Underwater secrets. What secrets does the magic of mirrors keep in itself. Unidentified underwater objects

Secrets of the ocean depths

People have been exploring the ocean since ancient times and yet they know incredibly little about it. It is really difficult to even realize its enormity and significance in our lives. All the rivers of the world would need to flow continuously for 40,000 years to fill it. The ocean is a rather complex system where weather originates, but we have thousands of times less information about it than about the earth's atmosphere. This is probably why the world's oceans are called the "great unknown". The ocean keeps its secrets securely.

One archaeological expedition carried out work near the islands of Bimini and Andros. Interest in this region of the ocean floor arose in 1968, after the pilot R. Brush saw from the air the outlines of impressive underwater structures. This fact interested a group of scientists headed by an expert on the pre-Columbian cultures of America, Professor M. Valentine. One of the first finds was a stone structure that looked like a temple. It is completely covered with algae. All around you could see traces of other buildings, underwater roads. The researchers estimate that the blocks used for construction weighed between 2 and 5 tons. Archaeologist Mason claims that the discovered structure is, without a doubt, man-made.

The limestone blocks that make up the walls are laid with such incredible accuracy that both the indigenous inhabitants of these places and the Lucayan Indians who lived here during the voyage of Columbus could hardly achieve this. Moreover, the Indians of this tribe never used stone during construction. The researchers also discovered a pavement made of rectangular and polygonal stones, as well as something like cobbled streets parallel to the main one, and masonry, similar to a fortress wall. Aerial photography showed that dozens of architectural objects are visible at a depth of 30 m near Bimini: ruined buildings, pyramids, the remains of a large arch, etc. The appearance of the city that had gone under water was looming.

1969, summer - two divers raised two big statues and part of a marble column, which were then taken on a yacht to America.

The second expedition, which carried out work in the same area three years later, discovered and described structures about 70 meters long, and even to the south of Andros Island photographed circles made of huge stones. According to archaeologists, most of all the buildings resemble a port with a double breakwater and stone embankments.

There is no doubt that the "city", and "roads", and "port" - all this was built on land and only later sank under the surface of the ocean. Was this sinking quick, catastrophic, or did it go on for centuries? So far, this question is difficult to answer. Just as it is impossible to determine who, what civilization created such complex objects. Of course, only one thing is the undoubted antiquity of the structure at the bottom of the Bahama Bank. M. Valentine determined the age of the stone road at 12,000 years.

It is clear that civilization was highly developed. Even at a time when the ancestors of the Sumerians and Egyptians learned to plow the land and shoot from a bow, the Bahamians used the port with breakwaters and stone embankments. Turns out they had navy, was an urban culture. It should be noted that the stones for construction were brought by sea from afar. 1973 - geologist P. Karnak from France wrote that the blocks that make up the walls near Bimini "do not belong to any of the rocks on the island."

The last decades have been successful for researchers. In clear weather, the pilots saw underwater channels or roads stretching along the coast of Eastern Yukotan and going into the depths of the sea. It also became known that not far from the coast of Venezuela, a wall stretches along the bottom of the sea with a duration of about 100 miles (more than 160 km). It is also known: about underwater structures with an area of ​​4 hectares north of Cuba; about the foundations of buildings on the slopes of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (near Azores), visible only in a very clear, sunny weather; about the ruins under water near the island of Boavista in the archipelago Green Cape; about four giant buildings and paved roads leading to them, discovered by archaeologist M. Asher off the coast of Spain.

Many times scuba divers have dived to the seabed in different parts of the planet and found new and new evidence of life distant from us for centuries and millennia.

A diver from France, Jacques Maillol, discovered near Morocco, at a depth of 20-40 m, a stone wall 14 km long. The list of discoveries of recent decades includes an underwater mine with vertical passages, quarries and rock heaps, and steps carved into the shallow part of the continental shelf, going into the depths.

If the version of the artificial origin and great antiquity of at least some of these architectural objects in the Atlantic is finally confirmed, it will be possible to speak with confidence about an unknown lost civilization.

1964, August - two French naval officers, Captain Georges Wat and Lieutenant Gerard de Froberville, said that off the northern coast of Puerto Rico, when diving on the Archimedes research submarine to a depth of 8 km, they found a staircase carved into a large rock on a sloping seabed apparently man made.

40 km from American city Madison is located Lake Rock. Its width is 4 km, length is 8 km. At the beginning of the last century, local residents, the Wilson brothers, said that they noticed a stone structure underwater that looked like a pyramid. Nature itself contributed to this discovery, it was a dry year, and the water level in the lake was very low. The Wilsons said they even reached the crest of the wall with an oar.

1936 - a local doctor F. Morgan, flying on a seaplane over Rock Lake, saw three underwater pyramids at the bottom. What he told became the property of the press. The lake attracted attention. An experienced diver M. Noel went down to the bottom and, having risen, said that he had been near one of the buildings. "She looked like a cut cone 10 meters high."

