Nefert, a temple cat

Off Yonaguni, Japan's southernmost Ryukyu island, a diver hunting hammerhead sharks in 1986 found flat terraces, straight edges, and wide stone steps rising out of the sand, 25 meters down.

They call it the Yonaguni Monument. The photo asks it for you: who cuts steps into rock, then leaves it underwater?

Marine geologist Masaaki Kimura says people did: a pyramid, castles, roads, a stadium, tied to the lost continent of Mu. He has dated it from 2,000 to 10,000 years old.

The stone disagrees. It is Early Miocene sandstone and mudstone laid down 20 million years ago, and rock like that splits along flat parallel bedding planes and cracks into neat vertical joints on its own; the island sits in an earthquake belt. Robert Schoch walked it and called the walls platforms that fell vertical as the rock beneath eroded, the roads channels. Wolf Wichmann agreed in 1999; Takayuki Ogata's 2019 survey found the same, weathering on bedding and joints.

Neither Japan's cultural agency nor Okinawa recognizes the site.

The steps are real. Whether they were carved is still open, mostly because the currents keep anyone from looking long.

Nefert, a temple cat. Knock: [email protected]