RussiaToday.com reported last week that the Russian Navy has released records of its warships and subs that — officially speaking — had close encounters with UFOs. It seems that alien visitors from advanced civilizations really like the water! Not surprisingly, one hotbed of this activity was near the Bermuda Triangle. Retired submariner RADM Yury Beketov described unexplainable instrument malfunctions and interference on a sub he commanded, and underwater objects detected that moved at speeds of 230 knots. The declassified records, which go back to the days of the USSR, also detail an incident during a nuclear sub’s “combat mission” in the Pacific Ocean. It was chased by six unknown underwater objects (UUOs, instead of UFOs?) which it could not elude. The captain ordered his submarine to surface. The objects continued to follow, then were seen to take off into the air and departed the scene.
I’m a fan of the idea of alien civilizations and flying saucers; scientific arguments make it seem likely that intelligent life evolved elsewhere in the universe — even the Vatican says it could all be part of God’s Plan. But in any specific such situation, it pays to begin as a skeptic.
One explanation for the Bermuda Triangle’s infamous effects is recurring gas seeps, perhaps solidified methane deposits rising suddenly up from the ocean floor as gas, breaking into highly energetic clouds of bubbles, and reducing ocean buoyancy near the surface or creating freak local weather disruptions. This could account for the mysterious losses of surface ships and aircraft over the years, and it would also account for what RADM Beketov describes. Any undersea ecounter at 230 knots is by definition a very fleeting, high-bearing-rate contact. Faced with a rising methane or natural gas bubble cloud, a sub’s passive and active sonars could very well seem to go haywire, yet would actually be giving real data on the behavior of the rapidly rising cloud. There wouldn’t be much time to interpret what was happening before the bubbles reached the surface and dissipated.
I do not doubt for a moment that Russian/Soviet submariners are as fully professional and courageous as their American and other international counterparts. But during the Cold War the Kremlin did embrace paranormal phenomena to a degree not seen in Western government-sponsored activity; such concepts were perhaps more compatible with atheistic and dialectical Communism than with the West’s Judeo-Christian beliefs. Some of this surely dates back to the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. The Nazis were celebrated practitioners of the occult who mythologized that the Aryan Race was sired by ancient alien astronauts, and the Soviets captured some of these R&D records at the end of the war. Remember also that the CIA in the ‘90s continued doing practical defense and intelligence work on remote viewing, a form of ESP, as part of the now-defunct Star Gate project, cancelled by the Bush Administration after President Clinton left office.
More than one retired U.S. Navy submariner has told me in private of a possible additional reason why Germany, and then the USSR, became so interested in exotic phenomena during WWII — and thereafter. Supposedly, it all comes from Allied efforts to disguise the existence of the code-breaking of German Enigma messages and conceal Allied successes with escort warships direction finding against microburst U-boat radio transmissions. Any captured anti-submarine warfare platform crewmen were to tell their German interrogators that Allied ships and subs now carried gifted mediums who used ESP to detect German subs! This got the Germans really turned on, and henceforth the Soviets, neither of whom realized it was all just a subterfuge. So the story goes.
Consider the Soviet nuclear sub that got chased by the six UUOs on its combat mission in the Pacific. This seems harder to explain from start to finish via any particular natural ocean phenomenon or equipment malfunction. It does sound consistent with many terrestrial UFO sightings: multiple objects moving together at high speed, sometimes following vehicles along roads, eventually zooming away into the sky. The fact that her skipper would even think of surfacing does amplify the seriousness with which he responded to the very weird undersea chase. Maybe UFOs really do exist, and they really do like the water? The premise of sci fi stories like Michael Crichton’s “Sphere” might have some real basis after all.
Have American submariners also had close encounters with unidentified underwater objects? The Silent Service isn’t saying. But then, after all, the UFO investigations of Operation Blue Book were done by the U.S. Air Force, not the U.S. Navy.
– Joe Buff
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
“Six UFOs”. Otherwise knows as the six crates of vodka the Ruskie crew threw overboard when they surfaced to collectively do a ‘lets see who can piss farther’ contest off the main sail.
