I remember hearing about a science experiment gone wrong. A teacher threw a block of Potassium something or other into water and the resulting explosion killed some children.

Originally posted by Hellmutt
...the government of Sweden hired a Dutch marine salvage firm, Smit Tak BV, that specializes in neutralizing underwater nuclear waste, spending $350 million in a failed attempt to cover the ship in concrete.

You don't spend that kind of money merely to discourage salvagers. By now their "hot" cargo has spread all over the bottom of the Baltic. It might not be a good idea to eat the local catch-of-the-day. Helmut you seem to be a local to that area. Is there awareness of this sinking as being some kind of covert op as opposed to being merely an accident?

Why didn't they rescue the bodies from the wreck? A: If there were no longer any bodies there, the wreck would lose its status as a burial ground. They would no longer have an excuse to prevent "outsiders" from examining the wreck, and possibly find the real cause of its sinking.

Hi all, it seems most of what could have been said on the subject has been said in a very long and highly interesting thread - well done everybody for contributing, it really helps having such a detailed log of the history of this event when researching.

When i look at so called conspiracies it helps to work backwards and usually beneficiaries start to appear, for example in this case the party obtaining raw materials smuggled from the east - however in the case of the estonia it appears to be entirely a cover up operation wherein every international body involved has something to lose or more importantly something on another countries involvement which keeps the status quo.

If believed, acting through Nordic agencies, m16 agents acquired Russian 'materials', either experimental metals or nuclear materials, which were smuggled out of the east through Tallinn on board the estonia. Waiting to ensure a safe collection was a nato 'search and rescue' team whose presence in the area at that time is as suspect as their silence in the rescue and the communications black out in the area surrounding the estonia.
On route for stockholm the ship is sunk, supposedly by russian agents who learnt of the operation and set out to ensure their tech did not fall into the hands of their enemies in the west

First of all you can see how an operation was jeopardised and that any involvement, save that of a normal search and rescue would have been construed as suspicious given the circumstances. But why then run with the search and rescue line*

It is possible that non of the ships in the nato exercise were actually designed for any type of search and rescue and had any of the ships in question gotten involved been seen and any descriptions of possible contamination suits, containers etc been seen a media **** storm could be at the door step of every nato member.

At any rate a distress signal would have been read and at some point orders would have been given for the nato search and rescue operation to do nothing - even though they were in the area for just such an occasion. Given that nato refuses to comment on their activities in the area does not fight their corner either.

But what about the communications black out reported in the area? At the exact same time as the 'disaster', in that area - circumstantial does not begin to come close to explaining that - yet here we have a nato task force reasonably close by, who undoubtedly knew what was happening as a distress signal would have been sent via the estonia

Communication breakdowns and military presence are hallmarks of what people refer to as 'conspiracies' - look over any conspiracy and in the context of the event will be a communications failure or government/military presence on hand .... what comes to mind immediately is the July 7th London bombings where on the exact day of the 'attacks' the ambulance/fire brigade and police forces were undertaking a mock terror run and preparing staff to cope with an attack.