Update June 21, 2012. As the Baltic Sea “anomaly” has proven to be nothing more than a (some would argue interesting) pile of rocks, UFOEyes will not continue to cover the finding. Also, research point to the discovery being an eloborate publicity stunt and/or a meteorite impact crater. While the latter is indeed interesting, it lies outside of the scope of this website.

However, if the concept of divers trying to solve a UFO mystery is something that tickles your fancy, do check out our latest article about the Swedish ghost rockets and the expedition to find out what might be hiding in the lakes of northern Sweden.

Update June 15, 2012. So, it has now been confirmed that the “anomaly” is not of extraterrestrial origin. Or is it? Maybe, but not in the shape of an extraterrestrial craft. See, the characteristics of the “anomaly” would suggest that parts of the clay bottom has at some point solidified and turned into a cement like material. One theory is that this occurred when a meteorite hit the Earth’s crust.

Interestingly, not far from the supposed location of the “anomaly”, a large meteorite hit the Earth about 1000 million years ago. The bay of Lumparn in the Åland Islands is a 9 kilometer wide impact crater.

A. Location of Lumparn, the impact crater. The “anomaly” is supposedly located about 80 nautical miles south-west of Rauma, close to the shipwreck of the Kyros that the Ocean X Team was surveying when they discovered the “anomaly”.

Says Wikipedia about the crater:

Most of the bay fills a nine kilometer wide impact crater. The crater is estimated to be about 1000 million years old (Proterozoic). The depression was originally believed to be a rift. Extraterrestrial origin was first proposed in 1979, but not until 1993 was the impact structure finally confirmed. Long shatter cones have been discovered in the southwestern part of the bay. The crater is filled with sediments, between Pleistocene sediments and crushed rapakivi granite bedrock there is a layer of Paleozoic (Ordovician) limestones.

When a large meteorite hits the atmosphere, it’s very likely that it will break up into smaller pieces. Could the “anomaly” be an impact crater created by a piece of the large meteorite that hit the Earth about 100 kilometers south of the “anomaly”? Based on the information released today, I’d say it’s very possible.

The wait is over. Swedish tabloid Expressen got hold of photos of the anomaly taken by the divers — it’s a sandstone formation.

Video

Google translation of article (don’t have time for a proper translation at the moment):

The mysterious circle at close range

The circle on the bottom of the Baltic became a world first when it was discovered a year ago – now thickens the mystery. Express can now publish exclusive pictures from the first dive at the item – at 85 meters depth.

- We were there to find answers, but only got even more issues, says Stefan Hogeborn, 47, one of the divers from Ocean X Team, which investigated the circle on the bottom of the Baltic.

On June 11 last year went nine professional divers on the Baltic Sea to locate shipwrecks. The divers ran in zigzag back and forth over a large area to search for a number of specific wrecks – when a large, round formation showed up on their scanner screen. They examined the object closely and what they found puzzled the whole world.

Some of Sweden’s leading researchers in marine archeology saw the first pictures from the circle that was taken with the so-called sonar, a scanner tool, but no one could answer what the pictures depicted.

Raises more questions
The mysterious discovery spread in the media worldwide, such as CNN reported on the Baltic Sea Mystery. So far no pictures from diving in the circle published.

Now Express – as the first newspaper – publish the first pictures from the dive at the mysterious object. A dive that was supposed to provide answers to the mystery – but instead brought even more questions.

Stefan Hogeborn has 20 years experience of diving and working as underwater photographer and dive instructor. Here he describes the first dive at the world famous circle in the Baltic Sea:

- The first thing we will see is some kind of rock formation that looks to be cast in cement, he said.
When they swim further, they see several rock formations.
- It looks almost like a pearl necklace or that someone has tried to make a fireplace with an inch-sized rocks on the ocean floor.

The furnace-like rock formations on top of that which constitutes the large circle that was discovered with a scanner tool last year. Divers images shows that the circle in turn consist of several blocks formed by “rolls” or “mushrooms” that is attached to each other, forming the circle. Overall, the object is 60 meters long and about as wide.