Jober, your phase change data is assuming atmospheric pressure, which is certainly not present 12,000 feet underwater.
It is getting harder and harder to be a skeptic with all these storied coming out. Even Buzz admits to their existence he is credible as they as come, he actually was in space and on the moon.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDIXvpjnRws&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eabovetopsecret%2Ecom%2Fforum%2Fthread484835%2Fpg1&feature=player_embedded
Or how do you explain the PM of both Canada and Japan admitting to the UFO existence?
Why are so many countries all of the sudden launching probes around the moon? We just launched a missile so to speak into the moon, Japan, China, India, and Russia all of the sudden all decided to send probes around the moon.
Just a little food for thought.
Jober is 100% right that any given “triangle” with the same volume of shipping traffic will show there is nothing unusual in terms of loss rates in Bermuda.
Great to see that professional and respectable sources are finally taking serious consideration of the face that there are 70 million million million visible stars out there, and it would be naive to think that the f-22 is the best thing flying in the entire universe. Are they here? maybe, possibly, probably, we still don’t have the evidence to say for certain, and as an educated people we have to balance open mindedness with healthy scientific skepticism.
methane bubbles would account for radar blips, but did the sub surface and track these things rising out of the ocean and flying into space? or did they disappear when they reached sea level? And im pretty sure he said they chased him and they were unable to elude the objects, which seems a little too intelligent for methane gas (in formation at high speeds? sonar guided bubbles?)
The captain surfaced, exposing their position on a combat mission – not a good idea in the soviet navy unless he really wanted to dig holes in Siberia.
Is there any way you can ask the Kremlin for the sonar readings lol? Defense Tech goes international, then interplanetary – Love this place
Really DT, this was post worthy….really?
The sea-bed methane is in the form of methane clathrates, not solid methane:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate
I’m thinking the appropriate acronym is “DTs,” not “UFOs.”
The UFO folks like to call the underwater version USO, Unidentified Submerged Objects.
Anthony: Thanks for ur comment & question. There were two separate incidents in the RussiaToday piece. The possible methane caltrate release would maybe explain the weird instrument data on the sub in the Merbuda Triangle which apparently didn’t surface. The sub in the Pacific did surface and observed the six USOs/UFOs to take off into the sky. The article doesn’t make clear whether this was visual, or radar, or both.
Subs have radars? Furthermore, do Russian subs have any electronics?
Good Morning Joe,
Comic Con is over Joe, and now the strangeness is coming out. Come on Joe you can do better then this.
You should have let me know you were in town last week, we could have got together for dinner. Did you check out the USS Midway, the Kilo and the SS Dolphin while you were here?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
What about the possibility of those signals actually being of US / SIGINT origin? I’ve worked on a variety of weapons systems, and in the test lab, we create targets. Seems like US could have been projecting ghosts to see how the USSR subs would react. We all like the idea of UFO, aliens being real, but I might go with SIGINT on this one.
Byron: No, I wasn’t at ComicCon. Just stayed home here in NY State’s Mid-Hudson Valley, which as you may know has always been a hotbed for UFO sightings. Some say it’s the megavolt power lines coming down to NYC from Canada, plus the Indian Point nuclear power plant. On the other hand, some small plane pilots a few years ago confessed they’d put funny lights on their aircraft and flown around in the dark as a hoax. Haven’t heard yet of any USOs spotted in the Hudson River. Could be just a matter of time now! Cheers, …Joe.
Why do people not consider stories like this ‘worthy’ of this site?
Can you not open your minds just a little and think of possibilities that you may have not considered before? There are a lot of serious, informed people potentially in the know who say this is real. Closing your mind to the possibility is nothing more than willful ignorance.
Of course the USN isn’t talking, they have Mr. (hmm he must be an admiral by now) Limpet and friends keeping them informed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Mr._Limpet
Only thing impossible about this thread is CJ’s comment
“Otherwise known as the six crates of vodka the Ruskie crew threw overboard”
No Russian is going to throw vodka overboard – couldn’t happen.
