There is Something in the Deep

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Story 1.

The Lake Baikal Swimmers

There are countless myths and legends associated with Russia's sprawling Lake Baikal.

These include reports of mythical monsters which reside within its depths and a hidden fortune in missing treasure.

But by far the most intriguing of such tales is an alleged encounter between the Soviet army and members of a mysterious underwater people.

The mood amongst the shore party was gloomy, despite the warm sunlight beating down from the cloudless skies above.

Huddled together in small groups, weapons close at hand, they spoke to one another in hushed tones.

It was clear that few had approved of the order which had been given earlier that morning, to send the dive team back into the lake.

The men who had descended into the depths were their friends, and were now being exposed to a very real and unnecessary risk.

The whispered conversations continued until they were cut short by an unexpected disturbance in the nearby waters.

The soldiers turned to watch as a section of the lake suddenly erupted into bubble and foam, as if the temperatures there had somehow become boiling hot.

A solitary black object then materialized amidst the churning waters, quickly followed by another and then several more.

Not waiting for any orders, several of the men immediately plunged headlong into the lake towards the commotion.

As they did so, more of their number ran for the nearby decompression chambers, flinging open the doors in preparation for their use.

As the trembling and shaking figures were hauled from the waters, their rescuers suddenly found themselves gripped by a wave of panic.

Before they had resurfaced, it had been discovered that one of the two chambers was defective, meaning that only four of the seven divers could be treated for their sickness.

Suppressing the urge to rage at their watching commander, the men hurried to move the chosen divers into the only working decompression chamber, forced to offer little more than comforting words to the three figures who'd been left to lie out on the shore.

In agonised and somewhat confused utterances, each of the afflicted men related tales of strange creatures, which they had encountered in the depths of the lake.

Lake Baikal is located at the southernmost point of Russia's notorious Siberian expanse.

a short distance from the border of neighboring Mongolia.

It is not only the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, but also the deepest, descending at some points to depths of 1600 meters.

And yet, despite being situated in one of the harshest and most inhospitable regions on Earth, it is a place that positively teems with life.

Studies have catalogued over 4,000 separate species living in and around this vast ecosystem, many of which are not found anywhere else on the planet.

Key to the survival of all these different animals are the hydrothermal vents and springs, which enable the surrounding marine life to prosper and breed.

Fish have been known to develop to unknown sizes in these conditions, in turn generating equally oversized predators.

For many years,

there have been legends of a sinister monster which is said to reside within its dark depths, utilizing underwater tunnels to travel between the lake itself and the surrounding bodies of water.

In older tales, this creature was said to rise from the depths and prey on any travellers and hunters who strayed too close to the edge of the water.

In more recent times, however, local residents have reported inexplicable damage which has been caused to their fishing nets.

and cattle that have gone missing whilst grazing near the lake.

Descriptions of the offender allege that it is is over 10 meters in length, possessing a huge set of jaws that make up over a third of its body.

This has prompted speculation that it may be a species similar to a pike, which has somehow grown to staggering proportions in this unique environment.

It has also been ventured that this may be some ancient species of aquatic dinosaur, which has somehow avoided extinction and detection for some time.

In addition, the area has been plagued by sightings of bizarre otherworldly craft moving through both the skies above and beneath the waters of the lake.

On occasion, the occupants of these vessels are alleged to have interacted with those who have witnessed them, sometimes with fatal consequences.

As well as having attracted countless species of flora and fauna to its shores, Lake Baikal also plays host to all manner of human visitors, from holidaymakers to members of various sailing clubs.

The lake's topography in particular has been utilized repeatedly by elements of the Russian military as a means of training its naval divers.

In 2009, Rumors began to surface in relation to a tragedy that was alleged to have taken place there nearly 30 years before.

This story is believed to have originated from a declassified Soviet intelligence report, which described an incident that had transpired in the summer of 1982.

During that period, a detachment of sailors had been dispatched to the lake along with their instructors to conduct a programme of diver training.

During the first few days, this training had largely been uneventful, with the various drills and exercises playing out as they had so many times before

but one morning midway through a routine session several of the trainees were distracted by the arrival of three figures which had unexpectedly materialized in the depths beside them

using their torches to better illuminate the scene The Navy divers were astonished to see that the newcomers did not appear to possess any form of breathing apparatus.

