Призраки в океане

We used to say that the Earth does not remain white spots. But few think about the fact that man is master of only one-sixth of the planet. About the rest of the parts we know as yet no more than, say, the moon. Therefore, many phenomena occurring in the oceans, not yet find a scientific explanation.

In the ocean found many more such phenomena which is known to seamen since ancient times, but remain a mystery today. These include the so-called light-phenomena, or, in the figurative expression of academician A. Krylov, ocean ghosts - of different kind, size and time of existence of luminous education, emerging on the ocean surface and the atmosphere above it.

But what about this wrote a well-known researcher and a "collector" of mysterious phenomena in the ocean, the American Professor A. Sanderson:

"I am sure that in the ship's log as warships and merchant vessels, as well as in the archives of every Maritime country were dozens, if not hundreds of similar cases. About them there are references even in ancient Indian literature. The vast majority of the sources suggests the emergence of a pulsating light on the horizon or between the horizon and the ship. Tell you about the intense rays of light penetrating the water directly from the sea surface. Mention any glowing round objects clearly visible even to the naked eye. Many researchers believe that this "electrical" phenomena. But then what? And how they get such amazing shape?"

If you try to classify observed in the sea of light phenomena, most of them can be summarized in three groups: glowing balls, glowing clouds and wheels.

And now give the floor to the sailors.

Glowing orbs

The captain of the ship "Moravia" A. Simpson 30 Dec 1902 near Islands Cape Verde made in the logbook the following entry:

"For a whole hour in the sky blazed lightning. Steel cables, the tops of the masts, knock-rays, etc. - everything glowed. It seemed, at all weight every four feet hung lighted lanterns, and on the ends of masts and knock Rey lit up the bright lights".

This is a typical example of the "fires of St. Elmo" - corona discharges generated in significant electric fields in the atmosphere.

"November 12, 1887 in the North Atlantic near the steamer, bound for Glasgow, suddenly appeared a huge fireball red with a diameter of about 7 m. It slowly climbed to 15-17 m up and followed alongside the vessel, moving against the wind. It took at least 5-6 minutes". Then the balloon disappeared in the clouds.

It is an impressive and strange phenomenon caused consternation among the sailors as served as a bad omen. At this size the ball must have a greater windage, but why then he was moving against the wind, even with the speed of the ship?

And here is another message about the luminous entities of large size and moving at a speed close to the speed of sound.

On the evening of 7 July 1961 on the Riga coast was clear weather. Only in the Northern part of the horizon over the Gulf of Riga at a distance of about 10 km could be seen the ridge of the massive Cumulus clouds. About 23 hours and 30 minutes in the lower part of the cloud ridge appeared a bright tangle, the transverse dimensions of which were about half the disk of the moon. He was shining like the incandescent coal. 3-5 with the ball remained on the background of clouds, the brightness is increased, and the situation has not changed. But soon the ball began to move parallel to the horizon. The light of it intensified, then weakened. It seemed like it was moving inside the cloud, passing through areas of different density. This movement lasted no more than 5 s. the Flash light became weaker and weaker, and soon the ball disappeared. His way along the horizon, judging by the size of the cloud was at least 1-1,5 km.

Carry out simple calculation. If a ball of fire at a distance of 10 km was less than half the lunar disk, its apparent diameter was equal to 1/4 of a degree. So, in fact the ball had more than 40 m in diameter. If the path in the 1-1. 5 km it was held for 5 s, the speed reached 200-300 m/s.

Similar phenomena are observed in various parts of the globe, even where there is almost no thunderstorm activity, for example in the basin of the Arctic ocean. The following two messages belong to the meteorologists of the Northern Department of Hydrometeorological service.

"The extraordinary phenomenon of gidrometeostantsiya Hoseda HART 3 Dec 1967 At 15.00, wind SE 2 m/s, cloud cover-clear visibility-more than 50 km In 15 h, 5 min from the Western side, over the horizon appeared a ball of fire, around which was a big glow, leaving a fiery streak in the form of a column extending from the ground. The balloon then separated from the fiery glow and began to gain altitude, and over Chooseday HART split ball smaller for some time emitted fiery rays to the ground. Shortly (2-3 min) last disappeared, and the first balloon continued to gain altitude, leaving a narrow luminous strip, which together with the ball disappeared from view at 15 h 10 min Fiery glow from the pillar was observed up to 16 h 10 min, after which all was cleared".