The mystery of Rock Lake was seriously returned after another 30 years. 1967, summer - two groups of scuba divers were working underwater. They found several structures. One was square, the other was rectangular. There was no doubt that at the bottom of the lake there is a whole " architectural ensemble". Who, when, why and - most importantly - how built these mysterious objects at the bottom? After all, underwater construction work is incredibly difficult even for the technology of our time. Studies have shown that the pyramids and buildings were built about 10,000 years ago. What culture could have worked so hard on the American continent, building this architectural miracle under water? There is no answer to this question yet.

1970 - diving off one of the Bahamas, Ray Brown found mysterious pyramid, which struck with its smooth, downright mirror-like surface. Moreover, the connections between the blocks from which the pyramid was built were almost indistinguishable. Soon the researcher saw the entrance to this strange structure and decided to get inside. Passing through a narrow passage, Brown found himself in a rectangular room, the walls of which were impeccably smooth: they were not covered with seaweed or coral, as one might expect. Brown did not take a flashlight with him, but, nevertheless, everything around was clearly visible, since the room was illuminated, although there were no sources of light in it. In the center of the room, Brown found a crystalline sphere four inches in diameter. Leaving the pyramid, he took this sphere with him. Rightly believing that the mysterious find could be confiscated from him, he did not speak about its existence for a long time.

It wasn't until 1978 that Brown showed the mysterious crystalline sphere at a psychology seminar in Phoenix. Since then, the area has been scrutinized. As it turned out, upon closer examination, one could see the image of three pyramids in the sphere ...

1992 - an American oceanographic research vessel that performed cartographic work found in the center, in size, to a large extent exceeding the pyramid of Cheops. Processing of reflected sonar signals suggested that the surface of the pyramid is absolutely smooth, which is certainly unusual for known materials that are overgrown with algae and shells. At the same time, the surface of the pyramid was very similar to a vitreous substance. Pictures of the underwater structure were shown at a press conference in Florida immediately after the expedition.

In South America - Titicaca - one of the world's largest alpine lakes, its length is about 170 km, the depth reaches 230 m. To the southeast of it are the ruins of the strange, bizarre city of Tiahuanaco. Underwater research, which was started back in 1955, made it possible to discover ruins at the bottom of the lake. Argentinean R. Avellaneda discovered in the depths of the lake an alley of stone slabs almost 0.5 km long, stretching parallel to the shore. Late divers stumbled upon walls as high as a man. They were located very strangely - at a distance of about five meters from one another, and so in 30 rows. The walls rested on a common foundation of mighty stone blocks. All sunken architectural complex extended for more than 1 km.

1968 - an expedition headed by the French oceanologist J.I. Cousteau visited the bottom of the lake. The expedition had a huge amount of different equipment; she had two submarines at her disposal. At the end of the studies, Avellaneda's data were confirmed; in addition, archaeologists have emphasized the amazing perfection of stonework.

Research at the bottom of Lake Titicaca continues to this day. For example, an expert on pre-Columbian cultures, the Bolivian H.B. Rojo, said: “We found temples ... and stone paths that lead to no one knows where, and stairs, the bases of which are hidden in the depths of the lake and braided with seaweed.”

Turns out, part of a giant ancient city, and possibly the whole country, once went under water? But when, under what circumstances? Many researchers believe that the reason for the death of the Tiahuanaco culture was a gigantic catastrophe.

1960s Soviet expedition received a curious picture of the bottom of the Atlantic in the area of ​​the Ampère Seamount. You might think that the photo shows masonry, the lines in the picture are so distinct and geometrically correct. There is nothing strange and contrary to the data of science in the fact that in ancient times there was a mainland or an island, which, as a result of a catastrophe, went under water and carried away traces of a lost civilization.

In the mid-1970s, the results of an American scientific expedition were widely discussed, which stated that they had found traces of ancient civilization. The divers of this expedition, organized by Pepperdine University from California, discovered the ruins of the ancient city. A member of the expedition, the English scientist E. Sykes, suggested that the city that had sunk to the bottom was the legendary Atlantis of the ancients.

The California expedition included leading scientists from various countries in search of Atlantis. As soon as the archaeologist M. Asher found about 30 km from the coast at a depth of 25-30 meters the ruins of an ancient city (the remains of four cyclopean buildings with stone-paved roads), the Academic Council decided to publish a message about this sensational discovery. Descriptions and even drawings of the ancient settlement appeared in the largest European newspapers and magazines. The scientists who took part in the expedition announced that this find is the largest discovery in the history of mankind at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Secrets of the Ocean updated: November 14, 2018 by: cross

The ocean is a mysterious element that holds many inexplicable secrets. Only a small part of the researchers managed to find out and solve some of the mysteries of deep waters. But humanity still has many discoveries related to this water element. It is quite possible that people will find out where ships disappear in the Bermuda Triangle and see the world's largest animal living in the depths of the ocean.

Water covers 70% of the Earth's surface, and today there is still a lot unsolved mysteries ocean. This article presents three mysteries of the oceans of greatest interest.

Big Killer Wave

People living near the sea or ocean know how to determine that a wave is approaching the shore and manage to evacuate the inhabitants of nearby settlements in time or send fishing boats to the open sea. But in open waters you can meet something terrible - this is a big killer wave, also known as a rogue wave. It can reach from 20 to 30 meters in height, sometimes more, it appears unexpectedly and terrifies even experienced sailors. Experienced fishermen cannot predict its appearance, and all that remains is to pray that the ship does not capsize and drown, and that all who are on it can safely survive this disaster.

