A scientist says he believes he has found the source of mysterious interference experienced in sonar and other devices during an investigation into the wreck of the MS Estonia, which sank in 1994 with the loss of 852 lives. The scientist, a hydrographer called Peeter Ude, says the source is transmitter beacons installed on the sea-bed and close to the wreck, but who placed them there, why and when remains unclear, he says.
Ude, who is involved both in a private sector expedition aimed at surveying the wreck of the MS Estonia and was also involved in the official investigation whose preliminary dives took place in July, says the devices could have been the source of disturbance experienced in a wreck survey in the summer work.
He said: "The very idea of these devices is to send out alternating signals that makes it possible to triangulate the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles' (AUV) position," referring to remote dive robots used heavily in modern-day investigations of this nature.
"They have been left in place to fix the position of the hull and avoid potential mistakes installing new ones," Ude, who took part in the official Estonian Safety Investigation Bureau's expedition this summer, said.
"Looking at the direction of the noise, there is a 90 percent chance the beacons were operational when we were trying to get our images," he continued, adding that devices of this kind can be remotely activated and deactivated.
One of the most mysterious aspects of the putative sea-floor devices is where their power source is drawn from.
"I cannot tell you what triggered them and caused them to interfere with our work the last time," he went on, though said that the beacons, which would likely be expensive, would overall make surveying easier.
Ude said an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) he was controlling had happened upon three peculiar metal constructions topped by what appear to be lighthouse-like columns, or in other words beacons, lying about 100 meters due north of the wreck.
