My name is Don Ingram and I was born in Adelaide the capital city of South Australia.

Fast forward to 1964: three years of part-time, non-diploma study at the South Australian School of Arts, saw me almost ready to take up a position as a third year cadet artist at the Adelaide Advertiser in 1968; this involved another two years of part-time study at art school. As a newspaper artist I was producing illustrations, maps, diagrams and all manner of information graphics. Translating the written word into graphical information was to prove invaluable in visualising and testing the veracity of data and ideas.

In the 1960s and 70s the esoteric New Age movement was booming and many ‘artists’ tended to be a bit ‘alternative’ and idealistic in their world-views. Plato’s story of Atlantis in particular was widely favoured as a Utopian model for a better world. This movement was to say the least, irrational; and was severely attacked by members of the academic community some of whom introduced their own brand of illogical and limited assumptions.

A reading of Plato’s Timaeus and Critias revealed that most modern commentary on the subject had very little to do with what Plato actually wrote and the bulk of modern commentaries were based on uncritical acceptance of the work of three late 19th, early 20th century “doyens” of modern Atlantology – Ignatius Donnelly, Helena Blavatsky and Edgar Cayce, each of whom had their own particular biases and perspectives on the subject. These modern speculation seemed wildly implausible, so a certain sceptical exploration of this and other ancient stories began in the early 1970s, but over the next couple of years, the requirements of every-day life took priority until many years later.

In 1998 my interest in the subject was rekindled by sighting a map of Atlantis produced by the 17th century Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher that presented the clue as to the probable, real location of the island. I experienced an epiphany concerning the reasons for many of the unresolved arguments over the veracity of the Atlantis story as it was initially presented by Plato. Further research disclosed several ancient impediments to the credibility of the story. The realisation that the main points of argument were due to ancient misinterpretations and perceptions, which, once understood, made it clear how the story might fit with the emerging picture of late prehistory resulting from widely published archaeology and research.

Early retirement in 2002 allowed for full-time concentration on the subject. Initially, there were nine years of research and this endeavour proved very exciting because of the wealth of confirming clues revealed through archaeology and scientific investigation. The pattern of events described by Plato, matched the modern picture of late prehistory to a remarkable degree once the ancient misconceptions had been recognised and allowed for.

In 2009, my research was worked into a book titled The Unlost Island: A History of Misunderstanding Atlantis. Although the book was widely ignored, the work involved in its production enabled me to present a paper on the subject at the3rd Atlantis Hypothesis, International Conference in Greece in 2011, hosted by the University of Patras and the Aristoteleion University of Thessaloniki. My paper, Plato’s War at the End of the Middle Bronze Age was very well received and I was invited to write another broadly related paper to be included in the Book of Proceedings which unfortunately has still not been published due to fall-out from the Greek government-debt crisis.

PS. Adelaide is a beautiful, medium sized city built on a plain bounded by a gulf to the west and surrounded by hills to the east, and could be said to be “on the sea in the middle of southern Australia” [Apologies to Plato]. Geographical inaccuracies aside, the situation of Adelaide could be seen as somewhat similar to Plato’s description of Atlas’ city and the plain on which it was situated. A magnificent view over the Adelaide plain during the daily commute to work by train or bus from the surrounding hills to the city helped in visualising the scale and configuration of the Atlantean plain and ‘city’ described by Plato.