Rogue Wave Destructive Power

A big killer wave can easily sink not only fishing vessels, but also supertankers, which, it would seem, nothing can harm. The killer wave covers everything that comes in its path. Under such pressure, the hull of the vessel does not withstand, and it instantly disappears under the water column.

It is almost impossible to study the killer wave and the reasons for its sudden appearance. To learn the secrets of the oceans, scientists have to speculate and hypothesize based on the stories of eyewitnesses who miraculously survived a collision with a wave.

One day, scientists will be able to understand the reasons for its sudden appearance and, therefore, predict dangerous places where the killer wave is raging. But when this will happen is still unknown, and sailors going out into the open waters pray not to meet a killer wave on their way and return home to their families.

Bermuda Triangle

For more than a hundred years, a place called the Bermuda Triangle or the Devil's Triangle scares and attracts people at the same time. In this zone, more than a hundred ships and aircraft disappeared without a trace, more than a thousand people disappeared. Their remains have never been found.

The territory of the Devil's Triangle is delineated by three points: Puerto Rico, Florida, and Bermuda, thanks to which it got its name, but disappearances are also noted outside the designated border.

Several documentaries and feature films have been made about the Bermuda Triangle. Every year this place grows big amount myths and legends, and therefore it is sometimes difficult for scientists to convey the discoveries made to mankind. It is easier for people to believe in unexplained disappearances than in scientific evidence.

Unsolved mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle

Scientists have not unraveled all the secrets of the ocean, the Bermuda Triangle keeps many of them. Until now, most air and sea ​​vessels, which disappeared in the anomalous zone, were never found. And there are countless speculations about what happened to them.

• One of the versions is based on the fact that the Bermuda Triangle is located on the site of former volcanoes. And with small seismic vibrations, bubbles filled with methane rise from the bottom. They can reach large sizes and, falling between them, the ship ceases to float and goes to the bottom. And if it hits the bubble itself, the entire crew dies of gas poisoning. All that remains is an empty ship drifting in the open waters of the ocean.
• Another version of the solution to the mystery of the oceans is the presence of infrasonic waves in the anomalous zone. Falling under their influence, a person cannot concentrate, panic overcomes him, and hallucinations may even appear. Under such pressure, the crew members can not stand it and throw themselves overboard, which leads to their death.
• There is speculation that the Bermuda Triangle is a UFO base. Several cases have been recorded when eyewitnesses talk about the appearance of round flying objects. They either hid under the water, or, leaving it, disappeared over the horizon.

And these are far from all versions of the disappearance of people who fell into the Bermuda Triangle. The secret of the depths of the ocean will someday be revealed.

Pyramid underwater

Every year, scientists put forward more and more new assumptions about the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, and, quite possibly, humanity will soon find out where thousands of people have disappeared without a trace. The explanation for this may be another mysterious phenomenon that was discovered in the area of ​​the Devil's Triangle. Studying its bottom, scientists stumbled upon a pyramid that is several times larger than the pyramid of Cheops. Taking a closer look at it, the scientists found that the material from which the structure was made resembles polished ceramics or glass, but is not one of them.

The Bermuda Triangle holds many mysteries and secrets, and it is not known when scientists will open the veil and tell humanity the reasons for the disappearance of aircraft and ships. And this is not all the secrets of the depths of the oceans.

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench is located in the waters Pacific Ocean, near the Mariana Islands. It is the deepest depression known to mankind. This is where the most hidden mysterious secrets Pacific Ocean.

For many years, only its approximate depth was known, but as a result of several measurements, scientists came to the conclusion that the Challenger Abyss (the most deep point Mariana Trench) is located at 10994 meters with an accuracy of ±40 meters below sea level. These figures are amazing, because the bottom of the depression is further from sea level than the top of Mount Everest.

The Mariana Trench was formed due to the displacement of 2 lithospheric plates - the Pacific and the Philippine. The Pacific plate is older and heavier than the Philippine one, and therefore, when moving, it crawls under it, thus forming the deepest and most mysterious hollow in the world.

Discovery of the depths of the ocean

There were several dives to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and during these processes more and more new discoveries happen, the secrets of the oceans do not cease to interest people. For example, scientists assumed that life stops at a depth of more than 6,000 km, that under such conditions, in total darkness and under enormous pressure, not a single marine animal or fish could survive. But what was their surprise when a fish was found at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench. Outwardly, she looked like a flounder. When diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, scientists were able to make many discoveries, but much remains a mystery hidden under the water column.

monster from the abyss

People tell incredible stories in which sailors saw a large monster in the area of ​​​​the Challenger Abyss. It was not possible to examine it well, but the appearance of a marine inhabitant did not go unnoticed. According to eyewitnesses, the script for the documentary "Secrets of the Ocean" was created, the film turned out to be interesting and attracted a lot of attention to an unsolved phenomenon.

