Surprisingly, people learned about unidentified underwater objects (NGOs) earlier than about flying ones. Even ancient sailors saw strange glowing circles of white or green color appearing on the surface of the seas and oceans. The diameter of these circles ranged from a few meters to several miles. Some of these "water wheels" had visual spokes that could give the appearance of movement. European sailors called these wheels "the devil's carousel" and were very afraid of meeting them, believing that they bring misfortune. But the Chinese sailors considered meeting with these circles a good sign and called them "the wheels of the Buddha."
After man managed to descend into the depths of water using the first submarines, the number of mysterious encounters in the ocean increased significantly.
Amazing glow in the ocean defied any explanation, therefore, over time, they began to be referred to as "mythical-fantastic" phenomena. Many scientists have expressed many hypotheses about the glow in the ocean. The most interesting of them was put forward by the German oceanologist K. Kahle. He believes that the glowing figures are caused by the interference of underwater seismic waves, which raise plankton to the surface and cause microorganisms to glow. Only this assumption does not explain in any way the symmetrical shape of the glow, the effect of rotation of "light mills", as well as the origin of the beams of bright light beating from the bottom of the ocean.
But not only "light shows" aroused interest. As it turned out, there are unknown objects in the Earth's hydrosphere that defy any explanation. There are cases when these strange objects were pursued by submarines and surface ships. Often these "catch-ups" were accompanied by strange acoustic signals, similar to the croaking of frogs. Because of this characteristic sound, the submariners called the unknown objects "Quakers". Some of the jokers argued that these were German submarines that had not been killed, which had become a kind of "Flying Dutchmen" of the underwater world. Skeptics immediately rushed to cool the imagination of the sailors: the submarines needed repairs, refueling, provisions for the crew, etc. And the technical characteristics of the Quakers (diving depth, speed and maneuverability) were beyond the capabilities of the world's best submarines of our time.
Time passed, and the number of NGOs did not decrease. They became especially active in the 50s of the last century. American sailors have repeatedly recorded the presence of unknown objects near the ships. In the summer of 1957, an unusual steel dome was seen in the water by a detachment of strategic American bombers patrolling in the North Pole region, which quickly disappeared under water. But the most interesting thing is that when flying over the dome, most of the equipment and instruments stopped working on the aircraft.
Already since 1958, many oceanographic vessels equipped with special instruments for studying the depths of the world's oceans have recorded unidentified underwater objects.
In 1963, one of the NGOs even took part in the work of the search and strike unit of the US aircraft carrier formation. The exercises were held near the island of Puerto Rico in the so-called southern corner of the "Bermuda Triangle". The strange underwater object was discovered at a depth of 1500 meters by military specialists of anti-submarine ships, performing maneuvers under the command of the aircraft carrier Wasp. American sailors at this time worked out a program of pursuing military goals. The hydroacoustics were amazed at the incredible speed developed by the underwater object. The command did not dare to give an order to destroy this mysterious target, since it was clear that the NPO was significantly superior in technical characteristics to all known devices created by earthlings. Unknown object, as if demonstrating its superiority,accelerated in front of amazed sailors to a speed of 280 km / h. Then, in a matter of minutes, in complex zigzags he rose to the surface from a depth of 6 thousand meters and again plunged into the depths of the ocean. The NGO did not try to hide its presence near the navy and stayed near the ships for about four more days.
This unplanned circumstance of the exercise was well documented. The descriptions were about an ultrafast underwater object with a device in the tail section similar to a propeller. The US military did not dare to comment on the incident. Moreover, the Cold War was in full swing, and it was possible that this device could belong to the Soviet Union - and this circumstance could further inflame the arms race. It is now known for sure that possessing the best submarine fleet in the world, the USSR did not have an underwater vehicle with such technical characteristics as a mysterious troublemaker.
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By the way, for comparison: modern submarines can go at a speed of no more than 45 knots, while the NGO noticed by the Americans accelerated to a speed of 150 knots.
But the Americans were lucky again: in 1964, a group of US Navy destroyers discovered an NGO off the coast of Florida, moving at a speed of 200 knots (370 km / h). While one of the most modern Russian boats could dive to a depth of no more than 400 meters, the discovered NGO easily sank, literally in front of the dumbfounded military, to a depth of 6 thousand meters.
In turn, the Soviet sailors believed that the "Quakers" they saw were the latest American submarines or stationary observation posts for direction finding the movement of the boats of the alleged enemy.
Every year the number of unexpected meetings with NGOs grew. Most often, unidentified underwater objects were found at a depth of more than 200 meters. The range of NGOs has also increased - they are increasingly found in the Barents Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. "Quakers" were capable of long-term pursuit of submarines, easily changed course, repeating the maneuvers of submarines.
Some researchers suggest that NGOs are completely autonomous and controlled by robots using artificial intelligence systems. But such systems were too expensive even for the wealthy United States.
The fact that the "Quakers" not only do not try to hide from observation, but also often circle around the submarines, changing the frequency of sounds and tonality, actively reacting to hydroacoustic signals from submarines, suggests that they are trying to make contact. Quakers have never posed a threat to submarines. Accompanying the submarines, they moved with them to a certain point in the area and disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. During the entire observation period, there was not a single case of collisions between submarines and "Quakers", this may well mean the friendly attitude of NGOs to people.
But, despite this, the "Quakers" and other NGOs were still very concerned about the command of the fleets of different countries. In the Soviet Union, a special group was even created under the naval intelligence department, which collected, analyzed and systematized all cases of the appearance of NGOs. Cases when the emergence of NGOs posed a danger to the ships of the fleet were subjected to special study. The officers of this special unit collected any facts related to the NGO. By order of the commander-in-chief, ocean expeditions were organized. One of the expeditions, operating in April 1970 on the Khariton Laptev reconnaissance ship, came to the aid of the dying nuclear-powered ship K-8, in distress in the Atlantic. After interrupting the listening of the ocean noise, the ship's crew and researchers rushed to the aid of the submarine's naval sailors. As a result,most of the crew of the atomic ship was saved.
In the early 1980s, the program for the study of NGOs in the USSR (codenamed "Quaker") was closed. The group was disbanded, and the materials disappeared into the depths of the naval archives. It is known that many of the employees of the destroyed group believed that the "Quakers" were one of the types of animals with high intelligence. This assumption has the right to be seriously studied, since there are scientists who support this opinion - for example, employees of the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of the Seas of the Russian Academy of Sciences, participating in the research of NGOs.
So, for example, there is a version that "Quakers" may be a subspecies of a giant eel or a preserved plesiosaur, or even an animal belonging to the giant architevris squid. By the way, according to observations, architects do not fear submarines, are not aggressive and are very fond of accompanying submarines. They have senses capable of operating over a wide acoustic range.
Based on some research data, outwardly "Quakers" have the form of modern cetaceans. Therefore, another assumption arose. It is known that the Basilosaurus (prehistoric cetacean) had a serpentine shape and could inhabit great ocean depths. Basilosaurus also possessed sound transmission organs, similar to those that modern whales and dolphins have. It is possible that the ancient basilosaurs have survived on Earth to this day. Of course, over millions of years they have evolved and learned to make forays into the upper layers of the ocean, where they meet with submarines.
The ocean skillfully keeps its secrets and is very reluctant to reveal them to man. Perhaps, we will not be able to find out anything about unidentified underwater objects soon. In the meantime, there is a huge field of activity for scientists and researchers of the ocean depths to uncover the secrets of unidentified underwater objects.