Researchers believe they have finally discovered the lost "White City" of gold. The discovery was made in Honduras using high-tech scanners that allow aircraft to “see” through dense forest.
Researchers from the University of Houston and the National Center for Mapping (NCC) flew over the Mosquito region in a small plane, filming with billions of laser pulses that were subsequently used to create a digital topological 3D map.
Analysts' data processing showed that one of the elevation differences seems to be artificial and, as they believe, is a city lost in the jungle. Legend has it that the Ciudad Blanca, or White City, was full of gold and has been sought after by many explorers and treasure hunters since the first reference to it by the conquistador Hernán Cortez in his letter to King Charles V of Spain in 1526.
For centuries, this legend has inspired adventure seekers. Enthusiast Stephen Elkins tried to secure financial support from private investors to pay for such a card. For a week, NCC employees flew a twin-engine Cessna aircraft over an area of 60 square miles. Laser computer graphics allowed researchers to "look" at the earth's surface through the forest canopy. This was one of the first times laser transformations, in particular laser rangefinders, were used to locate ancient ruins.
The technology was originally created in order to collect data after earthquakes, aid in military espionage and identify river erosion.
While flying over the target area, the unit sends 100,000 short laser pulses to the ground every second. Over four billion of these pulses were sent to the ground during the entire project.
The pulses bouncing off the Earth's surface bounced back and, based on the time it took, a high-tech device created a 3D digital topological map. This technology allows you to identify hills with a height of 4 inches.
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Ciudad Blanca played a central role in the mythology of Central America. In ancient texts, this city is called the birthplace of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. However, no confirmation of the city's existence has ever been provided. If the new information is confirmed, the discovery of the city will be comparable to the popularization of the city of Machu Picchu, which lay in ruins for hundreds of years until it was rediscovered in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham.
