Update on UFO in the Baltic.

Brilliant idea, broadcast the whole thing live:

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.

Ok, this is what I have found:

Regarding of sidescan sonar imaging:

"...Hanumant Singh, a researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, says regardless of what the picture looks like, these sonar images cannot be trusted.
...First, he says, if you look carefully, you can see a reflection of the circular formation on the right side of the image. Since side-scan sonar is taken with two instruments that bounce acoustic waves in opposite directions from the boat, a feature on one side shouldn’t affect the image on the other side. “This means you’ve got ‘cross-talk,’ in which one channel is electrically contaminating the other,” Singh says. In other words, the sonar instruments aren’t wired properly. Strike one, he says.

Strike two: The black horizontal lines going through the image show that sonar signals are dropping out (that is, the instruments aren’t detecting them), further calling the measurements into question, Singh says. Finally, he says, the edges of the image, just beyond the circular formation, are gray, meaning the sonar couldn’t tell what was there. That shows the sonar isn’t calibrated well enough to trust, Singh says. “That’s strike three.”"

Regarding of explanation - from same article:

"Charles Paull, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., says that even if the formation were real, it could be something as mundane as a circular rock outcropping or the result of fluid or gas venting. Such venting causes inexplicable and poorly understood structures like pockmarks—circular depressions that Paull has seen all around the world. In one area off California alone, he says, he has mapped more than 1400 such pockmarks."

More:

"The disk-shaped formation and the tracks, seen in just 300 feet of water, could have been caused by a fishing trawl. For example, Paull says, the jaws or opening of a trawl could easily have struck the bottom elsewhere and dropped a disk-like mound of sediment—or a trail of pebbles that make up the “track marks,” he says. Or, Singh says, the image could be simply fish. “I’ve been fooled hundreds of times [when using side-scan sonar] into thinking I’ve found something, when it’s just a rock outcrop or a school of fish.”

Singh has used side-scan sonar to look for shipwrecks himself, and the key, he says, is to turn the ship around and double-check anything that looks as interesting as Lindberg’s image (which the treasure-hunters apparently did not). The 2D images that side-scan sonar creates can reveal sunken ships or even underwater mines, but it doesn’t give you a 3D image, nor does it directly measure water depth. Substances that reflect light differently than their surroundings can also fool side-scan sonar. “It’s really difficult. Side-scan sonar is an art form,” Singh says.

And, Paull says, in the absence of a clear picture, people see what they want to. “The finding is curious and fun, but much ado about nothing.”

www.popularmechanics.com...


Regarding of possibility that this is just natural formation. Here are examples of sonar scans of underwater mountains. This is formation known as Taney Seamount:

www.sciencephoto.com...
2.bp.blogspot.com...
www.mbari.org...

Also I have found that Peter Lindberg also think that this can have different explanations:

"...it could be some kind of an old volcano or something. The sonar image - what I can understand from it - it does not look like that. But it can be that (volcano) as well."

Also:

"If it is an asteroid and when it hits the water, it is coming very, very high speed. And when it hits the water, this asteroid breaks up into two pieces. The smaller one flies away a little bit, but the larger one as we see now - the circle - it's going through the water body with such high speed, it is a pressure wave going through the water down on the bottom and the track is because of that. And then the circle ends up where it is now.

The second object, the smaller one, when this object hits the water and the smaller object flies away a bit further on. Then it hits the water and sinks down. So I think in that case, the track is there because it has been a pressure wave through the water that has made the track."

Also, regarding of the material of the "objects":

"...we can't tell if they are of metal or not. What we can say is they are hard because we have an echo on the other side of the side scan sonar. That is because when the sonar waves or pulses hit this object, the sound waves or pulses are bouncing back very hard so you get the echo on the other sound. So it might be a hard gravel or sand or rock - maybe even metal - but we can't tell what it is."

Also, regarding of UFO explanation:

"...I'm not a UFO believer, so I have a very hard time to believe that this is something that is coming from outer space. It might be an asteroid or comet or a natural thing. I don't know.

BUT YOU SAID THAT YOUR VERY FIRST REACTION WAS, 'THIS LOOKS LIKE A UFO.'

Yeah, it did. But I don't believe in UFOs. (laughs)"

But he thinks this can be not natural:

"It is nothing as I have natural things before. It looks like because of all the straight lines and very circular shape of the circle, I would say that, Yeah, if it is natural, it is very, very strange. It would fit more if it is made by someone. I have difficulties to see that we have found something that is fallen down from space, which is not manmade, but made by someone else (extraterrestrial). So I'm trying to find natural explanations regarding this as well."

www.earthfiles.com...

* * *

So I think that the most correct point of view about this finding, at this time, is this:

"We've heard lots of different kinds of explanations, from George Lucas's spaceship -- the Millennium Falcon -- to 'it's some kind of plug to the inner world,' like it should be hell down there or something.

"But we won't know until we have been down there," said Lindberg."

www.cnn.com...

Stay tuned www.oceanexplorer.se... latest updates here.

2012-06-04 News; The expedition started Friday 1st from Norrtälje harbor when Ocean X-Team took their crew out for this exciting adventure trying to find out what the mysterious disc-shaped object is. Unfortunately the weather conditions have been really bad the last days, but now they are on a roll.

Apparently radiation levels are slightly off:

incredible, we have measured the radiative value of the anchors we used. It’s quite intriguing, the normal level of radiation is 0,1 milli Sieverts and we get 0,63 when measuring on the anchors. It’s far from dangorus levels but still; it’s 6 times higher than a normal level of radiation. The anchors have been on the bottom like 2-3 kilometers from the circle, so one can wonder if we will get higher values of radiation the closer we get of the circle?

Not sure if the levels are anything to do with the object but still, interesting to know that there's something giving off radioactivity in the area.

edit on 4-6-2012 by Zcustosmorum because: (no reason given)

reply to post by Zcustosmorum


The raised radiation level could well be due to polution levels from human activity .

Human activity is also responsible for the increase of certain natural substances in the Baltic Sea, such as nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen compounds), heavy metals and hydrocarbons. There are also other substances, such as artificial radioactive isotopes and by-products from industrial production of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, which are likely to cause harmful effects in the Baltic marine environment.
www.baltic.vtt.fi...

No worries... it's gone now
www.youtube.com...