MOUNT OLYMPUS, Cyprus (Reuters) - Some say it is in the Aegean, others in the Azores, off the Celtic Ridge of Britain or even as far as the South China Sea, but an American researcher says everyone has been looking in the wrong place.

Atlantis was in Cyprus and ancient philosopher Plato is about to be vindicated, according to Robert Sarmast.

"The island of Cyprus was, or is, part of Atlantis -- a mountaintop," Sarmast said from his home in Los Angeles. "This region is at the heart of the ancient world."

Drawn from accounts by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Solon, Plato's description of a powerful civilization destroyed by the wrath of God has fired the dreams of explorers for centuries.

Of late, it has inspired fantasies of webbed-limbed people living in glass bubbles on the sea bed; of old, it was thought by some to be the Garden of Eden, where mankind fell from God's grace.

Geologists say the land mass of Cyprus's central mountain range once formed the ocean floor. Sarmast says the mountainous island was the tip of the civilization submerged in a devastating earthquake and flood thousands of years ago.

Using deep-sea imagery, simulations of the sea bed, and following some 50 clues found in Plato's Critias and Timaeus Dialogues, Sarmast said he has discovered a sunken rectangular land mass stretching northeast from Cyprus, toward Syria.