Ask Lemmy

There is only one conspiracy theory that I believe in.

It concerns the submarine incident in Hårsfjärden here in Sweden.

During the cold war, a foreign submarine was detected inside a military protection area in Hårsfjärden in Sweden.

This was assumed by the media and government to be a Soviet sub, but after watching a documentary about the incident I disagree.

The sub was never caught, officially it escaped, but I believe it was let go.

Ok, so a foreign sub was detected inside a military protection area near a Swedish naval base, this much is true, the navy closed the entrences and exits to the area with mines and nets, they dropped depth charges over the suspected sub, but the sub refused to surface.

This is what a documentary I have watched explain as facts pointing away from a Soviet submarine, and towards a NATO submarine.

During the incident, several audio recordings were made by hydrophones, the Swedish military claims that they recorded the sounds of a Soviet sub, but independent experts are less sure.

On one of the recordings a signal is intercepted, the Swedish military have claimed that the signal came from one of the sonars used to listen for the sub that malfunctioned, but the fault is increadibly unlikely to happen, and a retired officer incharge of training the sonar operators at the time is on record saying that the fault would be impossible to happen during normal operation.

The signal also shows another fact, it carried a subsignal from the electrical system onboard the submarine, and from that subsignal, it is possible to determine that the frequency of the electrical system used by the transmitting entity was not used by Soviet submarines.

Then we have the paint, during the depth charge attacks a yellow/green color spot was spotted on the surface, this was at the time one of the standard distress signals of NATO submarine, this spot was promptly lost and never investigated.

Then we have the weird orders given to a manned sea mine station at one of the exits of the area, standard practise was that the station was given direct permission to blow the mines if they had a verified target, this order was given every night, but one evening the station was reminded by their commander that could not blow the mines unless given permission.

Well, the permission didn't arrive at the normal time, so when they heard a submarine passing their line of mines that night they could do nothing, hours after the sub passed they got permission, as they did the next day as well.

The Swedish millitary's surpreme commander's diary are missing the pages for this date.

There was also wittness statements taken and a drawing produced by wittnesses who saw a submarine in the area just before the incident, the drawing they made has the profile of a West German submarine. This is obviously unreliable, but still interesting.

So, what do I think?

That a foreign sub was inside the military protection area is documented, and not disputed, however I don't believe it was a Soviet submarine, I believe it was a NATO submarine.

Why would NATO want to do this?

NATO felt at the time that Sweden did not have the capabillity to prevent Soviet submarines from entering our waters, the year before in 1981, a Soviet submarine ran aground deep inside Swedish waters just outside one of the largest Naval bases in Sweden. I believe that NATO wanted to scare the Swedish people to create a political will to strengthen the Swedish naval defence.

I like this conspiracy theory, it has zero impact on life and politics today, and it feels kinda fun to keep it alive.

Now, in the end I must admit a big weakness of this theory...

Where are the crew of the submarine, and why have they not spoken about this?

It has been 40+ years since the incident, it seems remarkable for there to have been zero people from the crew leaking some details about the incident, especially with the internet...

I can see three explanations for this:

1. There never was a submarine in Hårsfjärden, it was all hysteria, the recordings made are from Swedish naval ships that have been misstakenly identified, the signal likwse.

2. The sub was a Soviet sub, in my experience Russia has often been isolated due to the language barrier, so finding the crew could be impossible, this means that they might not even realize that people are talking about that specific mission at all, and if there have been leaks it is possible that they went unnoticed by the western world.

3. The sub was a NATO sub, the crew was orderd not to talk about it, and later forgot about it, this seems unlikely as I doubt being depth charged is something you would forget, still even being ordered to silence I doubt that would stop any leaks over 4 decades, it might be that there are leaks but they never got any attention.

I don't have the answer, and I am not going to pretend I do, I believe that it was a NATO submarine, but if you have more info, please post it, I'd be happy to be wrong if I can verify the facts.

Here are a few links to articles about the subject, the YT video is the Swedish documentary I am basing this comment on.

https://youtu.be/8Gyi8WTHXAM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5rsfj%C3%A4rden_incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363