Instead, the bizarre-looking swimmers were dressed in silvery reflective suits, wearing protective helmets which seemed to be fully open, exposing them to the surrounding water.

More bizarre still,

although humanoid in appearance, the three strange entities were all staggeringly tall, standing at roughly 3 meters each.

There followed a short standoff as the trainees and their instructors stared in bewilderment at their pale-skinned visitors, who eventually turned and swam ponderously away.

Upon returning to the surface, the group had immediately sought out their commanding officer and reported the matter.

Soon after this, Several of the instructors were ordered to select the strongest of the recruits, with the intention of capturing at least one of the mysterious swimmers.

A short time later, a troop of seven divers descended into the lake, carrying snares and wires in the hopes of trapping their prey.

Returning to the vicinity of the previous sighting, they had waited, shining their torch beams out into the murky depths to attract attention.

Sure enough, three silvery shapes had then risen from the darkness below, moving towards the group, seemingly emboldened after their previous meeting.

But when one of the instructors had then moved forward, unspooling the wire noose he was holding, there had been an immediate response.

One of the three entities had reached down to its side, producing a small metallic device, which it had then pointed towards the divers.

In an instant, the waters around them had suddenly transformed into a swirling maelstrom, which buffeted them from side to side.

This violent and powerful torrent had quickly propelled the helpless group back to the lake's surface.

Unfortunately, as they had been pulled from the water, they began suffering from the onset of decompression sickness.

Of the seven divers, three would die, the others surviving to tell their tale, which was then relayed back to their headquarters.

The source material from which this story is derived does not detail the response to the tragedy by the Soviet authorities.

It is unknown if further efforts were made to interact with or capture the mysterious beings which had been encountered.

It is also uncertain whether training at the lake was suspended.

to avoid any further contact or loss of life.

Finally, the report also does not speculate in any way as to the origin of what have now become known as the Lake Baikal swimmers.

This mysterious incident is only one of several to have been documented by those who have travelled to the region.

In 1977, The Soviet Academy of Sciences was able to purchase a pair of Canadian-built submersibles named Pisces 2 and Pisces 7.

Not long long after they had been acquired, the two vessels were transported to Lake Baikal to carry out a host of geological surveys.

During a six-week period, the Soviet scientists logged 42 dives into the lake, at one point descending to a depth of 1400 meters.

During one of these dives, Several of the scientists had descended in Pisces VII and were exploring the lake bed.

But as the submersible was floating just above the bottom, with its spotlights angled down towards the sediment, its interior had gradually become bathed in an eerie yellow glow.

Turning from their work, the bemused scientists had looked out of their portholes, hoping to discover where the light was emanating from, only for it to increase in intensity.

The source of the illumination had slowly passed overhead, from one end of the submersible to the other.

It had then moved off towards the centre of the lake, where it faded away into darkness.

Upon returning to the surface, the team had inquired if Pisces 2 had followed them into the depths for some unknown reason.

but they were informed that the other submersible had remained on the surface for the duration of their dive, with its crew conducting routine maintenance.

Subsequent inquiries revealed that there had been no other military or scientific expeditions known to be operating in the area.

Furthermore, there were only a small number of vessels available at the time capable of descending to such depths.

As a result, the identity of the unknown light source remains a complete mystery.

It has long been speculated that encounters with mysterious craft in the skies above may not necessarily relate purely to extraterrestrial activity.

Many of these sightings have taken place in the vicinity of large bodies of water, with the vessels involved sometimes being observed to emerge from or dive into them.

This is particularly true of several incidents which have been documented by people living in the proximity of Lake Baikal.

A dive instructor named Alec Jakulin described to a reporter how he had been out on the lake in his boat one evening with several of his students when their attention had suddenly been drawn to what appeared to be a blinking red light some way off in the distance.

It soon became clear that whatever the light belonged to was approaching their boat at some speed, just above the water's surface.

As it had neared them, The witnesses realized that what they were observing presented as a single solid ball of red light, which was gently pulsating as it traveled.

Several hundred meters before it should have passed above them, the orb suddenly entered the water, hurtling past beneath the surface.

For a few seconds, all the water below and around their boat was bathed in an eerie red glow, before the object resurfaced again and shot away into the night sky.

