Did Atlantis exist or was it a myth designed to keep people in line?

Maybe once a beautiful place huh?

Surprisingly, Atlantis is a real place! At one point in time, the most advanced race in the galaxy (known as the Ancients) had settled on earth. 10,000 years ago, this advanced race was nearly wiped out by a terrible plague. Most of them left in their technologically advanced flying city and flew to the Pegasus galaxy. They sank their city under the ocean after a race of beings that rivaled the Ancients nearly destroyed them. After sinking their city under the ocean, they returned to earth by a different means thus making it the Lost City of Atlantis.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at September 15, 2018 12:47 PM MDT

It was real, but the story told to Plato, and which he passed on to us, got kinda mutilated along the way. It was a collection of travellers tales filtered through an ancient game of Chinese Whispers. 

In his book Unearthing Atlantis, Dr Charles Pellegrino claims that there was a culture on the Greek island of Thera that was probably a couple of centuries further developed than the rest of the world. They were wiped out in a single day, not by sinking beneath the sea, and not by a tidal wave, but by an almost unique volcanic eruption. 

"Almost" unique because it was so rare that its nature was not understood until Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. 

Pellegrino is a genuine polymath. He's not a crackpot and his book is worth reading.

not even sure what that is