An undersea image?

[Constance]

Hi Constance my understanding is that the 20k a day budget was provided by the production company (who made "the Mystery beneath") but I could be wrong.

My impression was that Titan (the Swedish production company) supported OX by renting some costly underwater imaging devices (e.g., ROV, multibeam sonar) for the expeditions to the site, perhaps also paid for the fuel required. I'll try to clear this up and post later what I find out. In the two years I followed the main OX forum closely it became clear that Titan had written a contract with OX that retained control of what OX could share with the public concerning what they found at the site before Titan released its documentary -- and continues to hold hundreds of hours of exposed film that the team leaders cannot review.

 

[Han]

That is really sad, but typical of the kind of power that TV companies have.
I wonder if they (OX) have tried to contact James Cameron? (director of the abyss and real life deep sea explorer) because getting somebody with his clout onside, could be of immense benefit both in terms of funding and media exposure.

 

[Constance]

That is really sad, but typical of the kind of power that TV companies have.

I wonder if they (OX) have tried to contact James Cameron? (director of the abyss and real life deep sea explorer) because getting somebody with his clout onside, could be of immense benefit both in terms of funding and media exposure.

They contacted Cameron and others with similar interests and lots of money, high tech underwater vehicles, etc. No one came across with support. Could be because the Baltic Anomaly was 'tainted' from the outset by mass media's focus on its similarity to the 'Millenium Falcon'. Could be some other reason. I suspect some other reason.

 

[Constance]

It is easy for me to say that the coordinates should be made public so that further exploration can be done by other parties, but I do understand why they would want to keep this information secret.

Ocean X made the coordinates public three or four months ago. The OX Team had hoped they would be able to dive on the two anomalies again, but weather and financing did not permit more than additional sonar sweeps (but those are interesting; see below).

I suppose what I am trying to get at is: that if the Anomaly is of genuine significance then maybe the best thing is to be open and honest, but this would probably result in a loss of $ to the Ocean X Team but it would mean that the chance of proper investigation would be dramatically increased.

OXT's leaders poured all they had financially into attempting to explore these anomalies. After the third year their ship failed and they rented a former minesweeper. I think they've purchased another ship now. There is another team of wreck-divers in the area, I think from Norway, that were interested in the anomalies, but all these guys have to make a living, pay for equipment, and pay their divers. The Swedish Navy called OXT in for a discussion several years ago; little of the meeting has been made public. One more thing is new: a few weeks ago OXT dived on and identified a 100-year-old Russian submarine that sank within 1.5 miles of the Swedish coast in the early 20th C. The Russians contracted with them to find it, having identified it's approximate location.

I also have to wonder if Ocean Team X are the only ones who know the location of the Anomaly because the Baltic is a valuable fishery and the targeted species are generally caught using the Trawling method, meaning that huge nets are dragged along the seabed sometimes at depths well in excess of 80 meters, in short the potential damage or loss of fishing equipment would suggest to me that the area directly around the Anomaly would be a known no go area for deep Trawling.

Actually, with the possible exception of the navies of bordering countries, no one else had heard of this anomaly until OXT discovered it while dragging their sonar fish back to Stockholm about four years ago.

New sonar images were obtained by OXT earlier this year, which is why I'm adding to this thread now. The image I'm about to link is of Anomaly 2, located about 200 meters from the widely-recogized circular Anomaly 1, which was conjectured at first to possibly have broken away from Anomaly 1 in a crash.

The arrow and circles were drawn by Christophe Guegan, who has remained interested in the Baltic anomalies since the beginning.

I'm posting this image here to ask others what impressions this image makes upon them. In my opinion, this does not look like a pile of rocks tumbled and scoured and pressed along the bottom of the Baltic during the last glacial retreat at the end of the Ice Age. I think it looks more like a pile of torn-up mechanical debris that could have resulted from a crash in the Baltic, perhaps through a layer of ice.

 

[Constance]

I just skimmed through this thread from the beginning and saw a question raised by @technomage that I did not see before:

Weren't there some electromagnetic anomalies associated with this object?

Yes there were indeed. These occurred during the first dives on Anomaly 1, and on several later expeditions to the anomaly when the problem was worse. It affected the ROV most significantly; the ROV pilot, directing the instrument from the ship, was unable to drive it in the directions desired since its compass was dysfunctional. Underwater lights carried by the divers were also affected at times, and perhaps also some cameras. Being directly over the anomaly also interfered with cells phones and other electronics on the ship.

 

[Constance]

Also, in the third expedition the team sought to dive on and explore Anomaly 2 but were prevented from doing so by extremely rough seas. And on that occasion as well, the ROV again became inoperable.

OXT do intend to dive on A2 and A1 again whenever economics and weather permit. My impression is that they want to go first to A2, which I've been hoping for for three years. From earlier and more recent sonar images of A2 I'm persuaded that at that site there will be pieces of the object that can be picked up and brought to the surface for materials analysis.

 

[technomage]

The Paracast should get someone to discuss this topic as I haven't heard much about it on the program.