A similar story would be related related to the newspaper by a local resident named Sergei Konitznik.

He had been called out onto the balcony of his lakeside dwelling one evening by his young son, who had caught sight of some strange activity over the water.

As he had strained his eyes and looked out into the darkness, he saw a blinking orange light hovering just above the surface.

This glowing object then shot vertically into the sky, only to slowly descend in a straight line to the exact point from which it had risen.

To the astonishment of Sirgei and his son, a second identical light had then appeared right next to the first, as if it had emerged from the water.

The two objects then hurtled back and forth over the lake as if they were chasing one another or playing some kind of game.

Several minutes later, both had again shot up into the air before descending at speed and diving straight into the depths, never to be seen again.

The activities of the mysterious craft seen moving above and below the waters of Lake Baikal bear an eerie similarity to other high-profile sightings from around the world.

In 1994, multiple witnesses observed objects acting in an identical manner above Lake Michigan, with weather radar records going on to support their testimony.

Likewise, at Shag Harbour in 1967, a large object was seen to impact the waters off the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia.

Former military officers have also gone public with claims that the US Navy has documented numerous encounters with underwater flying craft whilst conducting maneuvers off the coast of Puerto Rico.

There are several theories as to the relationship between these unknown vessels and the waters they are seen traversing.

Some commentators assert that UFOs are not extraterrestrial in nature, but instead may originate from the deepest waters on Earth.

There is speculation that their operators have either evolved underwater, or may indeed be visitors from another planet who arrived many centuries ago.

using the cover of the vast oceans to hide their presence.

Others believe that the occupants of the craft somehow used the water to refuel or replenish their vessels, before continuing their journey.

As with many stories that emerged from beyond the Iron Curtain during the Soviet era, it is virtually impossible to find any supporting testimony surrounding the incident involving the lake Baikal swimmers.

It has been suggested that the divers involved died through misadventure, given the dangers of their profession, rather than anything more sinister,

the story of a strange underwater species may simply have evolved from a training accident in which the students surfaced far too quickly.

And yet, there continues to be sightings of bizarre humanoid figures and highly advanced aerial craft operating in an otherwise remote region, seeming to suggest that the swimmers may well have been very real, and are continuing their unknown activities well into

the present day.

Story 2: The Baltic Sea Anomaly

During the summer of 2011, a commercial dive team encountered a mysterious sonar contact straddling the sea sea floor in the northernmost reaches of the Baltic Sea.

Since it was discovered, this object has continued to defy all attempts to uncover its origins.

The ship's progress out to the dive site had been hampered by poor weather conditions and rough seas, and now, as it took up its prearranged position, the tension amongst the crew was palpable.

On the deck, technicians worked quickly to get the ROV unloaded and in working order, ever conscious that the window for its deployment was limited.

Below deck, Peter Lindbe and Dennis Orbe stared intently at the sonar screens, looking for confirmation that they were in the correct location.

After a short time, a pair of large familiar shapes finally appeared on the screen, but there was little time available for either relief or celebration.

Too much fuel had been expended in getting them to the location, and the approaching storm front suggested they might only get one decent pass over the target.

After a few minutes, word came down from the deck crew confirming that the ROV was now in the water.

As the operator's screen finally came to life,

the members of the Ocean X team team crowded around it, in anticipation of the first high-definition video footage of their discovery.

A smothering silence fell across the control room, with its occupants each staring intently at the monitor as the depth counter on the side of the display steadily increased.

Much as they had expected, the visibility in the waters beneath their vessel was poor, with the twin spotlights mounted at the front of the robotic probe struggling to penetrate the sediment-filled depths through which it was descending.

Then, as the readout indicated that the drone had passed the 70-meter mark, things began to clear up.

Off in the far distance, the rough outline of something unusual resting upon the sandy seabed came into focus.

Its outer lines slowly began to move together, linking to form the outline of a large circular shape.

But then,

just as the depth counter passed 80 meters,

everything went wrong.

The readout from the ROV's onboard compass suddenly began to go haywire.

At the same instant, the video feed went black.

Somewhere, somebody swore, and efforts were immediately directed towards regaining contact with the device.

From up on the deck, someone shouted down that the drone's control line was snagged on something, and they could not retrieve it.