During one of the scientific dives, scientists heard a sound resembling metal grinding, and the cameras recorded the appearance of an unusual shadow resembling a dragon from a fairy tale. After a little thought and deciding not to risk expensive equipment, the apparatus was raised to the surface. What was the surprise of all members of the team when they saw how the super-strong metal of the device was deformed, and the steel cable 20 cm wide was half sawn. Who or what wanted to leave the module forever at the bottom of the Mariana Trench remains a mystery, the answer to which humanity will not know when it will receive, and whether it will receive it at all.

The underwater world is striking in its size, it hides a lot of mysterious and inexplicable, but I want to believe that someday scientists will be able to unravel all the secrets and mysteries of the world's oceans.

Unforgettable woman of an extraordinary traveler

Jules Sebastien Cesar and Adele Dumont-Durville - the great traveler and his wife, an ordinary woman of the great traveler.
Dumont d "Urville, Jules-Sebastien-Cesar 1790 - 1842 French navigator and oceanographer, explorer of the Pacific and Antarctic.

In 1815 he married Adele Pepin, the daughter of a watchmaker. Surprisingly, I could not find a more or less complete biography of this woman, who had the mission to be the wife of a great traveler, a sea captain, who apparently loved her so much that he named the new lands, islands and straits discovered by him, after her, Little is known about her and her life. It is known that they lived happily ever after and died on the same day. Jules, Adele and their son were killed in a train crash near Paris in 1842.
In 1819, Jules Sebastien Dumont-D'Urville was assigned to the ship "La Chevrette", on an expedition to explore mediterranean sea. Botany, entomology, archeology are entrusted to him.
In 1820, the Greek peasant Iorgos unearthed in Milos antique statue. Dumont-D'Urville examined it, but had no money to buy the statue and sold the statue to the priest Verga, who resold it to French concessionaires.
Thus, the statue ended up in France, in the Louvre, and became known as the Venus de Milo. Until now, there are disputes about what was the original position of the hands of Venus. And were they, by the way, when Iorgos found the statue. One of the most important testimonies belongs to Dumont-Durville: after all, he was among those few people who saw the statue back in those days when it was on the island. Here it is: "The statue (I measured both parts of it separately) ... depicted a naked woman who held an apple in her left raised hand, and with her right held a beautifully draped belt, casually falling from hips to legs." And then follows a phrase that caused a lot of talk: "In the rest, both arms are damaged and are currently taken away from the body." http://coollib.com/b/148589/read By "present" Dumont-D'Urville apparently meant the days when he was still on the island.
In 1820 he took part in a hydrographic expedition to the Mediterranean Sea. In 1822 he circumnavigated the world on the ship Coquiville under the command of his friend Captain Duperi. Upon his return in 1825, he received the rank of frigate captain and was appointed commander of the Coqueville, which was renamed the Astrolabe (as one of the ships of the great French traveler La Perouse was called). On this ship, he again set off on a round-the-world voyage from Toulon in search of the missing La Perouse expedition. Prior to this, d'Entrecasteaux and the Englishman Peter Dillon were engaged in searching for the missing expedition. Even 13 years ago, Dillon came across some items that clearly belonged to the members of the La Perouse expedition. In 1826, he resumes the search, at the same time that Dumont-Durville sets out to search. In 1827, when they are both in Oceania


Dillon manages to find a few more items that belonged to French sailors: a piece of a globe, parts of astronomical instruments, pins, spikes, fragments of chains, a cannon, a bell with the mark of the master of Bazaine, that is, the workshop of the Brest arsenal, sculptures with the coat of arms of France, etc. Dumont- Durville, meanwhile, visits the island of Vanikoro, where all traces lead. More precisely, this is not an island, but a group of small islands surrounded by a reef. The islanders show him the place where the French ships sank. At the bottom, at a depth of several meters, sailors see cannons, cannonballs, anchors. All wooden parts are gone. These are objects from the "Astrolabe", "Bussol" could not be found. With the help of local residents, the sailors get individual items, an anchor, a cannon, a bell, a blunderbuss. They build a monument out of coral slabs, fire a volley of guns.

Dumont-D'Urville's expedition explored the South Atlantic, southern part Pacific Ocean, the coast of Australia, the King George Coast, Port Jackson, mapped various areas of New Zealand and New Guinea, visited the islands of Fiji, New Caledonia, Carolines, Celebes, Mauritius and others.
In 1837–1840 Dumont-D'Urville participated in a joint expedition to the Antarctic by the ships "Astrolabe" and "La Zele", during which Louis Philippe Land, Joinville Island, Adélie Land (named after Dumont-D'Urville's wife) were discovered. Expedition visited islands of Borneo, Tasmania, ports of Chile, performed a large amount of oceanographic research. IN hometown A bronze monument was erected to him in Kana, in the same city a lyceum bears his name. One of the streets in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, a mountain on the island of Auckland, one of the islands of the Joinville archipelago at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, an island at the northern tip of the South Island (New Zealand), a mountain on the Antarctic Peninsula, a 720-meter ice wall on David Glacier on Victoria Land in Antarctica, glacier on Grande Ter Island in the Kerguelen archipelago, cape on the island New Guinea. He himself named the land he discovered in Antarctica in honor of his wife Adele Land, and the Australian polar explorer Douglas Mawson later called the sea washing this land the D'Urville Sea. Since 1956, the French Antarctic station Dumont d'Urville has been operating here. Source: The Dumont-D'Urville Expeditions explored the South Atlantic, the South Pacific, the coast of Australia, the King George Coast, Port Jackson, mapped various areas of New Zealand and New Guinea, visited the islands of Fiji, New Caledonia, the Carolines, Celebes, Mauritius and others

