“Cap Corse, the mystery of the rings”, on Arte: discovering a supernatural underwater landscape

ARTE – SATURDAY, MAY 3 AT 8:55 PM – DOCUMENTARY

Those who have been following the Gombessa explorations led by underwater biologist and photographer Laurent Ballesta through his films for twenty years may be surprised—at first—by this sixth installment. Cap Corse, the mystery of the rings appears less exuberant, more educational. However, once the stakes are understood, we follow in the footsteps of the researchers to unravel the mystery.

When the first unpublished images of these hundreds of circles lying on the seabed (there are 1,417 of them) were discovered, the regularity of the geometric shapes cast doubt on their natural origin. This investigation, which began at a depth of 120 meters, will take us back in time by twenty-one thousand years.

For the Gombessa V mission, filmed in the documentary Planète Méditerranée (produced in 2020 and rebroadcast in the second part of the evening), Laurent Ballesta's team had inaugurated a pressurized chamber, which allows diving "to saturation" and avoids the loss of time linked to the necessary decompression stops during ascents (five to seven hours per 100 to 200 meters).

You have 67.4% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.