In a close encounter of the submerged kind, a Discovery Channel treasure hunter said he found what could be a massive extraterrestrial structure at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.

Darrell Miklos, host of Discovery's treasure hunting show Cooper's Treasure, was chasing the trail of an English shipwreck for an episode of his show when he made the find 300 feet beneath the Bermuda Triangle.

"I was trying to identify shipwreck material based on one of the anomaly readings on Gordon's charts when I noticed something that stuck out, that shocked me," Miklos told the Daily Mail. "It was a formation unlike anything I've ever seen related to shipwreck material, it was too big for that. It was also something that was completely different from anything that I've seen that was made by nature."

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For two seasons, Miklos has used maps made by his friend, the late NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, to hunt for shipwrecked treasure around the Caribbean Sea. In the 1960s, Cooper flew missions for the Mercury and Gemini space programs. He died in 2004, but, Miklos said, not before passing to him an alleged treasure map. Miklos said Cooper was spying on potential Russian nuclear sites based on magnetic anomalies when he used the same anomalies to make his treasure map. Cooper was also a fervent believer in extraterrestrial life, claiming to have witnessed UFOs during his time in the Air Force.

Miklos' find, however, is a USO, an unidentified submerged object. The coral-covered structure features 15, 300-foot-long arms jutting out from a center object. Scientists on Miklos' team said the coral could be thousands of years old. They also said coral couldn't naturally grow in those formations.

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"There's identical formations in three different areas and they don't look nature made, they don't look man made, certainly nothing I've ever seen based on my experience and I have years of experience at doing this," Miklos said. "We've identified multiple different types of shipwreck material, this doesn't match or look anything like that."

Miklos and the Cooper's Treasure production company, AMPLE Entertainment, hope the find will urge the Discovery Channel to pick up the show for a third season so they can further explore the find.

"Cooper was a reliable source for treasure, then based on his findings Darrell found something that does not appear to be a shipwreck or anything that anybody has ever seen," AMPLE founder Ari Mark said. "We want to find out exactly what it is and establish whether it ties in with Cooper's belief that we're not alone."

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While surprised by the structure, Miklos said he want to investigate further before saying exactly what he thinks the structure could be.

He's not saying it was aliens? But … well, you decide.

Check out the full story at the Daily Mail.

Daniel Figueroa IV can be reached at dfigueroa@tampabay.com. Follow @danuscripts