What Happened to the Missing Ship 'Arctic Sea'?

What Happened to the Missing Ship 'Arctic Sea'?

abcnews.go.com

Russia's president has ordered the Russian Navy to take part in the search for the cargo ship "Arctic Sea." Manned by a Russian crew, the ship vanished two weeks ago off the coast of southern Europe.
President Dmitry Medvedev told Secretary of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov to "take all necessary measures to establish the whereabouts and to find the missing ship 'Arctic Sea' with a Russian crew on board, as well as to free [the ship's crew], should such a need arise," the Kremlin told Interfax on Wednesday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The summery of this mystery is as follows...the source is from the link:

The Arctic Sea is a 5,000-ton cargo ship that was carrying timber worth approximately $1.6 million from Finland to Algeria. It left port July 23, and the next morning was reportedly boarded in Swedish waters in the Baltic Sea by a band of masked hijackers in a high-speed rubber boat, who identified themselves as anti-drug police. The 15-man crew was tied up while the hijackers searched the ship.

After 12 hours, they apparently disembarked and sped away, breaking radio and other communications gear but without taking anything of value, the crew reported to the Maltese Maritime Authority, where the ship is registered. Instead of making port after the incident, the ship continued on its trip.

The ship was last heard from July 28, when it radioed the Dover, England, Coast Guard because it was approaching the English Channel. In a call the Coast Guard called routine, the ship said that it was en route to the Algerian port of Bejaia, where it was due to arrive Aug. 4. The last time its position was recorded by tracking equipment was July 30, when it was off the coast of the northern French town of Brest. On Aug. 2, the ship was spotted by Portuguese coastal patrol planes.

But the next day, Aug. 3, Interpol told the Dover Coast Guard that the ship had been hijacked more than a week before and asked the Coast Guard to stay vigilant. By that point, however, the ship had passed through the English Channel and had fallen off the radar.

And it dropped off the proverbial radar and has not been heard from since.

5,000 tons of timber is hardly a pirate or terrorist's gold mine...and the ship is old so what happened...did it sink? The Channel is infamously rough...but the ship had safely passed through it...did the masked invaders actually leave?

No one knows so far.



abcnews.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

All told I would put my money on the ship sinking since if it were hijacked it would be so far from a safe port and so near well patrolled posts that it wouldn't be a viable operation.

Originally posted by grover
All told I would put my money on the ship sinking since if it were hijacked it would be so far from a safe port and so near well patrolled posts that it wouldn't be a viable operation.

If the ship had sunk the crew would have been able to radio (or sat phone in the event of total power loss) and SOS or for help.

but there was already reports of supposed 'pirates' onboard the ship on the 24 July:

Swedish police investigate pirate mystery

By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent

Published: August 11 2009 21:02 | Last updated: August 11 2009 21:02

Swedish police confirmed on Tuesday night that they were investigating a bizarre series of events in which a ship reported an alleged pirate attack off Sweden’s Baltic islands and then disappeared somewhere off western Europe.

The 15 Russian crew of the Arctic Sea, a Maltese-flagged general cargo ship heading from Jakobstad in Finland to Bejaia in Algeria, reported being tied up and beaten by 10 men who boarded the ship at about 3am on July 24 off the Swedish island of Gotland, according to Ylva Voxby, a press officer for Sweden’s national criminal police.

The question you have to ask yourself is: what type of pirates operate that far north in Sweden (none), and what was onboard that ship that that would drive unknown perpetrators to hijack it?

I very much doubt there was timber onboard and this very much stinks like recent stories about Iranian ship with WMD/dirty bomb material on board. Maybe drugs, weapons
or some other thing but it wasn't pirates, more like SAS or Navy SEALs took it over


www.nowpublic.com...

Mysterious Cargo Aboard Iranian Ship Seized by Somalian Pirates Raises WMD Concerns

uploaded by Barry Artiste September 30, 2008 at 11:33 pm
392 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Barry Artiste Op/Ed

An Iranian ship seized by Somali Pirates in the Gulf of Aden has raised suspicions by the United States when the Somali pirates upon ransacking the ships cargo soon started to drop dead like flies.

Many believe the Iranian Merchant ship the MV Deyanat's suspect deadly cargo was loaded onto the ship from China chemical manufacturers and was heading to Rotterdam.

Judging by the symptoms and recent untimely deaths of the Somali Pirates, it is believed the cargo was carrying radioactive elements.

The US and Iran are in a bidding war to get possession of the Iranian ship. The US has upped the monetary ante with the Somali government intermediaries in an attempt to find out exactly what the cargo contains, and Iran seems desperate to get the ship back.

Here's a theory- suspecting nuclear materials aboard, a special forces team boarded the vessel and swept it for radioactivity. Finding a radioactive source onboard, but not wanting to create "an incident", the special forces team disembarks the vessel, and allows it to go on its way. However, the ship is being shadowed by an attack submarine the entire time. Once the ship is well outside territorial waters, and in a nice deep spot, the submarine jams its radio, and torpedoes the vessel, taking care to sweep up any floating debris.