An eternity seemed to pass.

The ROV's controller explained that he could not get an accurate reading from any of its instruments and that he had no idea what had happened to it.

Then, just as suddenly as it had been lost, the feed from the device's camera reappeared on the monitor.

There on the screen was the image of what appeared to be a stone staircase, directly in front of the ROV.

Over the next couple of minutes, as other systems on board the ship mysteriously failed and then rebooted themselves, the Ocean X team documented as much detail of the target as they could before the order to recall the ROV was given.

Nobody spoke.

Each crew member was wrapped up in their own personal thoughts.

They were still no closer to identifying what it was they had found, and had only further questions to show for their efforts.

Ocean X is a Swedish maritime expedition company which first came to public attention in 1992 when they successfully located the long-lost remains of an American B-17 bomber submerged in the waters off their country's eastern coast.

Emboldened by this success, they began to research records of other boats and aircraft which had disappeared off European coastlines, finally settling on the story of a transport ship which had been sunk in the Baltic Sea during World War I.

As dawn broke on the 3rd of November 1916, the German submarine U-22 was patrolling the waters in the vicinity of the Finnish coast when it encountered a supply convoy attempting to slip into the port of Raumer.

With little hesitation, Captain Carl Scherb had attacked the long line of cargo ships, successfully sending three of them to a watery grave.

One of the victims of the German ambush that morning was a Swedish schooner named the Zhongscheping, which had been carrying a cargo of expensive champagne and brandy destined for Moscow's Metropole Hotel.

The wreck eventually settled on the sea floor.

at a depth of approximately 200 feet, with its precious cargo still relatively intact and near perfectly preserved in the cold dark conditions.

Following a lengthy search, Ocean X subsequently located the hull of the Zhongxiping in 1997 and were able to bring it back to the surface using a 560-ton floating crane.

The team were able to recover approximately 3,000 bottles of champagne and 14 barrels of cognac.

before poor weather conditions closed in and aided the sea in reclaiming the wreck forever.

The bounty they had retrieved was then auctioned off to private collectors as a means of funding future diving expeditions.

The summer of 2011 saw Ocean X personnel conducting operations in the Gulf of Botnia, a stretch of the Baltic Sea which is located between the coastlines of Sweden and Finland.

The team were in the process of carrying out sonar grid scans of the sea floor in in search of other potentially high-value shipwrecks, when something unexpected appeared on their monitors.

Below their ship, at a depth of roughly 300 feet, was a large circular object lying on the seabed.

The sonar signature did not resemble any recognisable ocean-going craft or known geological feature.

and was located well away from any established shipping routes.

But as excited as the Swedish explorers were at the time of the discovery, they were not equipped to dive on the site and were instead forced to return home where they could better analyse their provisional findings.

On viewing magnified versions of the sonar imagery, OceanX founders Peter Lindbey and Dennis Orbe found themselves faced with even further questions.

The unknown contact was roughly 200 feet in diameter and unlike anything they had ever encountered before.

There were clear lines and striations across its surface, which almost seemed to resemble the layout of corridors and rooms, and behind it, a thousand-foot-long runway had been flattened in the sand, seeming to indicate that the object had slid down to the point where it now rested.

The following year, Equipped with improved sonar technology and ROVs, the team returned to the site.

They quickly set about about trying to obtain high-quality imagery of the unknown object, but soon found that this task would not be as easy as they had hoped.

As soon as they attempted to deploy any form of sensor or photographic equipment in the immediate vicinity of the discovery, the technology they were using would suddenly fail on them.

ROVs sent down to photograph the anomaly would inexplicably cut out.

Satellite phones were found to be drained of power despite having only recently been charged, and the sonar operators discovered that mysterious electrical interference would somehow prevent effective scans of the site.

Pressing on with their investigations, Ocean X sent down divers who used more conventional equipment to closely document the object.

In addition to the lines and grooves which ran along its exterior, at certain points, perfectly circular holes had been bored into the surface, all of which indicated to the dive team that what they were examining could not have been created by any natural phenomenon.

There were sections which clearly resembled a series of steps, leading from one level to another, and what seemed to be a domed compartment jutting up and out from the main body of the structure.

As their work continued, further surprises lay in store.