- When we had swum across the object, we get to the weird thing. Then it’s like someone has pinched the mountain at the edge, as if you have breathed together two molds, and it sticks out between stone formers, said Stefan Hogeborn.

“Probably sandstone”
At the next dive, they took a sledgehammer to dislodge a piece of material. Stefan Hogeborn describes the sense of carbonized material. During the last dive divers discover an oblong hole in one and a half times the six inches that go into one of the rocks which form the circle.

- I have never, ever, ever, seen anything like it, says Stefan Hogeborn.
Expressen has let Martin Jakobsson, a professor of marine geology and geophysics at the University of Stockholm, see an image from the dive.

- There is probably some kind of sandstone. When you look at the structure, it looks like it, he says.
The samples from the discovery of the Baltic Sea has been sent for analysis.

- Since we did not get any answers to the questions we asked ourselves, we have brought this to the experts who may be looking at the pieces we brought up, says Stefan Hogeborn.

So that’s that folks.

Update June 14, 2012. It’s time for some speculation as to the true nature of the Ocean X Team’s current mission to uncover the truth about the “anomaly”. Simply put, I don’t buy it. My gut feeling says there’s something iffy about the whole shebang.

Also, I’ve done some research.

First, the Ocean X Team is in the treasure hunting business and they’ve been recovering shipwreck cargo for over 20 years. They’re professionals and have over the years successfully recovered cargo worth millions of euros.

In 1999, the Ocean X Team found the wreck of Kyros, a Swedish steamship sunk by a German submarine on May 19, 1917. The Kyros was carrying 1000 bottles of cognac and 300 bottles of liquor when it was torpedoed. However, the wreck’s depth, lack of funding and bad weather conditions have kept the team from recovering the cargo.¹

Fast forward to early February 2012, when a Finnish team of divers announce that they too have found the Kyros, and that they plan on recovering its cargo. The Kyros lies in international waters, and no owner of the ship or its cargo have been identified. That means — finders, keepers.²

Now, imagine the Ocean X Team’s reaction when they heard the news. Suddenly, another group of treasure hunters knew what only they thought they knew — the exact location of the Kyros and its very valuable cargo.

But wait a minute, what has this to do with the “anomaly”? Well, look at this:

The filename of the sonar scan image of the “anomaly” is named “kyros.xtf”, which would suggest that the Ocean X Team were scanning the area of the Kyros when they found the “anomaly”. Indeed, this was confirmed by another team of divers who knew about the Ocean X Team’s whereabouts at the time last summer.³

So, the Ocean X Team was on a mission to the Kyros last summer, but could for one reason or another not recover its cargo (maybe for the reasons listed above). At the same time, they must have known about other team’s efforts to find the shipwreck, and might have suspected that the Finnish team was close to finding it or were in the process of confirming its location.

Simply put, the Ocean X Team needed money — desperately — to be able to recover the Kyros’ cargo before someone else did.

See were this is going?

They made up a story about an amazing discovery, created a lot of media hype, got a production company onboard, secured a contract for a TV series (called the Baltic Cowboys⁴), and lo and behold — suddenly they had the funds necessary to recover the valuable cargo.

The “anomaly” might be real. Maybe they did indeed find something they couldn’t identify. But I can’t for a second believe that a bunch of seasoned treasure hunters would go on a mission to identify something anomalous on the ocean floor when there are literally millions of euros worth of cargo waiting for them on the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

1. http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/view/contact_person/dennis-aasberg-ocean-explorer-dykning-paa-vrak-17596
2. http://yle.fi/uutiset/cognac_treasure_ship_found_near_aland/5297553
3. http://www.alandstidningen.ax/article.con?id=30853&iPage=1 (in Swedish, complete article in paper version only)
4. http://www.balticcowboys.com/

Update June 13, 2012. By now, the Internet is filled with digitally enhanced versions of the sonar images that show the “anomaly”. This one — made by digital artist Andrea Fryer — is pretty interesting:

But are we grasping at straws here? The face on Mars looked amazing from afar, but up close it proved to be nothing more than a rock formation…

Interesting observation by one of the members of the Ocean X Team’s Facebook page:

Basically, this shows that the “skidmarks” can’t be skidmarks as they are something more volumetric in the original images.

