Thomas Greanias is the New  York Times bestselling author of The Atlantis Prophecy and Raising Atlantis. A graduate of Northwestern University, Greanias's varied background includes having worked as an on-air correspondent in Washington D.C. for NBC affiliates, and advising Congress, the White House and Fortune 50 CEOs on the future of digital convergence. His media development, production and finance company, Thomas Greanias Entertainment, produces audiobooks, interactive games, and now motion pictures. He is at work on The Atlantis Revelation, but was kind enough to take time out for a brief interview.

How is this book different from Raising Atlantis and why did you go in the direction you chose?

Raising Atlantis involved the discovery of ancient ruins two miles beneath the ice of Antarctica - Atlantis. The Atlantis Prophecy, on the other hand, involves a global conspiracy by those who feel they are the heirs of Atlantis and want to create a New Atlantis. And that's what Sir Francis Bacon called America and the New World - the New Atlantis. I went this route because of research on the third book in the trilogy - The Atlantis Revelation. Hitler had an outfit called the Ahnenerbe (German Ancestral Heritage), composed of leading academics and archaeologists. They scoured the earth in search of proof that the Aryans were the genetic descendants of Atlantis and thus the "master race." What amazed me was how much of their research drew upon America's Founding Fathers, the Freemasons, Knights Templar, etc., and how those groups in turn influenced the shape of the Nazi SS, itself a secret society. Throughout history villainy has sought the imprimatur of history or myth to justify itself.

The Atlantis Prophecy is based on a story you wrote a long time ago. Can you tell us the story behind the writing of this book?

Ah, yes. It always pains me to see the the "rip-off of National Treasure" criticisms when, in fact, The Atlantis Prophecy is based on a No. 1 bestselling eDoc on Amazon in 2001 that I wrote to promote Raising Atlantis, several years before the first National Treasure had a completed script or hit the screen. The eDoc was called "Washingotnople" — I think it's still for sale on Amazon for $2.99 — and allegedly written by Dr. Conrad Yeats, the hero of Raising Atlantis, as a secret government "white paper" for the National Science Foundation. The NSF has hired experts like my astro-archaeologist for years to make sense of things in Washington, D.C., including the astronomical alignment of the city to the stars and even the location of the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. (Officially, they still haven't found it.)

Anyway, going further still, the idea for The Atlantis Prophecy first hit me as a young NBC correspondent in D.C. the night I covered my first State of the Union Address. It was 1987 and I was 21 and still finishing up my Masters Degree in Journalism. Reagan had just finished and I have wrapped my "stand up" in front of the Capitol when a friend in government offered to "show me something" beneath the Capitol. It was then that I first saw the real hidden world beneath the U.S. Capitol and much of the Mall, and tunnels that were built before WE built tunnels....