Pictured: The UFO-shaped object found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

[dipsydoodle]

Sceptics expected that a deep-water dive would debunk the slew of extra-terrestrial theories surrounding an unidentified object sitting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

But the Swedish expedition team that took the plunge surfaced with more questions than answers - and certainly no solution to its origins.

The divers found that the object, which some have likened to the Millennium Falcon because of its unusual round outline, was raised about 10 to 13ft above the seabed and curved in at the sides, giving it a mushroom shape.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160297/Pictured-The-UFO-shaped-object-the-Baltic-Sea--covered-soot-little-fireplaces-lying-end-1-000ft-runway.html#ixzz1y2SmpCRg

[LuvNewcastle]

1. I wish more effort was put toward sea exploration.

Most of the world is covered by ocean, but there's so much we don't know about it. I think that sea exploration is at least as important as space exploration. There's no telling what's down there.

[Bohunk68]

5. Back in about '90

I had a college professor who stated that the archaeology that was the least covered was that in the waters because of the Ice Age and the lower water levels then. Since then, a lot of stuff has come out, like the prehistoric caves along the French Mediterranean coast that can only be reached by diving. The same goes for the English Channel settlements that were featured in a tv program within the last year.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Looks as if there will be more information to come as soon as they can get the funding

needed to go back. That should be forthcoming when they start allowing those who can afford the trip to go down to see it for themselves in their submarine.

A comment in the article was intriguing:

'I can’t explain what we saw, and I went down there to answer questions, but I came up with even more questions.'

Hope to hear more about this A.S.A.P.

Thanks!

[eShirl]

3. the so-described "soot" covered rocks

I'm thinking this has got to be Bat Boy's underwater fortress.

[Lambrecht98]

4. Spam deleted by Violet_Crumble (MIR Team)

[Shadowflash]

6. UFO 'shaped' object?

What shape are UFO's, anyway?

[pintobean]

10. About the same shape

as rocks - UnFloatable Objects.

[Confusious]

15. They're always round

have you been living under a rock?

I'm sure one of the dungeons has pictures and someone who has seen one.

[Quantess]

7. How weird.

My theory? The aliens wanted a closer look at the stone walled medieval city Visby, on Gotland, Sweden.

[Flying Squirrel]

8. Cheney`s undisclosed location. n/t

[Historic NY]

9. Its 285 ft down & they make it like sound like this difficult...

the Titanic is 13000ft down. Its beginning to sound like some scam to sell to the tourist trade. Burnt rock & fireplaces...please.

[DCBob]

13. Im sceptical too. This should not be difficult to investigate and verify.

Makes you wonder their motives.

[Confusious]

14. 218 feet is the deepest a well trained

and fit scuba diver can go on compressed air.

330 feet is the deepest a scuba diver can go using trimix.

The Baltic also has some real difficult weather, usually turning on a dime.

So, yea, it's a little difficult to get to.

[DCBob]

18. The press release said they have already dove down to it..

http://www.oceanexplorer.se/

Not sure why they cant just go back down and investigate it further. Seems to me it would be fairly obvious if it was stone or not. Just wack it with a hammer and chisel.

[Confusious]

26. weather?

you only get a limited time with trimix. like 10 or 20 minutes at a site. don't really know.

Probably also don't want to touch anything until they talk to an expert.

[DCBob]

29. Yeah, could be.

But it appears they are purposely playing this out for all its worth. Announcing an unusual rock formation is not nearly as appealing as a possible crashed UFO.

[malthaussen]

39. Well, there may not be gold or gems inside...

... but they're probably hoping for some gold outside.

All right by me. Especially if the funds they earn can go towards some real science.

-- Mal

[Shankapotomus]

11. Imagine if it was just

a huge fossilized dinosaur turd ...flattened into that shape when a lumbering Brontosaurus stepped in it millions of years ago?

[Confusious]

17. it would be cool if it was some

sort of stone age communal hut or something, but it's probably just a cooled magma bubble.

PS after looking at it, norway/Sweden were covered by glaciers which then created a huge freshwater lake, so in the time humans have been alive, it's been covered by glaciers and underwater, so no stone age. Here's hoping for aliens, cause a magma bubble would be boring.

[DCBob]

12. Why do they need to sensationalize with references to Star Wars, runways, soot, etc?

The story is strange enough with just the basic facts.

If the images are real and accurate, it sure looks manmade although nature can produce shapes like this. The so called "runway" or path is also quite odd. Also it seems to me that it would be very difficult to identify soot stains on an object that has been underwater for any length of time.

They just need to go down there and take a closer look. If its "manmade" it will be obvious on closer inspection.

[dipsydoodle]

16. I'm not sure a 60 metre diameter object in that location

is likely to be man made.

Probably natural feature of some description - be interesting to see what exactly.

Original report on this seems to CNN back in January :

Shipwreck hunters stumble across mysterious find.

(CNN) -- Deep down on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Swedish treasure hunters think they have made the find of a lifetime.

The problem is, they're not exactly sure what it is they've uncovered.

Out searching for shipwrecks at a secret location between Sweden and Finland, the deep-sea salvage company Ocean Explorer captured an incredible image more than 80 meters below the water's surface.

At first glance, team leader and commercial diver Peter Lindberg joked that his crew had just discovered an unidentified flying object, or UFO.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/28/world/europe/swedish-shipwreck-hunters/index.html

[JHB]

19. I think "treasure hunters" explains the sensationalism...

If they have to drum up financial support for their private venture, "we want to check out this wierd rock formation" isn't likely to rake in the bucks.

