An amateur archaeologist claims to have uncovered the ruins of an ancient city that once thrived off the coast of Louisiana roughly 12,000 years ago.

Retired architect George Gelé said he has found clues that 'hundreds of buildings' are buried beneath the waters near the Chandeleur Islands, a chain of uninhabited barrier islands about 50 miles east of New Orleans in the Gulf of America.

For nearly five decades, he has captured underwater sonar images that he believes reveal the remnants of major structures, including what he describes as a 280-foot-tall pyramid rising from the seafloor.

Gelé claimed the pyramid emits a surge of electromagnetic energy that has caused boat compasses to spin wildly as vessels passed overhead. 

Dubbed the city of Crescentis, Gelé told local station WWL-TV that the submerged formations, located roughly 30 feet below the water and buried beneath an additional 100 feet of sediment, appear to be 'geographically related to the Great Pyramid of Giza' in Egypt.

While his findings have not been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Gelé argued the site may date back to the end of the last Ice Age, when rising seas about 11,700 years ago submerged vast coastal landscapes.

The foundation of his theory rests on mysterious granite mounds discovered beneath Chandeleur Sound, a material not naturally found in Louisiana, which he believes were deliberately transported and assembled.

'Somebody floated a billion stones down the Mississippi River and assembled them outside what would later become New Orleans,' Gelé said, after more than five decades studying the site.

Gelé has personally funded and conducted more than 40 underwater research expeditions in the area since 1974.

While he officially revealed his discoveries to the world in March 2022, his interview on WWL-TV has resurfaced.

During the interview, local shrimper Ricky Robin, who took Gelé to the site multiple times, claimed that the compass on his boat spun completely around near the area where the tip of the pyramids was suspected.

'Everything will go out on your boat. All your electronics like you were in the Bermuda Triangle,' said Robin. 

He added that other local fishermen have shared stories about catching strange, square rocks in their nets.

'I thought right away it was pieces of the pyramid because it was right around where that compass spun,' Robin said. 

While the idea of a lost city is captivating, several scientists have offered more conventional explanations for the mysterious underwater mounds.

Gelé himself explored alternative explanations for the granite masses during a 2014 presentation, including the possibility that the stones came from a construction dump or debris left behind by multiple shipwrecks.

However, he noted that construction debris only appears on the top surface of the mounds, and granite blocks are expensive construction materials, and would not be discarded so easily. 

A separate study conducted by Texas A&M University in the late 1980s also concluded that the underwater granite likely originated from shipwreck activity, or from piles of ballast stones discarded from vessels, WWL-TV reported.

Historians believe the stones may have been dumped from Spanish or French ships to lighten their loads as they approached shallow waters on routes leading to New Orleans.

Local newspaper The Advocate later examined the mystery in 2011, speaking with LSU archaeology professor Rob Mann, who offered another explanation for the unusual formations.

He suggested the granite could be remnants of an effort to build an artificial reef in the 1940s, created by dumping construction materials into the water.

'I think simply searching underwater at this point won't give us any more answers,' Mann told the newspaper.

'When the historical archive work is done, looking at records and newspapers, that's when we will know what it is.'

The publication also interviewed the state's archaeologist at the time, who agreed that the formations appeared to be the result of large barge loads of stone being dumped at the site.

'But why and why there?' he said. 'Those are questions that need to be answered.'