Some experts, including the president of the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research, Nuno Ribeiro, have said rock art and the remnants of human-made structures on the islands suggest the Azores were occupied by humans thousands of years ago.

Ribeiro began speaking of his findings in 2010, and thus helped spark a raging debate about claims of ancient settlements on the Azores. The controversy led Portugal’s government to establish an expert commission to investigate further.

In 2013, that commission declared that any perceived remnants of an ancient civilization were either natural rock formations or structures of more modern origin. However, Antonieta Costa, a post-doctoral student at the University of Porto in Portugal, remained unconvinced

Earlier this month, Costa had a meeting with the regional secretary of education and culture for Azores, Avelino de Meneses. De Meneses was one of the experts to sign off on the government report denying the antiquity of the artifacts.

After years of being denied government permission to conduct archaeological investigations on the Azores, Costa now has some government support for her research.

But Costa told Epoch Times via email that de Meneses has now expressed an openness to her hypothesis.

Either way, inconclusive so far, though in the end - the photographs of pyramids, burials, rock art and potential calendars still above water on the islands - and due to their "uninhabited discovery in 1427" are curious. I doubt the Portugese would have been constructing these.

Graham Hancock declared the (underwater) Azores pyramid a "photoshop fraud" - so at this point, I have no idea what to believe.