The vast expanse of water from the shores of America to the shores of Eurasia, Oceania and Australia was discovered by Europeans only in the 16th century. The culprit of this greatest historical event became Portuguese and spanish navigator Ferdinand Magellan(1480-1521). In the autumn of 1520, three sailing ships under his leadership rounded the southern tip of the South American continent and, having filled the sails with a fair wind, fearlessly rushed into the sea distance alluring with uncertainty.

Swimming lasted more than three months. It was hard and difficult. Already by the middle of the journey, food and water supplies began to run out. The daily allowance was halved, then tripled; sickness began among the crew members. Soon the first dead appeared. Their bodies were sewn up in canvas and thrown overboard. Somehow, imperceptibly, death became a daily ordinary event, and the canvas was over.

Only in the spring of 1521, when miraculously the surviving sailors prayed to God that he would send them death, the observers on all three ships joyfully shouted the long-awaited word "Earth". These were the islands of Southeast Asia, which were later called the Philippine.

The ocean respected the courage of people: all the time, while the ships plowed its expanses, there was excellent calm weather. As a token of gratitude to the mighty water element, Magellan named the Pacific Ocean. This name has stuck. Today, the world's largest ocean, which accounts for almost 50% of the entire water surface of the Earth, is called the Pacific or Great.

Its area with the seas is 179.68 million km², and average depth equals 4280 km. It occupies more than 30% of the planet's area and has about 10 thousand islands, most of which are concentrated in its southwestern waters. Here, on western outskirts, the seas that are part of the Great Ocean are also located, there are nine of them. Eastern waters This giant body of water is washed by the western coast of America and is a coastal zone for 12 states. In total, 45 state entities are located on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Mighty warm and cold currents cross the ocean in all directions. This is Kuroshio passing by the southern and eastern shores Japan. North Pacific current carrying cold waters to the western shores North America. There are also California and Kuril currents. The southern part is dominated by the warm South Equatorial and East Australian currents.

Such a variety of movements of large water masses affects the spread of ocean surface temperatures. At the equator, it reaches 26-29 ° Celsius, and in cold southern regions drops to 0° Celsius. Temperature also decreases with depth. The farther from the surface, the lower it is. On great depths the temperature is close to the freezing point of salt water (minus 1.8° Celsius).

One of the attractions of the Pacific Ocean is 180 meridian- date line. It is a purely conditional border, dividing the planet into two diurnal zones. When moving from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere, the calendar date moves back one number. If you move in the opposite direction, then the number is added, and the traveler finds himself in tomorrow.

But it is not the sights that attract researchers, but secrets of the Pacific. Chief among them is his underwater environment. It is here, in the dark multi-kilometer layers of the water mass, that there is a completely different world, unlike the earthly one. It is also inaccessible to people, like the stars of the distant Cosmos. Enormous pressure reliably protects the underwater life full of mysterious events from prying prying eyes. A person can only study the topography of the bottom of a huge reservoir. It is impossible to look into the depths. Countless tons of water instantly destroy any daredevil.

The ocean floor is dotted with pits, crevices, trenches, the depth of which is much higher than the average. In the northern latitudes there are such trenches as the North Aleutian and Kuril-Kamchatsky. In the east: Peruvian and Central American. In the west, there are two huge trenches - the Mariana and the Philippine.

Mariana Trench

The deepest not only in the Pacific Ocean, but in all the waters of the world - Mariana Trench(depression). It originates at the southern tip of the Mariana Islands (11° 21′ N and 142° 12′ E) and stretches parallel to them to the north. The length of the trench is 1340 km. He has almost steep slopes and flat bottom. The width of the bottom varies from 1 to 5 km and takes on a water mass with a pressure of 108.6 MPa (814569.24 mmHg). This is 1071 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level.

The Mariana Trench has a topography typical of the ocean floor. There must be a presence on the one hand mountain range or island ridge, on the other - the deep-sea bottom. Between them, as a rule, gutters with steep slopes stretch. The latter are the result of the movement of underwater tectonic plates and have considerable depth. From the ocean floor of such a trench to the highest above-water peak, the distances range from 12 to 17 km.

For the first time, the depth of the Mariana Trench was measured by Soviet researchers in August 1957, on board the Vityaz vessel. Readings were recorded based on echo sounder measurements. The water column turned out to be equal to 10220 meters and until January 1960 was considered official.

A significant event occurred on January 23, 1960. It was on this day that US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, together with explorer Jacques Picard, sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste. At one time it was created by the Swiss scientist Auguste Picard.