[DCBob]

20. yeah, for sure, however, its still quite odd for a natural shape.

There are natural processes/shapes that could mimic this. For example something like these perhaps..







But that "UFO" shape is unique.

[petronius]

46. A volcanic pipe was my first thought when this story came out

And the 'trail' I suspect would have more to do with currents (or a vivid imagination) than any sort of crash-landing.

Fun story, though - and if they found something geologically new I don't begrudge the attempt to cash in...

[DCBob]

52. You can sort of imagine a Devil's Tower like structure underwater..

with pieces of it broken and fallen away to form the shape they are seeing.

[petronius]

54. Yep - the exposed top of an intrusive column, with chunks broken away

along rectangular joints.

I also noticed that the article mentions "a similar structure was found nearby" with no pic or discussion of the similar structure - probably because it doesn't look nearly as much like a UFO...

[freshwest]

28. Also have those stories earlier this year out of Antartica with the Russians. What a planet.

[lumberjack_jeff]

32. To appeal to rich philanthropists.

They just need enough photos to tease a couple million from Richard Branson or the like.

[DCBob]

35. That does sound like what is going on here.

These guys are milking this weird "rock" for all its worth.

[lumberjack_jeff]

36. Yup. It's a rock. n/t

[RandiFan1290]

21. Sounds like an ad for the sub company

"The company have created a submarine that they hope will appeal to tourists and wannabe shipwreck hunters who will pay to take a trip down to the bottom of the Baltic Sea to see for themselves."

"Tourist trips: Diver Peter Lindberg is hoping to take wealthy tourists down in this submarine to see the object"

[morningfog]

22. Send in James Cameron.

[pinboy3niner]

23. Send in Richard Dreyfuss

Give him some mashed potatoes and he can constuct a model of it.



Or, for a little extra, you can get the larger-scale mud pie version...

[pipoman]

24. Really..

how hard would it be to take a core sample..maybe not on the initial trip down, but hardly uncharted territory. Maybe they don't really want to know because there won't be any "wealthy tourists" wanting to waste their time on a rock.

That said the "runway" sounds more like 'Racetrack Playa'..

[GeorgeGist]

25. Spam

[bemildred]

27. Right.

One wonders why at the bottom of the sea is shows the sort of crash landing path one might expect on land?

[siligut]

37. You see what you are looking for?

The most interesting interpretation? But I agree, a runway underwater doesn't make any sense at all.

[madamesilverspurs]

30. If there is a picture in the linked article

can someone please post it? My dialup isn't letting me open the thing. Thanks!

-

[pinboy3niner]

31. Here are a couple of the images...

Hefty trajectory: The Swedish diving team noted a 985-foot flattened out 'runway' leading up to the object, implying that it skidded along the path before stopping but no true answers are clear



The Ocean Explorer team's sonar pictures show that the object is a massive cylinder with a 60 metre diameter and a 400 metre-long tail deep in the Baltic Sea. A similar disk-shaped object was also found about 200 metres away

[madamesilverspurs]

33. Thank you! n/t

[randome]

34. It's Gamera's Graveyard.

Thousands of decaying, giant, flying, fire-breathing turtles line the sea bed.

Everyone knows this.

[pintobean]

47. It's obviously the Martians.

[pinboy3niner]

53. Round up the usual suspect

[Marr]

38. Could be just about anything. The amount of crap that falls off

cargo ships alone is staggering. You name it, it's down on the ocean floor somewhere.

[Archae]

40. Is this a Murdoch paper?

That thought came to mind when I saw a link to an uncensored photo of the "face-chewer" and his victim, and a couple other lurid stories.

[dipsydoodle]

42. Don't be ridiculous

aside from which the original article was CNN from January.

I think you find that Murdoch doesn't own CNN either.

[Archae]

43. And...?

Because CNN has become more or less a Murdoch production.

[dipsydoodle]

44. Your actual question,

which you could easily have searched ,was does Murdoch own the Mail.

[RagAss]

41. Where the hell do you think Cheney was hiding for 8 years !

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. Ok Lucas has struck gold with two things

one of the moons around Jupiter does look like a certain Death Star... and this was BEFORE the Voyager expeditions. Now this...

Ok reaching for that tinfoil... is Lucas Human?

(For the joke averse, it is a joke, there is no seriousness in this post)

[randome]

49. After watching Prometheus with all its unnecessary and confusing 'answers' to the Alien mythos...

...I have to wonder if George Lucas and Ridley Scott are one and the same person!

They both seem determined to try, try again until they leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

48. Uh oh

[Confusious]

50. It can't be aliens

everyine knows aliens land and crash land in upstate new York, not in the Baltic sea.

sheesh.

[zappaman]

51. I love that guy!

Doubtful it is a spacecraft.
But, hey, keep milking it.
Tourism might go up.
PT Barnum would be proud.

[slutticus]

55. lol

wow. facepalm city.

[felix_numinous]

56. Awesome cool looking sub!!

I can't wait to find out what this object is!!

[csziggy]

57. The first comment at Gizmodo may have the answer

http://gizmodo.com/5918762/photos-of-mysterious-ufo+shaped-object-sunk-in-baltic-sea?comment=50659816#comments

[cherokeeprogressive]

58. Are these people stupid or what? It's a USO.

Unidentified Seabed Object.

Nothing more.