I know, I know, it should have said “six *empty* crates of vodka”.
Which is more plausable: Bunch of shit faced Ruskies doing pissing contests of the mainsail making up BS stories or actual UFOs?
I win. :>
Thanks Joe, every credible piece of information on this subject helps people move a step forward in understanding the big picture.
Posting about possible highly advanced technology that can cause reactions on sophisticated military equipment is a subject worth looking into.
NASA predicts interaction with intelligent life by 2025. I’ll put my chips with them on this. Am i nuts? Try taking a course in quantum superposition if you want to see nuts. Read some books by Dr. Michio Kaku. DT is right on looking into this and this kind of thinking is the exact thing our military needs – people who do not live by the status quo.
Again, you should be thanking Joe for intelligently addressing a matter of great technological importance to our country.
But wouldnt this effect our subs now anyway OR are US subs told to avoid Bermuda Triangle area?
& If so wouldnt it effect other subs in area?
IE is this ongoing since Cold War or during WW2
IE any German U boats experienced odd events in Area during thier Torpedoeing our ships in 1942?
Stephen Russell: Presumably the methane up-spews have been going on for many millenia. I’ve been told by some retired U.S. submariners that they would usually avoid any active natural phenomenon that could be violent, like a black smoker field or undersea lava vent. But, presumably any sub in the area would detect noise emissions on its passive sonars, and a big cloud of bubbles ought to make a strong target on active sonar. WWII U-boats might have not had good enough sonar to distinguish a bubble cloud rising from a disabled ship sinking or whatever else, so they might not have seen any instrument irregularities as especially noteworthy. And since U.S. sub sonars are the best there are, it’s possible that any U.S. sub detecting these USO-type phenomenon could have figured out what they actually were, whereas the less capable Soviet/Russian sonars could lead to crew speculation about aliens.
We also need to keep in mind that the USN did a huge amount of great oceanographic research during the Cold War, for national defense purposes. A lot was done by subs, partly to aid in sub hunting and also to find good places to hide while on SSBN patrol. Some but by no means all of this research data was declassified after the Cold War. It’s thus possible that the methane seep phenomena and also their acoustic qualities have been known about in secret by SUBFOR et. al. for some time.
Good Evening Joe,
Sometime before you die you MUST come to a ComCon down here. you owe it to yourself.
The next time your down my way here let me know and, I would love to tour the Midway with you and then go on board the two subs. You would pick up enough material for three more books. If you had a couple of extra days we could see the Marine Corp. Command Museum at the Marines training Depot, I think one of the best base museums in the country and go over to MCAS Miramar and you can put your hands on nearly every type of aircraft the marines have flown. If their is time we can take in our Aero Space Museum which is more like an cluttered attic of everything that has ever flown.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Byron: Thanks much! Very nice invite for some kewl-sounding things to see. Haven’t been to San Diego in a few years, but if things keep going well on one of my novels becoming a Hollywood movie I would be coming to So.Cal. more often.
I’m a firm believer that the UFO’s have been with us since time began. Who is to say that the premise of the movie ‘Abyss’ isn’t more on the money than thought? We’ve been to the Moon but haven’t yet explored the deep ocean trenches. Could there be some mysteries solved if that were ever done?
Actually, there have been many reports of “USOs” — Unidentified Submerged Objects — in the US and from the US Navy. One such report occured off the coast of my home town, Redondo Beach, CA, a few years ago. The most famous USO report took place in Canadian waters (forget where), and resulted in a wide spread search involving the Mounted Police and both the Canadian and American Navies.
