Baltic Sea UFO Really Just Rocks

The Baltic Sea UFO turns out to be something a little more ordinary.

The object turned up during a dive in the sea that separates Sweden and Finland earlier this year, and garnered much media attention for its strange resemblance to the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. Now it turns out the Baltic Sea UFO is nothing more than a natural formation on the bottom of the sea there, UPI reported.

Drama surrounding the then-unidentified object built when members of Sweden’s Ocean X Team released pictures of the object and a news release saying it looked like a “huge mushroom” that had an opening at its top, the Los Angeles Times reported. The object was surrounded by small stone circle formations that resembled fireplaces, the team reported. The team added more fuel to the controversy by saying the path to the object “can be described as a runway.”

The Baltic Sea UFO is more likely a rock formation that occurred where fluid or gas vented, Charles Paull of California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium said in an interview with Popular Mechanics.

Hanumant Singh, a researcher with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, also told Popular Mechanics that the images of the alleged Baltic Sea UFO released by the team had several inconsistencies. For one, they were taken with an inexpensive type of sonar that contained several distortions. The picture also revealed a reflection of the image that indicated the instruments weren’t properly wired, Singh said.

Ocean X is something closer to a treasure hunting team than aquatic observers. The team is mainly focused on finding sunken treasures, including champagne bottles from a shipwrecked Swedish schooner, The Los Angeles Times reported. The report questions whether the Baltic Sea UFO was maybe nothing more than an attempt to market the undersea adventurers.