The Baltic Sea Mystery: UFO or Lost civilization?

Artist interpretation. Image by Vaghauk

A mystery object that was spotted on sonar in 2011 at the bottom of the Baltic sea has been in the news recently after divers investigated the anomaly up close.  The anomaly has been referred to as a UFO, even by the mainstream media, due to it being somewhat disc shaped and bearing a resemblance to the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

Millenium Falcon

However, now that divers have seen it up close, they have found it doesn't look spaceship, but it is still mysterious.  It appears to be made of stone, which wouldn't be what we would expect a spaceship to be made out of.  Maybe we shouldn't assume a spaceship could't be made of stone, but I would think something less porous would be more suitable.  But that doesn't mean the formation isn't unusual.  Here are some things that have been noticed about it:

• The central part of the object has an egg shaped opening that leads inside of it.
• There's no silt on the rock.
• It's covered in soot.  Stone doesn't normally burn.
• A 300-400 meter trail or "runway" leads away from it, giving it the appearance of having skid marks.
• An 8 meter pillar as well as stone circle formations described as looking like small fireplaces have been found.
• It has rounded sides, as well as what appears to be construction lines and boxes drawn on it.  It also has rugged edges and straight edges.

So that does sound pretty mysterious.  But does it really sound like a UFO?  Or could it be evidence of a lost civilization that has been submerged?  Some type of temple or public building perhaps?  Lets consider some of the oddities that have been noted about it.  

An egg shaped opening doesn't really indicate much besides the fact that it's an opening.  It's hardly any conclusive evidence of it being the opening to a spacecraft.  Small fireplaces would explain why there is soot on it, and if it was a structure built by men long ago, then fireplaces wouldn't be unusual (especially in such a cold environment) and it would make sense that they are there (and why would a spaceship have fireplaces on the exterior anyway?).  The "runway" may just be some type of road or path constructed for people to get to the building or monument.  

It's also reported that it looks like the kind of stone seen by divers in keys and harbors -- one that seems to originate from before the ice age.  I've written about the possibility of finding submerged lost civilizations along where the coastlines would have been during the last ice age in my post Forgotten Civilization: The Science of Questioning or the Questioning of Science?.  The exact coordinates of the object have not been released (at least not as of this writing), but it is said to be at the bottom of the Botnia Gulf.  So could this be evidence of a forgotten civilization along where an ice age coastline may have been?  Could it be man-made, or possibly a natural formation that men carved into a structure and settlement of their own?  If it's not a completely natural formation, then it would seem more likely to me that it is probably a man-made structure and not a crashed UFO.

Although, even if it was proven to be a man-made structure, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an episode of Ancient Aliens where Giorgio Tsoukalos questions whether or not ancient people were building a structure similar to something they had seen in the sky.  :)

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