Other unnaturally shaped items were uncovered lying on the seabed near the main object, such as perfectly carved rectangular blocks and stone monoliths.

When some of these edifices were examined in closer detail, it was found that they were sunk deep into the ground, with passageways and tunnels potentially running deep beneath them.

Eventually, Having achieved all they could in light of their persistent equipment failures, all that remained was for the Ocean Ocean X team to gather samples of the anomalies they had found at the site and then return to port.

When this material was later examined by staff from Stockholm University, the results prompted no small degree of debate due to their basaltic nature, having been found in an area with no known volcanic activity recorded since the Proterozoic era.

At the time of writing, Ocean X is believed to be in the process of raising funds for further explorations of the anomaly site, and speculation regarding its background remains both persistent and varied.

To some observers, the object which the Swedish explorers have found preserved on the seabed is definitive evidence that alien life has previously visited our planet.

To others, it is potential evidence of a long lost and highly advanced terrestrial civilization.

It should perhaps come as little surprise that the explanation seized upon by most media outlets is that the anomaly may be the remains of a downed UFO.

The fact that it is circular in shape, appears to have come sliding down onto the sand centuries ago under some degree of controlled or powered flight, and possesses something which resembles a cockpit atop its superstructure, all conveniently play into such a narrative.

But as romantic as the notion is that this ancient UFO came to settle on the seabed after a catastrophic crash landing, the wider detail of the materials which were recovered by the divers largely discredits this.

There is no escaping the fact that whatever the object is, it comprises mostly of terrestrial mineral deposits commonly found here on Earth, with no trace of metal anywhere to be found at the site.

If we work on the principle that a highly advanced species would probably not not have used stone to construct a spacecraft, are we then pushed further towards the idea that this is instead evidence of a secretive human civilization?

After all, the anomaly allegedly sits atop buried tunnels and structures, is covered in what could be interpreted as the remnants of walls and staircases, and appears to have been constructed using human building techniques.

Is this a temple or other significant structure built by a lost society such as Atlantis?

If so, what was the object's intended purpose all those millennia ago?

Are we looking at an underwater companion to Stonehenge?

Is this perhaps the remains of some interdimensional portal?

Such questions might seem only marginally less fringe than those pertaining to extraterrestrial visitors, and in turn lead on to an even more provocative theory.

For some commentators, this mysterious object may be far more recent in terms of its construction, dating back to World War II.

The Third Reich was renowned for its willingness to employ any and all efforts to win the conflict, however flawed they may have been in their conception.

Is it possible that what Ocean X has uncovered is the remnants of yet another unsuccessful but secretive Nazi military project.

Those who subscribe to this theory point to the fact that if the lines in the surface of the object were the boundaries or corridors and rooms, then what has been found may be the remains of some form of communications or observation bunker.

This structure may have been carved out of the seabed, or constructed above the waves and then lowered down.

The fact that it apparently possesses the ability to scramble radio and electronic signals of any vessel which approaches could be indicative that the construction might have been an anti-shipping weapon.

It may also be the beginnings of a supply base which was never completed.

If so, like many other secretive Nazi projects, the truth behind it may now be long lost to the hands of time.

Naturally, There are those who seek to explain away the origins of the anomaly using much more grounded hypotheses.

Some believe it is a sculpture or model which fell from a ship whilst in transit.

There is also the possibility it is a naturally occurring geological feature of some kind, either compacted into the ground or conveyed from elsewhere by the gigantic glaciers which carved out the Baltic Sea many millennia ago.

Allegations persist that the anomaly could be nothing more than an elaborate hoax, with the Ocean X team having manufactured the sonar data and alleged videos from the site.

There are also suggestions that the object is little more than a rock bed, its appearance misinterpreted due to operator error or the substandard equipment of those investigating it.

Whether it is the product of some volcanic process, a meteor which has fallen from the skies, or the fantastic creation of some unknown intelligence, the Baltic Sea anomaly continues to inspire debate and speculation.

In addition to possessing the power to defeat all efforts to investigate it, the object also has the ability to polarise any public opinion surrounding it.

We live in an age of terrifying technological advancement, and so it is inevitable that the truth about this puzzling discovery will eventually come to light.

But the possibility remains that the more we learn about the anomaly, the more questions may arise.