Eltanin Antenna is the name popularly given to an unusual object photographed on the sea floor by the Antarctic oceanographic research ship USNS Eltanin in 1964, while photographing the sea bottom west of Cape Horn.

Due to its regular antenna-like structure and upright position on the seafloor at a depth of 13,500 feet (4,115 metres), some have suggested that it might be an artifact from a forgotten high-tech civilization, was brought to earth by aliens, or brought from the future by our descendants.

However, it has subsequently been identified as an example of the sponge Cladorhiza concrescens, first identified by Alexander Agassiz in a dredged-up sample in 1888.

References

• Agassiz, Alexander, 1888a, Three Cruises of the Blake, vol. II, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, in Cambridge, vol. XV.
• Agassiz, Alexander, 1888b, A contribution to American thalassography : Three cruises of the United States Coast and geodetic survey steamer "Blake", in the gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean sea, and along the Atlantic coast of the United States, from 1877 to 1880. vol II, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, Massachusetts.
• Brookesmith, Peter, 2004, Eltanin Enigma. Fortean Times. (May 2004). Retrieved on 2009-06-11.
• Gage, John G, and Paul A. Tyler, 1993, Deep-sea biology: a natural history of organisms at the deep-sea floor. Cambridge University Press, Boston, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-521-33665-9
• Hatch, Larry, 2004a, The Eltanin Antenna Identified! larryhatch.net (via Internet Archive). Retrieved on 2009-06-11.
• Heezen, Bruce C. and Charles D. Hollister, 1971, The Face of the Deep. Oxford University Press, New York, New York. ISBN 0-195-01277-1
• Hooper, J.N.A., and R.W.M. Van Soest, eds., 2002, Systema Porifera: a guide to the classification of Sponges. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, New York. ISBN 0-306-47260-0.

External links

• van Soest, R.W.M., and others, 2009, Chondrocladia concrescens (Schmidt, 1880), The World Porifera Database. Retrieved on 2009-06-11.