The Baltic Anomaly: The Ocean X Team Speaks!

The mystery behind the Baltic Anomaly continues to deepen. Peter Lindberg recently emerged to offer some new information.

Background on the Baltic Anomaly

On June 19, 2011, the Ocean X Team used side-scan sonar to “photograph” a massive object deep in the Baltic Sea, approximately 260 feet below surface. Peter Lindberg, co-founder of the Ocean X Team, jokingly declared “Hey guys, we have a UFO!” However, after a new expedition, the Ocean X Team discovered the Anomaly primarily consisted of large rocks. The exact nature of those rocks, which we call the Circle, as well as a 985 foot runway leading up to them (the Tracks), remain mysteries.

Two days ago, Lindberg posted a long message to the Team’s Facebook page. He also participated in an impromptu question and answer session. Let’s take a look at some of his points.

On the Baltic Anomaly’s Circle being Natural

“I do belive the surface of the circle is made of mineral.”

“…if I must bet my money on something I would go for the possibility that the circle is of pre-ice age – age.”

“99% a natural formation, unique in its kind though, and also that we have found an area in the Baltic with volcanic activity. And the last percent? Well 0.9 % that it is remains from an ancient civilisation and 0.1 % that some aliens took an asteroid and made a space craft out of it. As someone asked me: Who have decided that an alien space craft must be made of somekind of metall…?”

Our Take: All along, we suspected this was a natural formation. We also speculated a few days ago the circle of rocks positioned on top of the Circle might be a moraine. In other words, as the ice retreated, the rocks slid down a cone of ice to form a circular shape. Lindberg himself referred to this exact possibility during one of his answers so it certainly seems feasible. However, that presents a slight problem because it means the Circle had to actually survive the ice age (or at least be formed by it).

On the Baltic Anomaly’s Circle being Artificial

“As you understand it is very much in this that points toward this not being just a “stone formation”. The cracks seams not to be irregular, they seams to go vertically or horizontally. Behind them you can see a blackish collored mineral(?) with the structure of old wooden planks.”

“I do belive that the very strait lines and angular formations we can see on the side scan sonar image from last year really excists. The odd thing is that I thought, before this expedition that when we could get close these shapes maybe should appear not being so straight as on the side scan sonar image, in reality they are even straighter! It really looks like constructed parts on the circle.”

“The lines can be made by natural causes, but they looks very ‘man made.'”

Our Take: Many rocks, particularly those of a crystalline nature, contain relatively straight lines. So, that could explain it. The jury is still out on the blackish colored mineral, but we suspect it could be sulfur for reasons we’ll get to in a minute.

On the structure of the Baltic Anomaly

“I do belive that the circle “rests” on top of what looks like an pilar of rock, raising approx 8 meters above the surrounding bottom. The circle it self appears to be approx 4 meters thick. In other words, the top of the circle raises 12 meters above the surrounding bottom.”

“The pillar is thicker than on Pauls artistic drawing, the circle might be like 1-4 meters wider than the pillar.”

“I do belive that the path, or the track, is a ridge raising slowly up from the bottom to a hight of approx 8 meters above the surrounding bottom. I also belive that the ridge is made of softer material than the pilar and the circle.”

Our Take: This, along with this echo sounding image, help to clear up the pillar mystery. The Circle is 60 meters in diameter, which gives the pillar a diameter of 56 to 59 meters.

On that Odd Hole on the Baltic Anomaly

“What I do not belive because I know, is the fact that we found a round hole approx 25 cm in diamater going straight into the surface of the circle, how odd is not that? How deep? No idea, we just saw it for some seconds before we decided to back off to preserv the visibility for the divers that was going down later on. They did not find the hole though. It might be some more holes, at this moment we do not know.”

“We have no idea how the hole was created, it is very round though…”

Our Take: On a side note, this hole was previously described as “egg shaped.” Regardless, its existence might go along with our hydrothermal vent theory (see the next entry). Perhaps this hole was once a vent for hot water and dissolved minerals.

On Our Black Smoker Theory

“I do belive it might have been volcanic activity in the area and even on (or in) the circle after the ice age, or before, but then it do not fit with what we know about the ice age.”

“The strange about the cloud is that it looked like a very distinct “plume” of something that catched the echo sounder beams so hard that it looked like a big rock hoovering in midwater, above the “volcano”. I think we might have found something which is active in the way of like a “black smooker” or that maybe heated water is jetting out under high pressure. But this was not in the area of the circle, this volcano was found many miles away. We will certanly go back and try to find out if the “plume” just was a very densed shool of fish or something else.”

Our Take: We’ve speculated for awhile now that the Circle might’ve been created by now-extinguished hydrothermal vents, or black smokers. The biggest drawback to that theory has always been the lack of volcanic activity in the Baltic Sea. However, a hydrothermal vent doesn’t necessarily require a volcanically active location. They generally occur when seawater works its way beneath the Earth’s crust near subduction zones (subduction zones are places where two tectonic plates converge with each other). The seawater is heated by the steaming hot magma and spews back out into the sea along with dissolved minerals via fissures. These materials eventually cool and harden in the water.

On Magnetic Disturbances & Other Strange Phenomena

“The divers said that a “blackish” powder had attract to the camera, I did not see it my self though. An other thing is that we could not use the satelite phone when we where laying above the circle, but just some tenth of meters off postion the phone worked. i do not know why but it is a fact. Further more, the video camera’s lights blow when the diver started them up on the surface when testing them before dive # 2. They decided anyway to bring the video camera with them and try to use their ordinary lights to iluminate for the video. When they decended the video camera started to showing an “error” message on the small monitor. The diver restarted the camera several times and finnaly it seamed to work. So he filmed their dive but nothing was on the tape when waching it afterwards. The only problem we had with the ROV was that we constantly had to restart the sonar. Finally it did not work and we continued with just the video camera. When we left the circle we went to a wreck and spent like 35 hour of ROV flying on the wreck and the sonar worked all the time. Magnetic disturbances, well you tell me!”

“Someone asked about what temperature we had down there. Well the divers thermometer showed -1 degree Celsius when they were on top of the circle, it should be +4 degree Celsius. The thermometer may have showing a wronly value of course.”

Our Take: We don’t really know what to make of this information. It could be coincidence. Or maybe there’s something else going on here…

Guerrilla Explorer’s Analysis

We appreciate Lindberg taking the time to discuss the Baltic Anomaly in greater detail. He seemed genuinely stumped by what he and the Ocean X Team have found. A couple of extinguished hydrothermal vents still remain our best guess. However, we freely admit it could be anything, especially after Peter’s comment about the Anomaly possibly preceding the Ice Age. Perhaps it’s a glacial erratic of some sort. From what we understand, the Ocean X Team plans to release new photos soon. The samples from the site are still being analyzed. And perhaps the biggest news is that the Team plans to take another expedition to the Anomaly in about three weeks. So, there should be lots of new information soon. Stay tuned!

 

Guerrilla Explorer’s Coverage of the Baltic Anomaly

Recent Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2012 - 4:01 pm · Reply

    A proč se nezjišťovalo, co je v místě vyzařováno? Byl-li to systém, musí tam toho být více. Kapkování info, natahování.

  • David
    July 13, 2012 - 4:07 pm · Reply

    I don’t speak Czech so I threw your comment into Google translate and this popped out.

    “And why did not determine what is emitted in place? He was the only system that there must be more. Kapkování info winding.”

    Unfortunately, I can’t make heads or tails of it. Can anyone help out with the translation?

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