The Kursk and An Unidentified Submarine Object

On Saturday, August 12,2000 the giant Russian nuclear submarine Kursk -- carrying a crew of 118 -- sank in the waters of the Barents Sea, after what Russian officials described as a "catastrophe that developed at lightning speed." At the time the Itar-Tass news agency said that the nuclear-powered Russian submarine Kursk reported it had hit an unidentified object underwater. TRIA news agency, at the time, quoted the Northern Fleet press office as saying the crew was not in danger and that the question of abandoning the stricken vessel had not been raised. ''The Russian Northern Fleet command said, "They did not rule out that the foreign submarine was also damaged and was now not far from the Kursk.' A top Russian navy commander stated that SOS signals from a foreign submarine were recorded when the Kursk, was sinking.The commander of the Russian Northern Fleet, Vyacheslav Popov, is reported to have told a newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the signals had been picked up by a navy cruiser Peter the Great.Laboratory analysis showed the signals had been emitted by a foreign submarine near the Kursk, which he said added to evidence that the disaster had been caused by a collision. But he added that the real reason behind the accident would only become clear once the submarine had been raised. US Navy spokeswoman said, that a US Navy ship "Loyal," that routinely gathers underwater acoustical data, was about 250 miles away from the Russian submarine when it went down, which eliminated the possibility that this was the unidentified object referred to in the RIA report. The ship was there by coincidence and had nothing to do with the Russian submarine or subsequent rescue efforts." Two US submarines were also in the general area but there was no indication they were involved.More on this later.

The first meeting of the Russian Governmental commission was held on August 17 in the evening. At the same time the official version of disaster was declared. After more precise definition of August 19 and 20 it looked like the first reasons for tragedy was a strong "dynamic external impact" corresponding with "first event" at 11:29. Probably it was the collision with a foreign (?) submarine (by displacement not less than 10,000 t, and moving at a speed about 10 kn.).After the meeting it was announced that the survey during the recovery operation has produced new evidence, including a videotape of a dent in the "Kursk" hull and lines scratched on the fore part of the Kursk body, as if it had collided with some object. He did not rule out that an object on the sea surface could deal the blow.However this seems unlikely as well as the other theories of collision with a WW2 era mine or some unidentified ice breaker with a reinforced hull. Owing to large and fast entry of water in the bow compartments, the submarine hit the seabed with a down trim at high speed. This resulted in detonation of weapons in 1-st compartment ("second event" at 11:31). During the rapid development of the catastrophe, it was understood that most of the crew in most of the compartments, except 2-3 at the stern, has perished during first minutes of disaster. During TV-interview August 21, Russian Minister of Defence, announced three pieces of information (without any documentary proofs): 1) about 200 m near the KURSK's bow were detected foreign matters, presumably, fragments of conning tower of foreign submarine (Norwegian divers declared that they, at least, did not see anything like it). 2) In the morning of August 13 on the seabed near the KURSK was detected one more objects of similar dimensions. 3) The buoys of foreign colouring, green and white, were spotted also (but they were not found later).
This begs the question what is documentary proof or for that matter use of that term when they cannot be produced? Or, was the "proof", a ruse to deflect that they knew they had no proof and yet if this was so, what was the unidentified object?
This must have prompted a very testy, stressful and unscheduled drill of crisis management at the kremlin. I think the hapless "Marlboro Man" in the middle was reflecting perhaps a lateral career move to Siberia was a possibility.



To make matters worse, according to Ilya Klebanov and deputy Head of Northern Shipping Route Administration A. Ushakov, there were no civil vessels in exercises area, which eliminated yet another possibility.

The 5-day search in the area of accident by Mirs submersibles provided Russians with no evidence that the Kursk collided with a foreign submarine.
The submersibles spent around 96 hours all together underwater in search for such evidence, having surveyed around five square kilometres of the seabed around the Kursk.

So, what sank the Kursk?

Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on June 20, 2002 that;

"THE KURSK MYSTERY HAS BEEN SOLVED. ON JUNE 29, THE GOVERNMENT COMMISSION INTO THE SUBMARINE SINKING WILL PRESENT A REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION AND ITS RESULTS. HOWEVER, IT IS ALREADY KNOWN THAT THE SUBMARINE WAS DESTROYED BY THE DETONATION OF A 650-MILLIMETER TORPEDO ON BOARD.
There is no longer any Kursk mystery - and there never was There is no more mystery about the Kursk submarine sinking. Because there never was.Yesterday, the governmental commission confirmed the conclusions of our investigation: the submarine sank due to the explosion of a large torpedo on board."

If so, one recalls that Itar-Tass news agency stated that Kursk reported it had hit an unidentified object underwater. What happened to the reported fragments, the hull damage,the videotape of a dent in the "Kursk" hull and lines scratched on the fore part of the Kursk body, as if it had collided with some object? Why was the detonation stated to be a "secondary event?"

Suddenly, case closed, at least it was for public consumption.


However,there was evidence to the contrary which confirmed in an independent manner, there was a collision. The sounds were recorded by seismograph in Norway.The first seismic trace from Norway showed the main explosion from what appears to be a torpedo warhead, and preceding it by two minutes, another smaller event. Although labeled as an explosion, the waveform is not that of an explosive event but a long grinding sound,which adds further substantiation as to what the Russians were stating earlier but then it was absent from the official public pronouncements as to the cause of the sinking, while the evidence demonstrated that there was a collision first, then a detonation.
Out of nowhere, suddenly the public was provided with yet another explanation which was planted in the media.