Update June 12, 2012. Just how much has the Ocean X Team’s approach changed when it comes to the “anomaly”? On August 9 last year, crew member Peter Lindberg had this to say about the discovery (emphasis mine):

Speculations; In the area where we found “it” there is approximately a 4-6 meter thick layer of glacial clay and on top of that a layer of sediment which is about 0,2 meters thick.

Under the layer of glacial clay there is bedrock. At some places in the Baltic and Gulf of Bothnia the bedrock are comming up through the clay and ridges and hill-formations are formed.

The area is in no way thermal active.

An other thing is that this place was under the ice during the ice age which probably means that is not an old volcano crater. A crater should have been flatten out by the ice.

Granted, this was before they got a TV production company involved.

Just a quick update with some new developments that’s been causing havoc on the Ocean X Team’s Facebook page, which has seen a lot of non-moderated activity in the last couple of days. Moderators stepped in quickly today though when a local long-time professional marine archaeological diver — a resident of Norrtälje, where the Ancylus is moored — posted a picture of her son on the Ancylus bridge together with a comment that read along the lines of “no no, the anomaly is surely not a UFO.” The photo and comment were quickly deleted.

Viral marketing 101 — control the flow of information!

Do visit the team’s Facebook page — it’s pure drama.

Update June 11, 2012. The Ancylus captain Dennis Åsberg on the Ocean X Team Facebook page:

Everything is top secret now … because of the risks … hope you all understand this is no game. But the truth will be reported shortly.

Oh, the hype of it all.

This is how I believe things went down — last year, their sonar did indeed pick up something unusual on the ocean floor, and being treasure hunters, they immediately started brainstorming on whether there might be anything to gain from the discovery. Nothing wrong with that. Then things escalated and the Swedish production company Titan TV (known for their inane reality shows) got involved. The Ocean X Team’s website got an overhaul to focus on the “anomaly” and their news updates went from “We’re going to buy a boat and go on a mission” to “There is definitely something unusual hiding at the seabed – a Mystery Beneath.” (note the capitalization of Mystery Beneath, like they’re selling a product).

Now they’re hard at work keeping the hype up by giving statements like the one above. Again, nothing wrong with that, but let’s at least be aware of what we’re dealing with here — a bunch of savvy treasure hunters trying to sell their upcoming TV series and, as recent documents might suggest (see below), find new ways to finance their no doubt expensive future treasure hunting endeavours.

(Also, disclose.tv, real classy coming here copying our articles verbatim and then selling them as your own.)

Update June 10, 2012. The Ocean X Team is back in Norrtälje harbor to get supplies and will then go back to the anomaly for further investigation. It’s unclear what they have found (if anything). Crew member Dennis Åsberg has stated in a post on their Facebook page that they have uncovered something “amazing.” Tomorrow, Monday, there will be a press release about the findings so far.

Update June 9, 2012. Someone slipped up when uploading private documents to the Ocean X Team website. UFOEYES learned today that a simple Google search reveals documents stored on the team’s website that strongly suggest that the Baltic Sea anomaly is nothing more than a publicity stunt to raise money (presumably for the treasure hunters’ other projects).

This is a translated paragraph from a Word document located on the Ocean X Team website that Google has indexed and cached:

The Ocean X Team will do their utmost to create publicity for the Circle project and thus attracting considerable and valuable media attention, which can be used in advertising. So far, about 700 million viewers around the world have been reached through news broadcasts, Internet-based news outlets not included.

The document further suggests that the team’s main interest in the anomaly is monetary compensation:

Is the circle something that can be salvaged and which contains monetary value? If the circle is a natural resource, the OX team can not guarantee monetary compensation as it’s located within an economic zone.

Again, this information can be obtained through a simple Google search. Click here and see the last two Google search results on page 9. The PDF document indexed by Google contains the team’s budget calculations, and is in English.

