UFO or Ship of Gold? Sonar Image of Anomalies at the Bottom of the Baltic.

While the captain of the crew which made the discovery would like their find to be “60 meters of gold,” the finding of two huge unidentified objects at the bottom of the Baltic has made speculations run rife across the world. Added to the confusion are the facts that the discovery has been made by a company specializing in deep sea salvage. While the original finders from the Ocean Explorer company intend to return in spring when the waters are calmer, the rest of the world is moving.

The diver Peter Lindberg, who made the find remarked, “I have been doing this for nearly 20 years so I have seen a few objects on the bottom, but nothing like this.” The first pictures from the deep-sea side sonar showed a 400 meters long cylinder-shaped object with about 60 meters diameter. A second pass over the object showed up another disc-like huge-something about 200 meters off the original object first caught by the sonar.

The attention of the world has been drawn, because even according to the finders who are veterans at shipwreck discovery, the sizes of the objects are too big to be part of a shipwreck or of things fallen off a ship. The sonar pictures being analyzed by experts around the world have established that there is definitely something worth exploring, though the nature of the objects is yet to be established.

Andreas Olsson, the Head of Archaeology at Sweden’s Maritime Museums is intrigued but reserves his judgment on whether these are natural geological formations or artificial objects. Enthusiasts, however, believe that these could be parts of an UFO or a Nazi remnant.

Until more can be ascertained by the experts, the costs of a full-scale exploration cannot be justified. As expressed by Professor Andrew Lambert, an expert on maritime history from the UK, “If you want to stand in a cold shower tearing up £50 notes, go shipwrecks hunting.”

Not all, of course, are so pessimistic. An American company which recently made the prize find of two British shipwrecks containing hundreds of tons of silver off the coast of Ireland are also considering the find. Mark Gordon, president of the company Odyssey Marine Exploration says that they have on their watch list, more than 100 ships lost at sea, each having value in excess of US$ 50 million.

The hunt for shipwrecked treasure continues as a functioning industry because, as put by Gordon, “When you think about the fact until the mid 20th century, the only way to transport wealth was on the oceans and a lot of ships were lost, it adds up to a formula where we have billions of dollars worth of interesting and valuable things on the sea floor.”

So, until the waters are calm again in the Baltic, and more becomes known, these recent findings would continue to add fuel to the claims of interest groups ranging from UFO supporters to treasure hunters. At the very least, if the mystery remains unsolved due to lack of funds, it would become food for fiction.