Source: Independent News (UK) EXCERPTED
Published: September 15 2000 Author: Patrick Cockburn

A misdirected missile from a Russian cruiser caused the disaster of the Kursk nuclear powered submarine during a training exercise, says a member of a Russian parliamentary team investigating the disaster.

Sergei Zhikov, a deputy and a former submariner, said yesterday that the Kursk and the Peter the Great, a Russian cruiser, were on an exercise in the Barents Sea in which "the cruiser acted as an enemy aircraft carrier and the submarine was expected to attack it". He said the Peter the Great fired five anti-submarine missiles at the Kursk but only four could be found afterwards. "It looks like the submarine was hit by the missing [anti-submarine] missile," Mr Zhikov told the Interfax newsagency.The Kursk then tried to rise to the surface in an emergency but had hit the bottom of the Peter the Great. The cause of the sinking of the Kursk and the death of its 118 crew is an episode that President Vladimir Putin wants to put behind him. The Kremlin now says that nobody survived the initial explosion and that tapping sounds from inside the hull, which the Russian navy said showed that some sailors were alive 48 hours after the disaster, were made by automatic machinery. The claim by Mr Zhikov is similar to a report in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper last week, which said that an investigation by the Russian Federal Security Service had concluded that the Kursk had been sunk by a Granit missile fired by the Peter the Great. It said that the Granit had travelled 12 miles underwater before exploding close to the Kursk. Russian officers have hotly denied that the Kursk could have been sunk by one of their own ships, but have been unable to explain exactly what happened. The Pentagon said that there were two explosions in the vicinity of the Kursk at 7.28am and 7.30am on 12 August. The second was 45 to 50 times bigger than the first, suggesting that one or more of the Kursk's own torpedoes had exploded.That appears to be confirmed by the extent of the damage to the forward part of the submarine, but the cause of the first explosion is still remains unknown.

Another small detail..the Russians understandably do not carry live warheads in an exercise. The use of such a weapon would have produced a trace on the sonar records of the US ship that was spying on the exercise. In the case of torpedos, both for the Russian and US, the training torpedos are designed only to get to within a certain distance of the target then surface to be recovered. Training torpedos do not hit their targets. How could or more importantly why would Sergei Zhikov, a former submariner, fabricate such a hoax?

Other facts emerged The rescue buoy was not released. The escape capsule was not used.The submarine has a large hole along the right side in the forward sections. Scratch marks extend to the fin, which also has some impact damage. The fin never touched the seabed. Large pieces of the sub's hull are scattered across the seabed, as well as having left a long trail on the seabed. All the external masts and the periscope were extended. These systems are extended only when the sub is surfaced, surfacing, or traveling at the periscope depth of about 10 meters. Prior to dives all masts are retracted inside the hull. This is done even during an rapid emergency diving. The inclination of the planes at a inclination of over 60 degrees starboard indicates the breach of the high pressure air and ballast tanks on the same ship side at the beginning of the plunge, which have caused automatic shut down of the two ship's reactors, because they could not operate at that tilt. It would appear the Kursk was on the surface, not submerged. But then again, why did it report hitting an unidentified object, unless the object was encountered during an emergency dive, but then again,, why were the masts and scope extended?
One thing is certain, the impact was extremely sudden. If the Kursk was surfaced why did it fail to detect and identify this object?

In the final written report, the official Russian government commission determined that the sub sank because of a explosion onboard. The cause of the explosion was likely to be a collision with an unidentified massive external body with approximate displacement of 7,000-8,000 metric tons traveling at over 6 knots (faster than "Kursk") at the depth of 20-25 meters. The impact was at a 20-30-degree angle between the velocity vectors of "Kursk" and the unidentified external object. Russian media reports related that the unidentified object, which hit "Kursk" was attempting to steer away to the left and down from the Russian submarine in the last moments before the collision.
What is interesting in this for those who are familiar with the UFO phenomenon, is there is always the psychology of The Answer Man, or in the plural who make a profession of pronouncements founded on their addiction to seeking approval of worth by others. Being contrary to ordinary certainly draws a crowd;

From The Austrialian:

US Torpedoed Kursk Nuclear Sub
Daniel Stacey, London | May 09, 2005

A FORMER British military official has backed a sensational claim that the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was torpedoed by US forces in August 2000.
An official inquest concluded that the disaster – in which all 118 crew drowned in the Barents Sea, 135km off the Russian coast – was caused by an accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo.But Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure in the original investigation, believes a new French documentary, The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters, should change world opinion on the sinking.
"On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo," said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defence Ministry.



This photograph was taken by A Russian satellite of the Norwegian naval base Haakonsvern on the August, 19,2000 and is used by ships up to frigate class,interestingly but not for for submarines.What the photograph revealed was a nuclear submarine of the Los Angeles class has come into Haakonsvern and moored in the piers close to a frigate. There have been unsubstantiated reports that this submarine as well as possibly another arrived there for emergency repairs.

The docking of this submarine, especially a nuclear one at that, at a base that does not accommodate it is odd but again, there are no verifiable reports that I am aware of that indicates repairs were undertaken. It is difficult to imagine if this were so, the Russians would fail to launch a major uproar. Instead the official finding remains just that and the unidentified object also remains unidentified.


Whether it was a USO or another submarine which caused this tragedy, I don't know, but the strangeness of this incident is provocative and can certainly be stamped "unsolved." Note: Since the time this was publishes, a new theory has emerged in relation to the type of outmoded ammonia propellant utilized by the Russians. I am not persuaded.