Update June 7, 2012. Today on the Ocean Explorer website:

The divers are now down and investigating the circle and reports from the ship say they are really amazed. There is definitely something unusual hiding at the seabed – a Mystery Beneath.

More information and pictures will be released next week.

Hmm, there’s definitely a marketing department lurking behind these news snippets.

Update June 6, 2012. Today this little snippet of news was posted on the Ocean Explorer website:

The ship Ancylus, carrying the Ocean X Team, is now anchored above the circle-shaped object. They started to scan the seabed and they are taking samples for analyses.

Due to really bad weather conditions the operation took a little bit longer than scheduled. But they are working hard and prepare to dive down there for further investigations today.

(See also the forum thread for the latest developments.)

Update June 4, 2012: Track ships close to the Baltic Sea anomaly in realtime.

Update 29 May, 2012

The Ocean Explorer team will set out for the anomaly this Friday, 1 June, and maybe, hopefully, the event will be live broadcast on the web. Fox News reports today:

The Ocean Explorer crew includes 13 researchers, including a sonar expert, and a camera crew from Swedish TV that will document the event. Lindberg said he is in negotiations with Microsoft to see if the event can be carried live on the Internet, from the remote location in international waters via video streaming.

“We’re working with Microsoft on that, but nothing is final yet. Tell them we want to do a deal,” he joked.

Now that would be pretty interesting.

Last summer, a team of treasure hunters based in Stockholm found a strange disc-shaped object on the floor of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. Leading up to the object or formation is what looks like a churned-up track on the sea floor of about 300 meters.

Now, we might be a step closer to finding out what it was that they caught on sonar. Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reports that the team plans to start diving in the end of May.

(What follows is a quick translation of the April 30 article, done here at the UFOEYES offices. Apologies for any weird wording.)

Treasure hunters get to the bottom of the UFO mystery

In May, the diving starts in the Baltic Sea

They’ve been showered with phone calls from journalists and scammers, and have even received death threats from Christian fundamentalists.

After divers Dennis Åsberg and Peter Lindberg found a giant circle formation in the Baltic Sea last summer, they have been contacted by thousands of people.

They will now try to get to the bottom of the matter – literally.

A UFO? An abandoned submarine base? When divers Dennis Åsberg and Peter Lindberg saw the giant circle on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they could not imagine the enormous attention it would attract.

- I have received 110.000 emails. And 95 percent of those are from UFO buffs. They are convinced that we have found a UFO, Dennis Åsberg told Aftonbladet in January.

In-depth investigation

Now he and his colleague Peter Lindberg will try to shed light on the whole issue.

In the end of May, they will dive down and explore the formations that are located at a depth of 87 meters.

- First, we’ll take ground samples to see if there are any toxins, radioactive material or any other harmful substances present. Then, when we feel it’s safe, we’ll use a small, unmanned submarine that will film the formations and collect samples, said Dennis Åsberg.

Many of those who contacted the team were scammers wanting to make money off the discovery. But now, the treasure hunters from Åkersberga have found a serious financier.

- We’ve partnered up with a Swedish production company that will finance a big part of this. There will be a TV series that will be aired internationally, said Dennis Åsberg.

Methane ice or a Russian submarine base

To their help they have marine geologists and other scientists who all have their own theories about what’s down there.

- One geologist thinks it may be a gas deposit, perhaps methane ice from the ice age, said Dennis Åsberg.

So no UFO?

- 95% of the people we talk to think it comes from above. And even I, who have to try to keep a professional mindset, begins to question things. We have obviously found something unique, and now we need to figure out what it is. A meteor, a UFO, a Russian submarine base from the Cold War or something that was dumped? Now, we’re going to make a thorough investigation to find out what it is.

Now, a more troubling development is the team’s recently published short teaser video to what they call The Baltic Sea Anomaly 2012. Their website has also recently undergone a redesign and is now wholeheartedly focusing on the “anomaly”. I don’t know, come late May I guess we’ll find out if they’ve found anything of interest. And whether it will cost us $9.99 to behold.

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