid in Egypt!

The “Yonaguni Monument,” as I refer to this structure, superficially has the appearance of a platform-like or partial step-pyramid-like structure. It has been compared to various pyramidal and temple structures in the Americas, such as the ancient “Temple of the Sun” near Trujillo in northern Peru (Joseph, 1997, pp. 4-5). The Yonaguni Monument is over 50 meters long in an east-west direction and over 20 meters wide in a north-south direction.

The top of the structure lies about 5 meters below sea level, whereas the base is approximately 25 meters below the surface. It is an asymmetrical structure with what appear to be titanic stone steps exposed on its southern face. These steps range from less than half a meter to several meters in height. When viewing photographs of the Yonaguni Monument many people immediately have the impression, due to the regularity of the stone faces of the steps and the sharp angles made by the rock, that this is an artificial structure.

Over the last few years, Professor Kimura has perhaps softened his position somewhat regarding how much of the Yonaguni Monument is “man-made” or “artificial” and how much is “natural.” Most recently Dr. Kimura has been referring to the Yonaguni Monument and related structures as being “terraformed,” that is natural geological features that have been manipulated or modified by human hands. This is essentially the position that I have come to, so perhaps Dr. Kimura and I are converging in our opinions of the Yonaguni Monument.

If there is evidence of some human modification of a natural structure off the coast of Yonaguni Island, why were the people of ancient times so interested in this particular spot? One suggestion is that 10,000 years ago Yonaguni was located very close to the Tropic of Cancer. Today the Tropic of Cancer is located at approximately 23 degrees 27 minutes north latitude while Yonaguni Island is located a full degree further north. However, the position of the Tropic of Cancer varies over the millennia, from under 22 degrees to over 24 degrees, according to a 41,000 year cycle. In about 8000 B.C. the Yonaguni Monument was located very close to the Tropic of Cancer. Perhaps it was the site of an astronomically-aligned shrine. In conclusion, based on my preliminary reconnaissance of the Yonaguni Monument, I am not yet absolutely convinced that it is an artificial structure – – but in my opinion, even if it is primarily natural, it may have been modified by human actions in ancient times. This enigmatic structure merits more detailed examination.

Yonaguni,  underwater structures,  Ancient Aliens