Washed up on a California beach after a storm, the half-dead amphibian is rushed to a naval hospital where a beautiful woman doctor, Elizabeth Merrill, saves his life by popping him back in the water after X-rays have shown he has gills where his lungs should be. Dr. Merrill christens the submariner Mark Harris and recruits him to the Foundation for Oceanic Research. While helping Dr. Merrill and her colleagues in the super-sub Cetacean, he hopes to find out if he is indeed the sole survivor of the lost city of Atlantis.