The gulf is found on the northeastern most part of the Atlantic Ocean, right between Cape Lopez in Gabon and Cape Three Points in the Western Ghana region. Monnik and Page explained that drone detection itself remains a very complex problem that often requires specialized radar and radio frequency equipment that is not guaranteed to work in all circumstances. A major release of documents provides the highest level of detail yet about mysterious drone swarms involving U.S. Navy ships off California. Espionage collected in these areas is of extreme value to potential adversaries and poses a serious and ongoing national security threat. He reported that the strong south westerly swell and the tides and currents suggested that the island was in a channel linking the Pacific and southern Indian Ocean. These details were obtained after The War Zone successfully appealed extensive redactions of the ship logs. In 1944, a strange dark shadow came out of nowhere and flew beside a Bristol Beaufort bomber for almost 20 minutes over the Bass Strait. Meaning of place name. Despite myths and legends of piracy, wrecking and alleged supernatural phenomena akin to those of the Bermuda Triangle, such disappearances can be invariably ascribed to treacherous combinations of wind and sea conditions, and the numerous semi-submerged rocks and reefs within the Straits. In this incident, the drones were assessed to likely be operated by a local fisherman operating personal quadcopters. A note indicates that no videos were captured of the drones due to distance. Perhaps best known by many voyagers as a dangerous corridor of storm-force winds and breaking seas, the eastern end of Bass Strait was the scene of disaster in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race when six sailors lost their lives. The body of water between Tasmania and mainland Australia is called Bass Strait.. It's about 300kms or so from the Surf Coast on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (the mainland) to get over to Tasmania, so it's a fair distance and a bit too far for a casual swim, although some people have kayaked across (hopping from island to island along the way, the biggest gap is about 60kms). It is a narrow and deep strait. Interestingly, in their absolute desperation for information, family members of the crew even visited a clairvoyant, who stated that the crew had come upon an island south of their last known location. Here are some theories on why. If there is something in this stretch of water, perhaps some naturally occurring phenomenon that we simply dont yet understand, it is unlikely to be a recent occurrence and more likely has been happening for centuries. All Rights Reserved. Bass Straight oil production still amounts to between 17% - 19% of Australia's oil and 42% of LPG. Were working to restore it. Perhaps the most thorough list of losses and disappearances has been the oft reprinted book of Jack Loney[20] though it is possible that most losses can be adequately explained by extreme weather events.[21]. The smaller airports in the north of the state and on the islands in the strait are served either by Regional Express Airlines, QantasLink or King Island Airlines. Tasmania is currently connected to the mainland via two Telstra-operated fibre optic cables; since 2006, dark fibre capacity has also been available on the Basslink HVDC cable. Bass Strait is shallow. The major airports in Tasmania are Hobart International Airport and Launceston Airport, where the main airlines are Jetstar and Virgin Australia. In the previous year, it has been difficult to get definitive answers regarding these incidents. GENEVA (ILO News) - As many as 24,000 fishermen and persons engaged in fish farming and processing are killed every year putting fishing and related occupations among the most dangerous of all professions, according to a new report* released by the International Labour Office (ILO). Sign up for our Explainer newsletter enlightening explanations for complex questions, delivered to your inbox Sunday night from January 15. Why is the Cook Strait so dangerous? These teams consist of sailors trained to conduct onboard photographic intelligence in order to document unknown contacts and events of interest. What is now known as the Bass Strait used to be a giant plain that Aboriginal people lived and travelled on, until around 30,000 years ago when there was an ice age. Although the following incident isnt immediately linked to the Bass Strait, given the fact that it happened near the northern coast of the Bass Strait Triangle and that descriptions of the object match other accounts of UFOs over the stretch of water in question, it would be perhaps a little shortsighted to not include this (and our next entry) on our list.[5]. Marcus Lowth is a writer with a passion for anything interesting, be it UFOs, the Ancient Astronaut Theory, the paranormal or conspiracies. Perhaps strangest about the incident are the reports of strange lights being in the skies over the Bass Strait. These events were significantly less clear than the earlier incidents. On 5 December, Tasman was following the east coast northward to see how far it went. There are now 23 offshore platforms and installations in Bass Strait, including the new Marlin B platform and Kipper subsea wells, which feed a network of 600km of underwater pipelines and keep the oil and gas flowing, 24 hours a day. And why is the Malacca Strait so important for China and the rest of Asia and the World? Bass Strait was Australia's first major offshore oil and gas development and has sold over 8 Tcf of pipeline gas and over 4 