Astronauts Spot Mysterious Ice Circles in World's Deepest Lake

forgetomori.com...

I think it's a exaggerated affect of what causes ice circles to form, which is a pretty normal, though rare phenomena.

what about the damage to the ice?I've seen ice melt and never seen it behave like that.Those are stress fractures!

This may be a stretch, but I wonder if these:

englishrussia.com...

are related? Maybe the blackish circle around the ice in the original picture in this thread is what it looks like before it melts and the pictures I included above are the next step?

Just a thought. From what I've been able to find, they haven't discovered what's causing them either.

Originally posted by punkinworks09
seeing as how those circle are MILES across, its not a energy beam weapon or a uso.

Who says they were lazy? Perhaps they used the biggest one they've got and moved in in a circular motion so you would dismiss energy beam weapons.

reply to post by lpowell0627


good observation but I think the smaller ice circles in your link are to uniform.Try to find out how thick the ice is.

reply to post by genius/idoit


My point as well........ a force outbound or inbound....

"Some thing" made this happen, I disagree with natural phenomona

[edit on 26-5-2009 by savageheart]

reply to post by genius/idoit


I'm still looking for its thickness, however, this site:

www.ufocasebook.com...

has a little bit more information. Also, they mention that even the smallest circles are capable of holding a grown man's weight. In the first picture you can see a man standing in the background -- the circles are pretty large.

Why would they form uniformly like that?

reply to post by savageheart


well if the force came from underneath whatever made it did not escape the lake or the ice would not sit together so well it would have been scattered all over

reply to post by lpowell0627


wow the scale on that is deceiving but I still wonder about the different sizes of the damaged ice also the ice in the middle circle in Baikal is cracked

[edit on 26-5-2009 by genius/idoit]

I must say this thread is why I love ATS lol
You hear about something, then you research a little more and end up learning quite a bit with interest.

Anyhow, keep in mind this is the deepest freshwater lake on the planet.

en.rian.ru...

IRKUTSK (East Siberia), May 18 (RIA Novosti) - The second stage of an expedition to explore the bottom of East Siberia's Lake Baikal will begin on June 15, a Russian government official said on Monday.

The study of the world's largest and deepest freshwater lake, involving two mini-subs, started last year. The Mir-1 and the Mir-2 mini-subs conducted 52 dives during the first stage last summer, making a number of significant scientific discoveries.

The second stage of a $7.5-mln project envisions over 100 deep-water dives this year, the official said.

Baikal has not been studied completely and many questions still remain unanswered, including the origins of the lake and the unique organisms that live in it.

Now I can't wait to see what will come about from this project.
I've read that fish that exist nowhere else in the world can only be found in this lake.

I've tried looking for some of these fish but didn't find anything.
Anyone got something?

Scientists estimate Baikal is some 25 million years old. During the first stage of the study, researchers took samples of the oil that seeps through cracks in the lake's bedrock and is digested by the lake's organisms.

In addition, the mini-subs also searched for sacks of gold taken from the Imperial Russian reserves by the White Army's Admiral Alexander Kolchak before he fled from the Bolsheviks across the lake from in the winter of 1919-1920.

Some of the White Army officers reputedly froze on the ice as temperatures dropped to 60 degrees Celsius below zero, and the gold is thought to have sunk when the spring thaw came. However, no treasure, except boxes containing ammunition dating back to the 1920s, has yet been discovered.

Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World Heritage site, holds around 20% of the planet's freshwater.

If this lake is 25 million years old and is something that is left from that age almost untouched, they could find quite alot of new species there.
I think I've read that giant seahorses swam the earth during that period.

Who knows what can be found deep deep underweather.

Only problem is...... HUMANS!

The Baikal pulp mill, which produces 200,000 metric tons of pulp and 12,000 metric tons of paper per year, has discharged large volumes of toxic waste into the lake since it was built in the 1960s.

en.rian.ru...


Humans are the worst, and i'm sure these rings are man-made as well.
What a virus we are!

[edit on 26-5-2009 by ModernAcademia]

The causes, which lead to the appearance of circles on the ice of the lake, have not been studied thoroughly yet. Experts presume that they can be connected with emissions of natural gas from Baikal’s sedimentary strata.

From the geological point of view, Lake Baikal is a graben lake, a piece of the Earth’s crust, limited with steep clefts and attached to a rift zone. Rifts are characterized by an increased thermal flux and seismic activity. High temperature causes an intense generation of gas. Emissions of natural gas from the lake bottom can be observed in summer owing to bubbles rising to the surface and in winter due to unfrozen patches of water with diameter from half a meter to hundreds of meters.

“Dark circles on Baikal’s lake are too big. Emissions are likely to be connected with seismic activity and tectonic changes in Baikal’s rift system”, the site quotes the opinion of experts from the Russian Geological Foundation.

newsfromrussia.com...

This would make sense, perhaps thermal activity caused the rings and seismic activity created the cracks around the ring.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


thanks for the info on the lake its fascinating. but doesn't help me understand what created that anomaly, thanks though

reply to post by ModernAcademia


now that helped thanks!

Very interesting thread. You know, I can't help of thinking of a Stephen King book called the "Tommyknockers". Anyone ever read it? It is a story of a spaceship underground that starts affecting people in strange ways and gets a lady to start digging it up. Sorry if it sounds stupid, but it did "come to mind."

See this, it's interesting and may have some insight



If this water is sooooo deep maybe heat that can't be found else can be found there.

Did you see some of the creatures in the video? wow

Also uranium plant, radioactive material and toxins from a pulp mill.

Before doing any research on such a wonder they are killing the deepest freshwater lake on the planet. What a shame!

But it gives a few more clues perhaps.

i swear i just painted a rough painting about 2 hours before reading this thread and it looks very similar to the picture in this thread showing the cirlce. I find this very fascinating. s&f

It seems they have some thinking to do - these circles are common, but not ever as pronounced.

Also, one of these is over deep water, kinda ruining their current theories.

Why are they more pronounced? And why now in over deep water? are the 2 facts related? Questions, questions - for scientists, geologists or meteorologists I guess.


[edit on 26-5-2009 by uberbone]

Ok Number one all of the great lakes excluding lake Erie do not freeze over entirely as the lakes are simply to deep to create extensive ice coverage. So I question that this is the worlds deepest lake, would be nice to see the entire lake so we could see the extent of the ice cover... as to what may have cause the melting it could be anything from a thinner layer of ice that on a sunny day the sun caused the melting or possibly upwelling from much deeper parts of the lake where warmer water would be...



[edit on 26-5-2009 by iamjesusphish]

Originally posted by drift393
Ok guys come on, this is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. They are giant drains like you find in bathtubs.

On a serious note very interesting formations to say the least. Would a small fissure releasing warm magma or gasses cause this?

Most plausible or likely cause is either a magma or gas pool under the ice is causing it to melt. I would bet there is volcanic activity under that lake. Any takers ?

reply to post by harrytuttle
that looks like an impact site that has started to freeze over again...notice how the ice around the circle seem to be broken up. probably a meteorite...