IncidentThe Baltic Sea Anomaly

In June 2011 the Ocean X Team (Peter Lindberg and Dennis Asberg) recorded a fuzzy side-scan sonar image of a ~60 m (200 ft) circular/disc feature on the floor of the Gulf of Bothnia (~85-90 m deep, between Sweden and Finland). Media dubbed it the ‘Baltic Sea UFO,’ and the team emphasised odd features — a ~300 m ‘runway’/drag mark, a ‘staircase,’ and claimed equipment failures near it. In 2012 the team dived and recovered rock samples, which were analysed by geologist Volker Bruchert (Stockholm University) and others: granites, gneisses and sandstones plus a loose basaltic rock, all consistent with glacial and postglacial processes in a glacier-carved basin — i.e., a natural moraine / dropstone formation, NOT a craft. Independent specialists noted the low-resolution side-scan sonar was ‘virtually useless’ for identifying an undersea formation (so the ‘disc’ shape is partly an imaging artifact) and flagged the team’s commercial incentives (planned paid submarine tourism, a documentary). A clean ‘real feature, mundane cause’ case in the resolved-anomaly tradition (compare the ‘rods’ artifact).