I have three incidents that happened to me while I was flying in the Air Force.(1) We were flying out of Langley AFB, VA. WE encountered heavy ice ffrom ground level to over 40,00 feet. The wing temperature is usually at 180 degrees centigrade. It dropped to 90 degrees. Some how we got through it. A fellow airplane was an hour behind us. It made a position report shortly after take off. That was the last time it was heared from. No debris was ever found. It just happened to be over the Bermuda triangle!! (2) We were flying out of Lajes, Azores. We were the lead aircraft. While climbing through 20,000 eet we incurded severe turbelence. We thought it was a bad engine. I feathered # 3. We still had the problem so I featherd #4 and unfeathered #3. WE still had the same problem and the pilot was about to lose control of the aircraft. I unfeathered # 4 and we returned to base. No mechanical funtion was found. The other aicraft continued with the mission with no problem! (3) While flying south of alaska on a radar aicraft all my engine instruments went crazy. I could not explain it so we returned to base. The maintenance office met me and asked what the problem was. I told him what happened . I never got any fed back. Something extra. I used to fly airvraft out of Japan and we calibrated radar sights. A ground radar man told me they were tracking something over 100,000 ft at 2000 MPH. He had to take an oath and sign papers he would never reveal this. This was 1955!! Any explanations out there??
I have three incidents that happened to me while I was flying in the Air Force.(1) We were flying out of Langley AFB, VA. WE encountered heavy ice ffrom ground level to over 40,00 feet. The wing temperature is usually at 180 degrees centigrade. It dropped to 90 degrees. Some how we got through it. A fellow airplane was an hour behind us. It made a position report shortly after take off. That was the last time it was heared from. No debris was ever found. It just happened to be over the Bermuda triangle!! (2) We were flying out of Lajes, Azores. We were the lead aircraft. While climbing through 20,000 eet we incurded severe turbelence. We thought it was a bad engine. I feathered # 3. We still had the problem so I featherd #4 and unfeathered #3. WE still had the same problem and the pilot was about to lose control of the aircraft. I unfeathered # 4 and we returned to base. No mechanical funtion was found. The other aicraft continued with the mission with no problem! (3) While flying south of alaska on a radar aicraft all my engine instruments went crazy. I could not explain it so we returned to base. The maintenance office met me and asked what the problem was. I told him what happened . I never got any fed back. Something extra. I used to fly airvraft out of Japan and we calibrated radar sights. A ground radar man told me they were tracking something over 100,000 ft at 2000 MPH. He had to take an oath and sign papers he would never reveal this. This was 1955!! Any explanations out there??
There is nothing wrong with saying “I have no idea what that was.”
Why dream up an explination to fit the story and then demand that other disprove it?
Most UFO incidents are explainable but some are not. This is not an indication of aliens or angles it simply tells us that we lack enough information to come to a conclusion.
Alligations of cover-ups, min in black and fat headed little grey dudes with an odd facisination with proctology are likewise not proof or even an indication of anything usable, they are just rumors.
Now with all this horse crap around one might assume there is a pony SOMEWHERE but it is rather more likley its an eartly one.
As someone (Sagan?) said…
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinay proof.”
“Six UFOs”. Otherwise knows as the six crates of vodka the Ruskie crew threw overboard when they surfaced to collectively do a ‘lets see who can piss farther’ contest off the main sail.
Posted by: CJ at July 28, 2009 09:38 AM
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I lol’d
Thanks for writing a fair and balanced article about a subject which is usually dealt with in an unfair and unbalanced manner. We all ‘know’ how crazy it all seems, but I guarantee that there are many ex servicemen who have seen these kind of things but have never mentioned them for fear of being ridiculed.
Some great comments especially from ex military who have lived the truth. They have nothing to gain, no motive, no ‘angles’ and they know that what they saw and heard was REAL.
Virtually every govt has covered up what is the biggest story never told. Why? Blue ribbon study after study reports that once its made clearly public, there would be 1/2 of planet that looses it – they would either want to kill the advanced race or worship them. Most importantly however is its simply a matter of ECONOMICS for the worlds elite in each country. It would cause a loss of confidence in ‘govts’ and large institutions including ALL religions(how many ‘jesus’s’ are there on each advanced planet out of thousands and which one is ‘best’ ha).
The US Govt has had for decades devices that offer virtually limitless pollution free power sources for humanity and more – just ask ex skunk workers. That technology has been hidden to continue the 5% world elite and govt rule over the masses they treat like sheep.