The Baltic Sea Anomaly
A sonar image from the bottom of the Baltic showed a round object with a 'runway' behind it, and some said it looked like a spaceship.
What was reported
In June 2011, a Swedish team of wreck hunters called Ocean X, searching the northern Baltic Sea for sunken ships and cargo, picked up a sonar image of a round object about 60 metres across lying on the seabed, with a long track behind it.
The grainy image looked to some people like the Millennium Falcon from 'Star Wars', and the 'Baltic Sea anomaly' made headlines worldwide, with theories ranging from a crashed spacecraft to a sunken Nazi device.
Explanations offered
Geologists who examined samples from the site said they were ordinary rocks, such as granite, gneiss and sandstone, left by glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Most scientists consider it a natural rock formation, shaped and exposed by ice and currents.
- When
- Found in 2011
- Where
- Northern Baltic Sea, between Sweden and Finland
- Witnesses
- A Swedish treasure-hunting team
- Status
- Mostly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.