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Not far from Taiwan, Pacific waters engulf stone structures just off the coast of the tiny Japanese island of Yonaguni Jima, part of the Ryukyu archipelago in this undated photo.

The structures maybe the ruins of a 5,000-year-old city that featured a castle, several temples, and a stadium, according to a Japanese researcher who has been diving at the site for past 15 years. 

"The largest structure looks like a complicated, monolithic, stepped pyramid that rises from a depth of 25 meters [82 feet]," said the scientist, Masaaki Kimura of the University of the Ryukyus. Kimura recently suggested that the site might have been sunk by a massive tsunami similar to the one that hit the island in 1771.

But other experts who have dived at the site, which was discovered in 1986, are equally convinced that the formations are natural.

"It's basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges," said Robert Schoch, a professor of science and mathematics at Boston University and a leading critic of the theory.

Divers examine the base of a stone structure off the coast of Yonaguni Jima in Japan's Ryukyu archipelago in an undated photo.

Some experts argue that the stone steps are human-made and that they are part of a vast sunken city akin to Atlantis.

Tests on stalactites found near the rock formations indicate that the site is about 5,000 years old, said the University of the Ryukyus' Masaaki Kiruma. Other features above and below water indicate that the structures sank beneath the waves about 2,000 years ago, he maintains.

What appears to be a doorway carved into a cliff face on the Japanese island of Yonaguni adds to evidence of ancient human habitation on the island. Sites like this have yielded charcoal likely made by human hands 1,600 years ago.

Such structures are similar to the unusual underwater formations nearby—a fact that some experts use as supporting evidence that the underwater stones are the ruins of an ancient city.

But for now neither the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs nor the government of Okinawa Prefecture recognize the remains off Yonaguni as an important cultural property, said agency spokesperson Emiko Ishida.

A natural cliff face on Japan's Yonaguni Jima resembles the "steps" of the mysterious stone structures that lie off the island's coast.

Experts like the University of Boston's Robert Schoch believe that the formations are interesting but completely natural.

"The first time I dived there, I knew it was not artificial," Schoch said. "It's not as regular as many people claim, and the right angles and symmetry don't add up in many places."

But Masaaki Kimura, proponent of the sunken-city theory, is undeterred.

"The best way to get a definitive answer about their origins," he said, "is to keep going back and collecting more evidence."

英文原文版权归 NationalGeographic 

图片版权归 Robert Schoch

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