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| Investigating the mystery object (image from oceanexplorer.se) |
A
strangely-shaped object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea has been interfering
with the electrical devices of the Swedish diving team that is trying to film
it. But critics are growing more skeptical about the long-running mystery.
The
Swedish Ocean X treasure-hunting team first discovered a mystery object
reminiscent of the Star Wars spaceship Millennium Falcon last year.
But
they didn’t have the resources to investigate. Now, they have returned with
top-of-the-range 3D seabed scanners and a submersible – all funded by a secret
sponsor.
 |
| The team studies their map before the next dive (screenshot from NDTV) |
They are
trying to film it but as soon as they get close, they are foiled.
“Anything
electric out there – and the satellite phone as well – stopped working when we
were above the object,” Stefan Hogerborn, the expedition’s lead diver, told
Swedish channel NDTV.
“And then
we got away about 200 meters and it turned on again, and when we got back over
the object it didn’t work.”
The
discovery itself is described as a round object resembling a “huge mushroom.”
On top of it is an “egg-shaped” portal. The team said that a 300-meter trail
that “can be described as a runway” stretches out from the site of the
“spaceship.”
The team
has not been shy to speculate about what they have seen.
“It's a
meteorite or an asteroid or a volcano or a base from, say, a U-boat from the
Cold War which has manufactured and placed there – or it is a UFO. Well
honestly, it has to be something," says Dennis Asberg, one of the Ocean X
team.
The
electric interference seems to confirm that the object is by no means ordinary.
 |
| A "huge mushroom" (image from Gizmodo) |
 |
| The original sonar (image from oceanexplorer.se) |
Not everyone
appears convinced.
Critics
have accused Ocean X, who are professional wreck-hunters, not oceanographers,
of poor science and incessant attempts to court publicity in order to secure
funding.
Hanumant
Singh, a researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, told US
magazine Popular Mechanics that the original “Millennium Falcon” image that
sparked the media firestorm was taken using a cheap and incorrectly-calibrated
sonar.
Charles
Paull, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in
Moss Landing, told the same magazine that bizarre but relatively common
formations can be created by gas and fluid leaks from underneath the seabed.
As to the
signal interference, it does not appear to have been a consistent phenomenon,
since there appears to be extensive footage taken within several feet of the
mystery object. And even if it did occur, there are plenty of underwater
materials that interact with sensitive electronics.
Ocean X
denies charges of publicity-seeking.
“First we thought
this was only stone, but this is something else. And since no volcanic activity
has ever been reported in the Baltic Sea the find becomes even stranger,”
claims Peter Lindberg, the Ocean X team founder.
Ocean
X is currently planning commercial trips for tourists to see the “underwater
UFO” in its new submersible.
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