Long before modern maps charted the Gulf Coast, one man believed a massive civilization may have risen — and vanished — beneath the waters off Louisiana.
According to the New York Post, retired architect George Gelé has spent decades studying what he says are the submerged remains of an ancient city near the Chandeleur Islands, a remote chain of barrier islands east of New Orleans.
“All I know is that someone built the city 12,000 years ago,” Gelé claimed in a resurfaced 2022 interview.
He believes the structures lie hidden beneath layers of water and sediment in the Gulf of Mexico, where sonar scans have revealed what he describes as hundreds of formations.
“Somebody floated a billion stones down the Mississippi River and assembled them outside what would later become New Orleans,” declared Gelé.
According to his account, the formations sit about 30 feet underwater and are buried under an additional 100 feet of sediment. Among them, he points to what he calls a massive pyramid rising roughly 280 feet from the ocean floor.
Gelé also claims the structure produces unusual electromagnetic effects, allegedly interfering with passing boats. He has gone so far as to suggest a connection to the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The alleged site, which he has dubbed “Crescentis,” is said to date back roughly 11,700 years to the end of the last Ice Age, when rising sea levels reshaped coastlines.
Gelé’s theory is partly based on granite stones discovered in the area — material not typically found in Louisiana. He argues that their presence suggests deliberate transport and construction.
Over the years, he has personally funded and carried out more than 40 underwater expeditions to support his claims.
Others who have visited the site have reported unusual experiences.
Shrimper Ricky Robin said his equipment malfunctioned when passing over the supposed pyramid.
“I thought right away it was pieces of the pyramid because it was right around where that compass spun,” he said. “Everything will go out on your boat. All your electronics like you were in the Bermuda Triangle.”
He added that other fishermen have pulled up oddly shaped rocks from the water.
Still, experts have offered more conventional explanations.
A study from Texas A&M University in the 1980s suggested the stones could be ballast discarded by European ships navigating shallow waters.
Later, archaeology professor Rob Mann proposed the granite might be remnants of a 1940s artificial reef project.
Gelé, however, remains unconvinced.
“This is a piece of architecture, this is not ballast,” he said while examining a grooved stone he described as a “rain gutter.”
“Whether or not they (the people of Crescentis) had somebody on their shoulder flew in with a UFO, I don’t know,” he added. “All I know is that they left a whole bunch of granite rocks out there.”
