In early 1962, Swiss oceanographer Hans Keller, using submersible television cameras, was conducting research near the island of Santa Catalina, off the Pacific coast. USA. Despite the poor image quality, Keller was able to make out at the bottom, at a depth of more than two thousand feet, some objects that looked like artificial pyramids
It was Keller's goal to reach them. Soviet journalist and oceanographer Alexander Chernov tells about this tragic attempt in his book "Homo Aquaticus", which was published back in 1968. For obvious reasons, the journalist could not state everything he knew in it, or simply did not have complete information. However, based in part on his book, we can still lift the veil over the "triumph and tragedy" of the Swiss scientist.
The personality of Keller himself is surrounded by a veil of mystery to this day. Doubting the classical thesis about nitrogen intoxication, the researcher made a gas mixture containing five percent oxygen and … 95 percent nitrogen, and began to prepare for the dive. Any expert would call it suicide, but Keller was calm. “The cause of deep-sea intoxication is not nitrogen, as is commonly believed, but carbon dioxide,” he said.
"I intend to personally investigate the" pyramids of Santa Catalina "and I believe in success." Keller's experiments in pressure chambers to simulate diving (one of the experiments was controlled by Cousteau himself!) Turned out to be successful. Soon it was the turn of a real dive near Santa Catalina, so far only a trial one, to a depth of a thousand feet (about 300 meters). Keller was accompanied by English journalist Peter Small. In the early morning of December 4, 1962, the crew of the Atlantis - an elevator built specifically for this - took their seats. The day before, during test dives, Small experienced a severe attack of decompression sickness. But he also decided not to give up the test descent with Keller - the temptation was too great. In addition to the sports interest of the submariner, the passion of the journalist began to speak in Small: he would certainly write a report about the mysterious "pyramids"!
Death in the ocean
According to the program, it was supposed to proceed as follows: upon reaching a depth of a thousand feet, open the lower hatch of the Atlantis, go out in scuba diving, swim for five minutes, return to the elevator and give the signal to rise. But the observer at the TV monitor saw one person leave the Atlantis and, contrary to the planned program, immediately returned to the elevator. The phone was inactive. An order followed immediately to lift the capsule. After 17 minutes, the rumble of the elevator stopped. The steel capsule stopped at a depth of 60 meters. It was now clearly visible how the puffs of compressed air escaped from the elevator. The drop in pressure inside the Atlantis disrupted all of Keller's schedules and calculations.
Two people - Dick Andersen and Chris Whitacker, a friend of Peter Small, put on scuba gear and, getting off the ship's ladder, threw themselves into the water. Rescuers soon appeared on the surface. There was blood in Whitaker's mask. He hung on the rope, unable to get up. But people are dying down there! The scuba divers, having caught their breath a little, again disappeared under the water. Andersen managed to repair the damage, Whitaker signaled with his hand: you can return! Dick surfaced without wasting time. Now he is on the ladder. But why Chris hesitates? Andersen stopped, put on a mask and dived again. But Whitaker disappeared without a trace. Rescuing his comrades, he died himself, and his body was swallowed up by the sea.
The capsule with two passengers was taken aboard. But there was still deathly silence inside the elevator. The painful expectation was interrupted by a phone call. It was not long before the end of decompression that Hans Keller came to his senses. A few minutes later, the Atlantis hatch opened hard, and Keller, refusing to help, climbed out of the elevator himself. Small's lifeless body was carried in her arms. Bloody foam caked on Peter's lips. All the doctors' attempts to save the journalist have led nowhere. Small died without regaining consciousness. Beside him, Mary's wife was kneeling and through sobs, quietly, like a prayer, she read Shakespeare's sonnets. “We do not believe in God and we agreed with Peter that in such a situation we will read Shakespeare,” she told her late husband's comrades. Soon Mary Small committed suicide.
They're around us
Coming to his senses, Keller talked about what had happened. The gas supply has suddenly been interrupted. However, the researchers still hoped for a successful outcome, and "Atlantis" slowly walked the entire intended path - a thousand feet. Without changing the original plan, Keller briefly left the elevator. Struggling with suffocation, in a semi-swooning state, the scientist returned to Atlantis. Barely slamming the hatch cover, with the last of his strength tore off the mask and opened the valve of the cylinder with simple compressed air. Small had long been unconscious. The forces finally left Keller himself. He fell unconscious. At this time, the ship sounded the alarm and turned on the winch.
However, the reasons for the sudden gas supply disruption and the temporary interruption of telephone communications were not identified. When decoding the “black boxes” (dive parameter recorders), we managed to hear one of Keller's last exclamations: “They are here, they are around us! They are moving at great speed, we cannot …”. Further drowned in continuous noise.
Keller himself refused to comment on these words, referring only to the fact that he was in a semi-conscious state. The video did not show any foreign objects near the Atlantis. Further deep-sea research near Santa Catalina Island also yielded nothing. The presence of pyramids on the ocean floor was not confirmed, scientists explained the first record of Keller by the imperfection of the then technology.
Traces of Hans Keller himself have since been lost. The mystery of the deaths of Small and Whitaker has never been resolved. Whether there were underwater pyramids near the island of Santa Catalina that claimed two human lives is unknown, but if they did, then where did they go? To what or to whom did Keller's exclamation, recorded by the "black boxes" refer? All this remains a mystery …
Andrey BYSTROV
Secrets of the 20th century № 49 (Russia) 2011