American military engineers have finalized this design, maximizing its strength. The walls of the gondola itself, where the people were, were made of titanium-cobalt steel, and their thickness was 127 mm. It had a spherical shape with a diameter of just over two meters. The gondola was attached to a large float, which was filled with gasoline to provide buoyancy to the bathyscaphe. The weight of the entire structure in the water was 8 tons.

The submersion of the bathyscaphe took five and a half hours, the time spent at the bottom of the ocean was 12 minutes. The climb was faster, it was completed in three hours and twenty minutes. The depth measured by the researchers was 10918 meters. Three layers of changes in temperature and density of water were discovered, deep-sea flat fish, the size of a large frying pan, were noticed at the bottom. Nothing unusual or mysterious was found.

Only in the second half of the 90s of the XX century, new attempts were made to measure the deepest trench in the world. This time the Japanese were the initiators. They lowered the Kaiko probe to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The robot stuffed with electronics gave a depth value of 10911.4 meters.

The latest in this line was the American automatic underwater vehicle "Nereus" (Nereus), developed by engineers at the Woodshall Oceanographic Institute. His dive was dated May 31, 2009. This advanced design took photographs of the ocean floor, filmed videos, took sediment samples for analysis, and made depth measurements. The water column turned out to be equal to 10902 meters.

All of the above measurements were taken at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, near the island of Guam, which is part of the Marianas. This small deep section of the ocean floor is called Abyss Challenger. As already mentioned, the length of the entire gutter is about one and a half thousand kilometers. It is possible that there are other sites somewhere in this distance; their depth may be more than that, which was determined by "Nereus".

deep sea fauna

Researchers involved in measurements of the Pacific waters were interested not only in exact numbers, but also, to a large extent, in the underwater fauna that can exist in such extreme conditions. It turned out that a column of water pressing from above is by no means an obstacle to the successful life of many living creatures, which are quite comfortably settled at depths of 6000 meters and below.

Deep sea inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean

In addition to single-celled organisms, which God himself ordered to settle wherever possible, there are deep-sea fish of the most bizarre and diverse forms. Many of them are luminous, have large sharp teeth, and do not have fins that replace them with palisades of thorns. Some of these creatures are blind, while others have large rotating eyes.

Today, more than a hundred species of deep-sea fish have been discovered. They feed on various types of bacteria, organic and mineralized remains (detritus), as well as a continuous stream of dead fish and marine mammals, "pouring" to the bottom from the upper water layers of the Pacific Ocean. These creatures do not disdain each other, once again proving the fact that natural selection is not at all alien to the oceanic depths.

In a word, the study of living organisms that inhabit the bottom of the Great Ocean is proceeding quite successfully, which cannot be said about the rich and diverse world that exists in the upper, six-kilometer water column. This is quite natural, since this world is inhabited by faster and more mobile marine animals, which are not at all characterized by phlegmatic lying on the seabed in anticipation of the gift of nature in the form of a whale or sperm whale corpse slowly sinking into the depths.

Megalodon in the waters of the Pacific Ocean

In the expanses of the Pacific Ocean, which is the warmest of all the oceans of the planet, countless marine mammals, countless shoals of peaceful fish, as well as flocks of predators devouring everything and everything in their path, drift. Life is seething here in all its diversity, and the species and families of marine animals are many times greater than the species and families of animals that live on the earth's firmament.

Man, with his research, military and economic interests, has become not just a familiar, but an ordinary phenomenon in the waters of the world's greatest body of water. From the shores of Eurasia and Australia to the shores of America and back, a huge number of different-sized ships of all countries and peoples scurry about. In the underwater depths, nuclear submarines are on combat duty, each of which is capable of easily destroying the entire living world of the planet. Without risking to move very far from their native shores, fishing vessels collect a rich catch.

Case off the coast of New Zealand

The surviving member of the crew of one of them witnessed an incredible event. It can be safely attributed to the secrets of the Pacific Ocean, and it happened in the seventies of the XX century not far from the island located north of New Zealand.

According to an eyewitness, the weather that day was amazing. The ocean behaved kindly, gently and helpfully with a small fishing boat, which was only 27 meters long. The working hours had already ended, and the fishermen hurried to their native shore in order to fully relax after an exhausting work shift.

Suddenly, right on the course, a large surf of water rose, and the head of a huge fish appeared. It was about the size of a small truck, and its open mouth could well pass for a wide entrance to a spacious cave. Everyone who saw her, the blood froze in the veins. It seemed that the sea devil himself emerged from the depths and appeared before the eyes of people in all its disgusting beauty.

The disgusting creature was on the surface of the water for only a few seconds, and then slowly plunged into the foaming abyss and disappeared from the eyes of the fishermen frozen in mute horror. It could be a mass hallucination, at first everyone thought so. But suddenly a terrible blow shook the trawler. The ship, with a displacement of 130 tons, tossed like an inflatable ball over the water surface. All 16 crew members were knocked down and rolled across the deck.

The second blow made the ship's hull groan plaintively. After the third, holes appeared in the hull, into which sea ​​water. A terrible creature surfaced near the sinking ship. The terrified people could now see him in full size.

