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Baltic Sea thing
The woo is out there UFOlogy |
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Aliens did it... |
...and ran away |
The Baltic Sea thing is an unusual structure, most probably natural, on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. It still has no "official" name. It has been called the Baltic (Sea) Anomaly by people who like the word "anomaly", and the Baltic Sea UFO by UFO nuts and tabloid journalists.
It was discovered in the summer of 2011 during a sonar survey of the sea floor by a team of marine treasure hunters looking for a wreck to pillage salvage. The sonar showed an unusually regular circular formation with a diameter of about 60 meters (200 feet).
Dives in 2012 found out that it was a stone dome resembling a mushroom.
The most likely explanation is some kind of rare natural structure, such as:
- Something analogous to a lava dome
- An inactive hydrothermal vent
- Glacial detritus from the last ice age, a moraine
Various unlikely explanations have been also proposed:
- A round-hulled 19th century Russian ironclad ship
(a "popovka"). This is right out, as only two were ever built and both ended up scrapped
- An extraterrestrial spaceship, though this was pretty much debunked by the 2012 dives which established that it was made of stone
- An extraterrestrial spaceship made of stone (Take that, skeptics!)
- A prehistoric archaeological site submerged due to rising sea levels (Unlikely, as the Baltic basin was heavily glaciated during the last ice age, thereby effacing any evidence of human occupation. The great weight of ice depressed the land mass so that it was replaced with water when the ice melted. Currently the Baltic basin is actually rising as it adjusts to the loss of overburden
and sea level is therefore effectively falling.[1])
- A remnant of a prehistoric super-civilization (really unlikely)
- Cthulhu's resting place (really, really unlikely[note 1])
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- Ocean X-Team's website
- UFO found on ocean floor?, thread at the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum, started 29 July 2011
- 'It's either the Millennium Falcon or a gateway to hell': Shipwreck hunters find mysterious object at bottom of Baltic Sea, the Daily Fail's coverage, February 2012. They helpfully included a picture of the Millennium Falcon.
- Pictured: The UFO-shaped object found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea... covered in soot, with 'little fireplaces' and lying at the end of a 1,000ft runway, the Daily Mail reporting speculation as fact for the umpteenth time, 18 June 2012
- See the Wikipedia article on Baltic Sea anomaly.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ At the very least, it's in the wrong ocean. Unless he rises very suddenly and violently.
References[edit]
- ↑ http://luonto.vaasa.fi/In_English/Nature/Land_uplift Nature Vaasa:Land Uplift]