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An interesting tale about submarines.
A Soviet submarine ran aground on Sweden& #39;s south coast very close to a Swedish naval base in 1981. They claimed it was due to an emergency and navigation errors, but Sweden took it as attempted snooping by the USSR in Swedish waters.
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A Soviet submarine ran aground on Sweden& #39;s south coast very close to a Swedish naval base in 1981. They claimed it was due to an emergency and navigation errors, but Sweden took it as attempted snooping by the USSR in Swedish waters.
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The sub returned but Sweden was on alert, convinced that Russian subs could still be lurking off their coast. Soon they began to pick up elusive underwater signals & sounds. Swedish subs, patrol boats, and helicopters started pursuing them for over a decade but to no avail.
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Each time, the search would reveal nothing but a few bubbles on the sea surface. Sweden was worried about the intrusions but couldn& #39;t fathom why, would Russia provoke them since the Cold War was long over.
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In 1996, Magnus Wahlberg, a prof at the Univ of Southern Denmark, was included in the investigation of the strange signals. He was taken into a secret underground room in Bergen naval base Stockholm where the officers played those sounds, the first time ever for a civilian.
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He had expected it to sound like the sonar ping you hear in movies when a submarine is detected or the noise of a propeller. But as per him, it sounded like frying bacon or like small air bubbles releasing underwater.
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He began investigating with a colleague to trace the source that could be making bubbles on a scale that would make Sweden think it was dealing with a nuclear submarine.
Strangely, he found the solution in herring, a fish.
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Strangely, he found the solution in herring, a fish.
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Apparently, herring have a swim bladder which is connected to the anal duct of the fish, a feature, found only in herring. So a herring can squeeze its swim bladder, and let out a small number of bubbles through the anal opening. In simple words, they let one rip.
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Herrings swim in vast schools spanning several square kilometers and up to 20 meters deep. When something frightens them, they can generate a lot of gas. The Swedish Navy was scavenging the seas looking for Russian subs scaring the fish and then chasing the bubbles.
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To test his theory, Wahlberg bought a herring and applied pressure and it made a sound. He played the footage to the navy personnel who confirmed that was a perfect match for the noise they had been hearing.
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