In appearance, the monster looked like a white shark, which has lived in the waters of Polynesia since time immemorial. But unlike the latter, this creature was much larger: it was three times larger than the largest marine predator and was in no way inferior in length to a sinking fishing trawler. The color of her skin was not dark, but dirty white, rows of huge teeth were visible in her open mouth, cold empty fish eyes looked at the unfortunate fishermen without blinking.

Panic broke out among the people. Someone rushed about in horror along the tilted deck, someone fell into the water. The latter were immediately swallowed by a terrible sea monster. It was swallowed, because a horse could freely enter into the wide-open jaws.

A few minutes later it was all over: the ship lay on its side and quickly sank, everyone caught in a quiet ocean water The fishermen were devoured by a terrible fish. Only one unfortunate man managed to escape. He managed to pull on a life jacket, jumped into the water and, saying a prayer to himself, began to row away from the place of the terrible tragedy.

Not daring to turn his head, the fisherman measuredly worked his arms and legs, moving farther and farther away. At any moment, he expected that a terrible mouth would appear from the depths, and the foaming cycle of water would drag him to where all his comrades had already disappeared. But time passed, everything was quiet around.

The surviving member of the team looked around timidly. The ocean surface was serene. The only reminder of what had happened was the lifeboat, which swayed alone on barely noticeable waves a hundred and fifty meters from the sailor. The fisherman reached her and after a few hours told the people on the shore about the misfortune.

Panic arose among the crews of fishing vessels - no one wanted to go to sea. Several warships scoured square after square of the deadly waters. No traces of a terrible monster were found. Gradually everything calmed down; the rumors subsided; life has returned to normal.

This case did not receive wide publicity in the press, as everyone considered that the rescued person had dreamed of something. The tragedy was attributed to a Russian submarine, which unexpectedly surfaced from the depths, destroying a fragile ship that appeared in its path. But, as they say, not caught - not a thief. It soon began to seem to the eyewitness himself that all the horror he had seen was the result of a sick imagination of his psyche: the sun was burning unbearably that day, and you never know what could seem to an overheated consciousness.

Case off the coast of South America

A similar incident happened many thousands of kilometers away, in another corner of the Pacific Ocean, in 1998. It happened in the waters washing the western coast of South America, on the border of Colombia and Ecuador. Here, too, the day was drawing to a close, and the weather was calm and calm.

A Colombian police patrol boat was chasing a nimble motorboat carrying two drug couriers. They apparently had large stock heroin, which pulled on a very decent amount in dollars. The criminals considered throwing such goodness overboard as the height of madness, so they did not stop at the demand of the authorities, but decided to hide in the sea of ​​the Great Ocean.

Two powerful motors were installed on the boat, and the distance between the pursued and the pursuers, though slowly, but steadily increased. Soon the commander of the police boat realized that it would not be possible to detain the drug dealers. But his annoyance was unexpectedly corrected by unforeseen circumstances.

Suddenly, on the starboard side of the boat, the guardians of the law saw a giant fish. In all its outlines, it resembled a white shark, which, experienced in the maritime service, the policemen often saw in coastal waters. All the difference was in size. The predator now swimming next to the boat was three times larger than the usual representative of this species. It was both longer and wider. In addition, the color of his skin on his back was not dark, but off-white.

The giant fish walked side by side with the boat for some time, then sharply increased its speed and easily left the modern high-speed vessel behind. She got lost in the water surface, just in the direction of the motor boat of the “white death” merchants, which had already broken away from the pursuers.

The NCIS officer raised the binoculars to his eyes. He was young, ambitious, determined and did not like to lose to criminals. The mocking faces of the two scoundrels, who were already celebrating victory, were clearly visible through the eyepieces, and the bitterness of defeat seized the soul of the guardian of the law.

Everything changed in a split second. A motorboat stuffed with heroin was thrown into the air by some unknown force. Her body split in half like a nutshell. Two people floundered helplessly in the warm water. Near them appeared the dirty white back of a huge fish. Then a giant maw arose, which swallowed first one and then the second drug courier.

When the police boat was near the scene of the tragedy, it was all over. The surface of the ocean was quiet, smooth and pristine. Only not far away, on a light wave, several packages sealed in cellophane with "white death" swayed. No more traces of motor boat, people and an unknown giant fish, was not observed in the foreseeable space.

The incident was reported to the authorities. In order not to attract journalists and not to sow panic, local authorities police forces secretly and carefully combed the coastal waters. A few white sharks were seen, but a huge monster that did not fit into any conceivable size, like "sank into the water." In the end, they came to the conclusion that the officer and his subordinates had messed up something. Most likely it was some kind of enraged white shark or another large, but ordinary marine predator.

It is true that earlier in these waters they did not notice the enraged sharks, but after all, something always happens for the first time. Bad ecology, harmful waste poisoning the marine environment, but you never know what factor could affect the nervous system of such a dangerous and aggressive fish. The police reports were shelved and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

The above cases suggest that different people at different times and in different parts of the Pacific Ocean, they encountered a little-known marine predator in our time. According to the description, it was megalodon- a fossil shark, the largest predatory fish in the world in the entire history of the existence of life on Earth, which died out about one and a half million years ago.