This message was accompanied by a sketch of the phenomenon.

"December 29, 1968 Telegram. Arkhangelsk - Topside forecaster (meteorological station on the coast of the Pechora sea). 15.45. Observed a luminous object that emits strong light sometimes. Above the horizon is visible a bright glowing pillar".

Unfortunately, in both cases, the distance to the phenomenon and it is almost impossible to establish its size.

Glowing clouds

In 1902 Russian patrol cruiser was detained at coast of Kamchatka the Japanese fishing vessel. The captain swore that I was there because of damage to the compass. And then as it turned out, the blame in this was a large glowing cloud that suddenly appeared over the horizon.

Russian sailors had met with a similar phenomenon in the sea of Okhotsk. For example, one astern of the ship going on the water flashed an unusually bright greenish-white light. That blazing spot grew and gradually surrounded the ship's fire ring. Then it broke away and rushed forward and in 2-3 min reached the horizon, leaving a bright glow h the clouds as the glow from the big city.

Thus, assuming that the imaginary line of the horizon from the height of the deck of the ship is visible at a distance of 4-6 km, that, taking the extreme values of 2 min and 6 miles, will receive a movement speed of the fiery circle 180 km/h.

Newspaper "Trud" on 13 July 1974 in the article "the Mysterious light in the ocean" said:

"Not just the sailors and travelers, passing not far from the Kuril Islands, seen in the gloom of night on the horizon suddenly appeared a bright spot. It quickly moved and grew before our eyes. Giant oval is often up to a quarter of a mile in width. From it went up a light post.

"Magic light" worked wonders. The compass needle began to dance. Hair people crackled. Silk flew long sparks. And some subjects somehow glowed...

This phenomenon has already been around for hundreds of years familiar to the people of Japan and the Far East. It is called the "burning circle", "brilliant cloud" Kuril "light". However, scientists until now still can not explain the nature of the mysterious phenomenon.

Glowing wheels

Some details about these luminous phenomena in the ocean are printed in soveyki and foreign journals under the rubric of "Incredible stories".

In the German magazine "marine observer", for example, described such a case. In the Gulf the crew of the ship "Glenfalloch" observed two coaxial kilometers phosphorescent wheels located one above the other and rotating in different directions.

Since sailors returning from the tropical seas of South East Asia, talked about what they had seen giant - several kilometers in diameter - luminous wheels rotating with great speed in the water or on the surface of the sea. European sailors dubbed them "the devil's carousel", in the East they were known as the "wheel of Buddha". These glowing wheels are rotated at a speed from 10 to 100 rpm, have a diameter of from several tens meters to several kilometers from the center of the circle proceed straight or curved spokes.

According to the captain of a merchant ship "Cento", in the Gulf of spokes, similar to the wave of petty-white mist, a width of 10 m and a thickness of approximately 2-3 m, to defend from each other by 10-15 m, swept around the vessel with a minimum speed of 30 m/s. Similar phenomena have been observed by navigators in the Red sea.

The crew already mentioned "Glenfalloch" watched "wheel in the form of pulsating hub of 20-30 m in diameter, from which proceeded the spokes, similar to the flat strip or shafts of glowing mist, flying over the surface of the water."

The German magazine "Waterlase" in 1966 wrote about the unusual form (in strips) phosphoric observed in the Indian ocean on August 19, 1965 in point 9°40' North latitude. and 67°33' e

In the Dutch magazine "Zee" in 1967 brought the message of the captains of the four Dutch ships from the South China sea and the Gulf of Thailand that, in 18 hours 25 minutes 29 Jan 1966 in point 10о18' North latitude. and 103°23' e was observed on the water a whitish-gray luminous rays are almost parallel to each other and rotating clockwise with a speed of 100 rpm.

