Indonesian authorities have launched an investigation into the sudden disappearance from the bottom of the Java Sea of seven Dutch, British and American warships, sunk in 1942 in one of the most disastrous battles for the Allies of World War II.
In 2002, amateur divers discovered the site of the battle and the well-preserved hulls of three Dutch ships. However, an international expedition that went to the Java Sea in November 2016 to survey found that the wreckage was gone. Scanning showed only the presence of craters at the bottom. A little later, it turned out that three British ships and an American submarine also disappeared.
Dutch cruiser "De Ruyter"
Following this, the UK Department of Defense contacted the Indonesian authorities to express "grave concern" and ask them to initiate investigations. According to the original version, the ships were hijacked by scrap metal hunters, because there are several gangs operating in the region that specialize in collecting sunken trash. But, according to the intelligence services, none of them has anything to do with the incident.
In addition, experts immediately stated that the disappeared ships were unlikely to be dismantled for metal, since this time we are talking about burials that are at a depth of 70 meters.
“It's almost impossible to lift them, it's too deep there,” the journalists quote Paul Koole, a Dutch shipwreck lifting specialist.
“To say that the debris suddenly disappeared is nonsense. This is an underwater activity that takes months or even years,”agrees the representative of the Indonesian fleet, Colonel Gig Sipasulta.
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While officials find it difficult to answer the question of where the ships went, informal experts have already put forward their version of events. In their opinion, the remains were stolen, but not by iron hunters, but by people … from the future. It is possible that in a few centuries it will be easier to use a time machine than to smelt metal.
So why not take something from the past that will rot anyway?
This idea now seems fantastic, but who knows what the realities of the distant future will be …