Its dimensions reached 30 meters, and its weight fluctuated within 60 tons. It was the most powerful biological killer machine. The teeth of the megalodon, which are occasionally lifted from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, are exactly the same shape as the teeth of the great white shark, but much larger. Their size reaches 15 cm in length, 10 cm in width and 2.5 cm in thickness. While in the modern great white shark they are respectively equal, 3.5-4; 2.5 and 0.6 cm. The difference is obvious and gives a rough idea of ​​the capabilities of this terrible predator.

How such a monster of oceanic waters managed to survive and go unnoticed by people for many thousands of years - this question hangs in the air. Maybe in the cases described there was not a megalodon at all, but what is interesting is that according to some foreign publications, over the past decade, the teeth of this terrible monster have been discovered at the bottom of the Great Ocean, the age of which was determined by experts to be 11,000 years and 26,000 years.

The conclusion suggests itself: megalodon exists, but it appears in humans so rarely that it gives reason to many sober-minded skeptics to deny its existence. Only those who want to see can see, but if another, for a number of reasons, does not seek to see the obvious, then he will attribute this rare phenomenon on the surface of the ocean to completely different factors, which, if desired, can be found in the greatest variety.

Mysterious monsters of the deep sea

But the secrets of the Pacific Ocean do not end with the megalodon. And without it, there are enough mysterious and mysterious creatures in the depths of the planet's greatest body of water, which, although very rarely, still appear dangerously close to sailors.

First case

In 1988, a pipeline was laid between the Nampo Islands and the island of Kyushu (Japan) along the ocean floor. In one place there was a rocky ridge that interfered with the work. It was located at a depth of more than 5 km, and experts considered it more rational to blow it up than bypass it. They supervised the entire process from a ship located a kilometer from the calculated epicenter of the explosion.

After the detonator worked, standing on upper deck the captain and two observers saw an incredible picture. From the depths, about three hundred meters from the ship, a huge body appeared. It was at least a hundred meters across and had smooth black skin that shone in the sun. The mysterious creature lifted a long and thick serpentine tail into the air. He described a huge arc and fell into the water. In a stream of splashes and waves, an unknown creature plunged into the depths and disappeared from the eyes of shocked people.

Second case

Not less than mysterious case occurred in waters close to the equator, in the area of ​​the Gilbert Islands. They are part of the Republic of Kiribati, whose independence was proclaimed in 1979. The population here mainly consists of local aborigines, but there are also Europeans who are attracted by a free life away from the delights of civilization.

Here is one such European paired with the original inhabitant of these gods forgotten islands and ended up in a canoe, far from the shore. Their occupation was fishing. The catch on this warm day in 1992 was surprisingly good. The men were so carried away that they came to their senses only when the solar disk began to sink below the horizon.

The first twilight reminded people that it was time to return. They unfolded the sail, hoping to quickly reach the shore lost behind the smooth surface of the ocean. But suddenly a strange noise caught their attention. It was like a loud slap on the water. The fishermen turned their heads towards the incomprehensible sounds and clearly felt the hairs on their heads stand on end in horror.

Against the background of a bloody sunset, the dark silhouette of an ancient foot-and-mouth disease was visible, which was rushing towards the canoe on the water surface. He pushed off the ocean with membranous wings and did not make a sound. Suddenly, another creature appeared behind him. It was three times larger and resembled a dragon, as if materialized from the legends of distant ancestors.

The pursuer was repelled from the water by some flat, wide ends resembling fins. He very quickly caught up with the foot-and-mouth disease, grabbed his neck with his huge mouth and plunged into the water with his victim. All this was done in complete silence: neither the pursuer nor the pursued made a sound.

What he saw could be mistaken for a mirage: for the play of light and shadows against the backdrop of sunset, but the three-meter wave that arose at the site of the dive of strange creatures was quite material, and it fell on the fragile canoe quite noticeably. People miraculously managed to level the boat, which was already ready to capsize. With full sail they hastened to leave scary place, but having reached the shore, they decided to remain silent and not tell anyone about the horror experienced.

Only a few years later, when the European ended up in Australia, he shared this story with a group of ichthyologists. Believed those him, did not believe - it is unclear. Probably not, because they conveyed this story as a funny sea ​​bike, familiar to the journalist, and he published it in the newspaper with the appropriate comments.

Conclusion

Such cases occur daily in the vastness of the great reservoir, stretching from west to east for 17,200 km, and from north to south for 15,450 km. Unfortunately, only pitiful bits of such information reach the public. How many, in truth, sensational and invaluable events for science forever remain a mystery? Probably there are countless of them, and eyewitnesses would be quite enough to populate a small city.

Witnesses of such phenomena, which can be safely attributed to the secrets of the Pacific Ocean, for a number of reasons, are not very willing to talk about what they saw, and listeners are almost always full of skepticism and distrust of the stories they hear. Most people live with the idea that there are no miracles in this world, although, in fact, the very birth of each of us on this earth is already greatest miracle. Well, if it happened, then why not be other miracles, which, although not as great as the birth of a person, are nevertheless also interesting and mysterious.

The article was written by ridar-shakin

Based on materials from foreign and Russian publications