In 1973, the sailors of the black sea ship "Anton Makarenko" observed the glowing wheel in the Strait of Malacca. Approximately 2 hours night duty noticed water spots, taking them for regular illumination of the sea. But suddenly separate spots began to turn into a strip with a width of 10-15 m, radiating from the vessel. Then the ends of the strips bent in one direction, forming a huge wheel, which became faster and faster to rotate counter-clockwise. After some time, all this light extravaganza split into separate spots, and disappeared.

What is the nature of these unusual phenomena?

Professor A. Sanderson, not finding a satisfactory explanation of such a strange phenomena, has announced their product activities... underwater civilization! However, this idea is not new. It expressed more H. G. wells in the story "From the abyss", and residents of Mesopotamia from generation to generation, passed the legend that the knowledge people brought a kind of creature that lived in the waters of the Persian Gulf and occasionally go ashore. Still, the hypothesis about the underwater "aliens" is no better than conjecture about "aliens" from outer space, for it removes the question about the physical essence of the phenomena. In the end, the solution is replaced by a new mystery.

The most plausible explanation, which mentions Sanderson is the electrical nature of the phenomena. But...

There is no doubt of the electrical nature of the "lights St. Elmo", but the same thing can be said not all of the phenomena of the type of fireballs. Even worse is explaining the nature of the fiery circle. Professor I. Imyanitov in relation to the mystery of the Kuril "light" has put forward the following hypothesis:

"...as you know, in the Kuril Islands, dozens of active volcanoes, which saturate the surrounding atmosphere with volcanic ash. From the interaction of fly ash with atmospheric moisture and there are glowing clouds. Driven by the wind, they quickly moved over the sea".

However, the fiery circles and clouds are observed not only at the Kuril Islands, but in areas of the ocean where there is no volcanic activity. And their rate of travel is often greatly exceed the wind speed. However, it is possible that the external identity we are talking about the phenomena are essentially different physical nature.

It is suggested that in the basis of the formation of the fiery circle lies the glow of tiny marine organisms. But it is extremely difficult to imagine how clusters of tiny creatures the size in millimeter and millimeter can form the fiery circles and clouds and to develop a truly "cosmic" speed of over 150 km/h Likely in this case, we are not talking about their speed of living creatures, and the speed of propagation of excitation in a giant to be superior so as to which is the accumulation of billions of organisms in a limited area of the surface of the sea.

And yet the greatest difficulty is the explanation of the phenomenon of the glowing wheels. However, some researchers here suggest the existence of a special kind of bioluminescence. Professor of the Hamburg University Kurt Kalle (by the way, is referred to in the "marine observer"), analyzed more than a thousand such reports, concluded that the cause of the phenomenon - flashing at the surface of the sea of tiny organisms, disturbed by shock waves which are formed by the displacement of the layers on the bottom of the sea. These waves are transmitted into the water column and reach the surface, where the accumulated luminous organisms. There is a kind of interference pattern, and if the position of seismic sources on the sea bottom changed, it is set in motion.

But the hypothesis of Professor Kalle, of course, does not explain any glowing mist above the surface, neither of coaxial wheels, or of considerable circumferential speed. In his opinion, all of this is an optical illusion.

A similar view is held by employees of the Netherlands meteorological Institute. They believe that this phenomenon, more frequent in spring and autumn, may be associated with glowing organisms, but recognize the fact that the rotation of the rays difficult to explain.

In the coming years people will penetrate to the depths of space. Before his eyes opens other worlds. Their nature is likely to be very different from earth. Thus, psychological state, and the life of researchers will depend on how quickly they will be able to navigate in a foreign world, to understand the cause and substance of things she had never seen and did not know. In this sense, the ocean can serve like a landfill, where the simulated meeting with the Unknown. But we touched only the smallest part of its mystery and forced to recognize that the answer is not so simple.

Do for the sailors the danger of such "ghosts of the ocean"? PA this question is difficult to give a definite answer, as we in some cases don't know anything about their physical nature. Apparently, the phenomena mentioned here, a special harm does not bring, except the distortions in the readings of the magnetic compasses.

However, there are cases of destruction of the aircraft, the crews of which tried to follow a similar fireballs, or to make contact with them. Now scientists from many countries unite their efforts on the study of hydro-space, and there is no doubt that the mystery of ghosts of the ocean to be solved.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»