Where did the UFO at the bottom of the Baltic Sea come from? Uncover the mysteries of one of the busiest shipping areas in the world.
The Baltic Sea is not only mysterious but also beautiful, especially during the seasons of the northern lights. Photo: Olga KOVALEVA/Global Look Press
Despite being one of the most navigable seas, mysteries abound at every turn! Here are just a few topics explored in the new documentary film on the "Science" channel as part of the "Scientific Sensations" series. So…
Strange Objects Underwater
In 2011, a group of Swedish divers exploring the Gulf of Bothnia discovered a mysterious object resembling a flying saucer with a diameter of about 60 meters. Its surface featured rectangular corridors, square indentations, and unclear protrusions. Sonar revealed a clear 300-meter trench nearby, resembling a trail left by a spacecraft that had landed on the seabed. The media quickly dubbed the find the "Baltic UFO," while fans of "Star Wars" referred to it as the "Millennium Falcon." Because it truly looks similar!
Photo: Screenshot from the video
But the mysterious discoveries didn’t end there. Later, at a depth of 21 meters, scientists from Kiel University stumbled upon a nearly one-kilometer-long wall. The boulders were perfectly aligned, making natural formation highly unlikely. The find was immediately dubbed the Baltic Atlantis. There were suggestions that the wall might have been part of fortifications of an unknown ancient city.
These objects stirred the minds of scientists and adventurers for several years. However, upon closer examination, the truth turned out to be much more mundane.
The "spaceship" was explained as a seabed anomaly formed by the movement of a powerful ancient glacier. The wall turned out to be man-made, constructed by ancient people for hunting…
The mysterious object found at depth incredibly resembled the outline of the starship "Millennium Falcon" from the "Star Wars" saga. Photo: Bettina STRENSKE/Global Look Press
Mini-Tsunamis
The Baltic Sea is famous for its… tsunamis! A long wave, also known as a "mini-tsunami," originates thousands of kilometers away from St. Petersburg in the Atlantic Ocean. When the wind blows from west to east, a cyclone enters the Baltic Sea, and the wave rushes directly into the narrow and shallow Gulf of Finland.
- The causes of flooding are related to the formation of cyclones and their passage through the entire Baltic Sea into the Gulf of Finland, - explains Igor Polishchuk, Deputy General Director for Operations of the Protective Structures Complex. - The reason is low pressure and wind setup.
In the past, there was nothing to counter the elements, but in 2011, the construction of the St. Petersburg Dam was completed - the largest hydraulic engineering structure in the Baltic waters. The central control room of the complex is located in Kronstadt. From here, all sea gates of St. Petersburg can be closed in just one hour. In the event of flooding, they are secured by two so-called batoports - a hybrid of a sluice, vessel, and submarine.
Was St. Petersburg Atlantis?
On the shores of the Gulf of Finland, one can clearly see traces of ancient water bodies, including the Litorina Sea, which once existed in the depression of what is now the Baltic, in the form of sand dunes, spits, and ledges. The unusual landscape of Peterhof with its "hills" is indeed the Litorina ledge. A significant portion of modern St. Petersburg's territory is nothing more than a former seabed. The well-known Ligovskaya Spit separated the lagoon of that very Litorina Sea. The Litorina ledge is also distinctly visible in the northern part of the city. In the area near the village of Serovo, the height difference is already over 20 meters. The famous Curonian Spit did not always rise above the coast; during the Litorina era, its upper edge was approximately at sea level.
Many secrets still lie beneath the Baltic waters… Photo: Andrey NEKRASOV/Global Look Press
Why is it so Polluted?
- The Baltic waters contain a huge amount of pollutants, - asserts Alexandra Ershova, an associate professor at the Russian State Hydrometeorological University and head of the laboratory for studying plastic pollution in the natural environment. - These include pesticides, heavy metals, and various organic pollutants.
Additionally, the waters of the Baltic are infused with numerous toxic substances. Among them are even chemical warfare agents! After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Allies sank over 40,000 units of trophy chemical weapons in the deepest trenches of the Baltic.
In the 1990s, scientists assessed the rate of metal corrosion. They found that it would take 60 to 70 years for the bodies of bombs and shells to decompose in the Baltic waters. This means that the mass release of chemicals into the sea's ecosystem should have occurred back in the early 2000s. During that time, international teams of scientists actively collected water samples, including from the deep-water areas of the Baltic. However, no significant concentrations of toxic substances have been found to date. Why?
- The general opinion, which I share, is that all these concentrations of chemical weapon derivatives are extremely low, and at the current level of scientific development, it can be concluded that they are not dangerous in principle, - explains Vadim Sivkov, director of the Atlantic Branch of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
So we can breathe a sigh of relief and not listen to the echoes of war...