[edit on 13-8-2009 by moonwilson]

Originally posted by moonwilson
Here's a theory- suspecting nuclear materials aboard, a special forces team boarded the vessel and swept it for radioactivity. Finding a radioactive source onboard, but not wanting to create "an incident", the special forces team disembarks the vessel, and allows it to go on its way. However, the ship is being shadowed by an attack submarine the entire time. Once the ship is well outside territorial waters, and in a nice deep spot, the submarine jams its radio, and torpedoes the vessel, taking care to sweep up any floating debris.

[edit on 13-8-2009 by moonwilson]

bit excessive, no?

reply to post by blueorder


This is a conspiracy theory website, no? But what better way to deal with the (hypothetical) situation of finding nuclear materials aboard a merchant vessel? Sink the SOB. Send 'em to Davy Jones' locker, in such a way that nobody knows you did it.

Originally posted by moonwilson
reply to post by blueorder

 

This is a conspiracy theory website, no?

But what better way to deal with the (hypothetical) situation of finding nuclear materials aboard a merchant vessel? Sink the SOB. Send 'em to Davy Jones' locker, in such a way that nobody knows you did it.

hey, fair dos, I like

reply to post by moonwilson


I had a very similar thought on another thread, I think the 'pirates' that boarded and bound the crew masquerading as police, were either scoping the cargo (as other companies haven't come forward about other merchandise on there, it wasn't just timber) to hijack it at a later point or maybe planting something to sink it once it was out in open waters.

One of the missings sailor's dads stated though that he had shipped timber for years and if the ship had been sunk there would be timber all over the shop with that much on board

reply to post by ItsallCrazy


That is an excellent point. The timber would be floating if the ship were sunk. Looking at the pictures of the vessel, it does not have an enclosed cargo hold. The timber would be strapped to the deck, and would presumably break free and float to the surface if the ship were sunk.

I find it interesting that a ship that large could simply "disappear". Don't most ships have GPS beacons on them nowadays? I know if I owned a big, expensive ship like that, I would want to be able to know where it was at any given time.

There is no way that ship is lost. Google can probably get real time from a satellite and find it in 15 minutes. The CIA knows exactly where it is. So do a number of intelligence organizations. This seems like a false-flag in the making...

Maybe it went into the hole in the Earth at the North Pole?

"The Russian navy and European authorities are scouring the seas for any sign of the Arctic Sea, a Maltese-flagged ship."

Maltese-flagged huh, isn't that a Templar/Illuminati symbol?

But if it were carrying nuclear materials...depending on how hot it is...the crew could be very ill or dead by now unless it was securely encased.

Also who would be smuggling nuclear materials from that part of the world and to whom?

The obvious answer to the first part would be the Russians...but I seriously doubt it...the Russian government anyway.

Because if they got caught it would be a huge public relations nightmare....the Russian mob...perhaps...

Still the question has to be...whose buying?

reply to post by moonwilson


"what better way to deal with the (hypothetical) situation of finding nuclear materials aboard a merchant vessel? Sink the SOB. Send 'em to Davy Jones' locker, in such a way that nobody knows you did it."

No! Finding WMD material on a merchant vessel would NOT be hidden. It would be used for political purposes to justify all sorts of actions or to coerce various parties. No one, not the Russians, not the US, no one would want to hide it once it was discovered.

Assume the Russians were shipping WMD material to Iran and someone's special forces suspected it and boarded the ship. The boarding nation would certainly not just leave, they would use their findings and secure the evidence. The Russians would immediately switch gears and make it look like a rouge operation, perhaps by the mob. They would not want to sink the ship.

There is certainly something going on here but there are too many inconsistent/strange events that have happened for the obvious explanations to be right.

reply to post by grover


The Russians might make a shipment to the Iranians but probably not via an Atlantic route. There are various nations that might have interest in buying stuff like that.

Ships carry nuclear material every day without ill effects on the crew. That is just plain wrong. There would ne no problem packaging the material safely. It is done every day all over the world.

But the Russian government is far more responsible (and smart) than people give them credit for. Anything they sell to rogue groups or nations could easily wind up being used against them in Georgia, Chechniya, or the next hot spot. If dangerous material came out of Russia it was unlikely to be government sanctioned, UNLESS it was conventional weapons.

reply to post by rmiller196


There have been several cases of smugglers getting very sick and/or dying from poorly handled weapons grade material...there was a case in chetneya from the late 1990's in fact.

How is it possible that the crew members statements were published and the ship is still missing? What did I misunderstand there?

edit - nevermind, I read the article and it now states it more clearly. I read one yesterday that didn't explain that the pirates left.....weird stuff.

[edit on 13-8-2009 by ChrisR]

reply to post by grover


If memory serves I believe you are referring to the case where some hunters stole some nuclear batteries and were using them for heat. Unaware until too late that they were poisoning themselves.

reply to post by jtma508

That may be the case I am thinking about. But really do you thing mafia types would pack the stuff properly?

I doubt it.