The mystery of an underwater anomaly discovered off the coast of Africa

The wave anomaly recorded by the weather mapping system has caused a global mystery this week — some Internet sleuths even claim that it proves the existence of aliens.

A giant cluster of waves over 80 feet high and 2,000 miles long (an area larger than Texas) On April 10, it seemed to move across the ocean off the coast of Africa on a journey that lasted about 24 hours before it disappeared. Some online commentators have stated that this formation could only have been created by something moving under the surface of the sea, making it an "unidentified submersible object", the oceanic equivalent of a UFO.

The image of the incident was widely shared on the Internet and sparked many jokes and theories. Some suggest that the anomaly shows the path of a giant underwater sea creature, such as the fictional Cthulhu, or a submerged alien ship.

In fact, this proves nothing more than the inaccuracy of the data after discovering that the anomaly was caused by a "model error".

Ventusky spokesman David Prantl said in an emailed response on Friday:

"It was a model error. Ventusky serves as a visualization platform that collects data from various sources. The error occurred in the model itself, so it also affected the visualization on our site. In this case, the model is provided by the German Meteorological Service (DWD), which we are in contact with, and they have already fixed this error.

Note that the model receives millions of data points from ships and buoys all over the ocean. Problems may arise in such a large database. However, it may take time to determine the exact cause of this error."

A similar error was noticed in the same place, at the level of the zero meridian, in February 2024.