billion bbl of oil since first production in 1969. [31], Rod Harris, Ian and Peter Richards are credited with the first kayak crossing in 1971. As investigations widened, reports began to emerge of strange lights being seen in the area on the evening in question. CTO Jared Page added that definitely in the last two years there has been a marked increase in activity related to swarms. The companys threat intelligence database has registered approximately 151 swarm incidents in that time. Deck logs further revealed that radiofrequency data was captured from the drones during the incident. Notably, a night scope image of an apparently triangular object can be seen in the lower left corner. Jennings' study of the submarine topography of Bass Strait[13] described the bathymetric Bass Basin, a shallow depression approximately 120km (70mi) wide and 400km (250mi) long (over 65,000km2[25,000sqmi] in area) in the centre of Bass Strait, a maximum depth is the channel between Inner Sister Island and Flinders Island, which navigation charts indicate reaches 155m (510ft). Over the last few years, we have completed around $600 million of decommissioning works in Bass Strait, including successfully removing the Seahorse and Tarwhine facilities . Like the rest of the waters surrounding Tasmania, and particularly because of its limited depth, it is notoriously rough, with many ships lost there during the 19th century. However, after several days with no contact and no arrival, search planes were sent out in a desperate bid to find the apparently stricken vessel. Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made. There appeared to be a burned patch only several centimeters wide. The Straits have commercial and strategic importance. When the land veered to the north-west at Eddystone Point,[5] he tried to keep in with it but his ships were suddenly hit by the Roaring Forties howling through Bass Strait. TrailerBoat had a lot of fun testing this Bass Strait Offshore 24, against the beautiful, yet rugged backdrop of Victoria's Cape Woolamai. The Russell has attracted particular attention in the last year as the vessel that captured the leaked flying triangle footage. While that has been covered here before, the first two points on our list share bizarre connections to the famous case, so thats where well start. The strait provides the most direct waterway between the Great Australian Bight and the Tasman Sea, and is also the only maritime route into the economically prominent Port Phillip Bay. Her purse, full of money, was also discovered. During the height of the gale, crewman Chris Rockell was thrown . Cutting through Tasmania and the Australian mainland, more than fifty small islands also reside within the Bass Strait. The second thing to know is that this very spot is where the East Australian Current stops. [3] The strait between the Furneaux Islands and Tasmania is Banks Strait, a subdivision of Bass Strait. The first is that Bass Straits geomorphology the shape of the sea floor changes rapidly over a very short area. The Bass Canyon the largest undersea canyon in Australian waters plunges to depths of 3.5 kilometres yet within a really short distance, Nichol says, the seafloor rises to be only 120 metres below sea level. Wild weather on Sunday afternoon exacerbated massive swells along the already treacherous Bass Straight. But literally anything could happen Weve got to be prepared for whatever.. On July 21st, the USS Paul Hamilton again reported seeing a group of drones. It can be extremely rough. Bass Strait is shallow. This mysterious part of the world runs from the southern coast of Victoria in Australia over the stretch of water that is the Bass Strait and into the mysterious regions of Tasmania. A reference to both the drones and the RF data can be seen below: In addition to the USS Russell, the USS Paul Hamilton also reported observing multiple drones on July 30th. The War Zone has previously created an interactive database of drone incidents reported to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), accessible here. He made two more crossings of Bass Strait before he died attempting to cross the Tasman Sea in February 2007. The terseness of the deck logs and limitations in AIS data left several unanswered questions, such as the origin of the drones and the specifics of their flight behavior. Any crossing of Bass Strait inevitably involves big swell and wild weather. [10] A similar event took place 12 years later when the Harlech Castle disappeared, taking all 23 crew members with her. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The nation's most dangerous job, fishing for Alaskan . Nothing more was heard from the Miss Hobart after that. Entrants in the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race regularly say Bass Strait is the hardest part of the entire race, which is now in its 77th year. The incident occurred over a period of approximately one hour. There are many reports of ships vanishing in the Bass Strait during the 19th century. Half of the world's attacks now take place in the waters off Indonesia, Singapore and . Subaqueous dunes (sandwaves) and tidal current ridges cover approximately 6,000km2 (2,300sqmi) of the seabed in Bass Strait. In 1798, Bass explored along the southern coast of what . Whether the object in the picture is connected to Valentichs disappearance or not is open to debate, but it is considered to be a genuine picture (in that there has been no manipulation of the image).[1]. Found inside - Page 106So my years as a deep-water diver were filled with danger and excitement, . Spiders fill the jungles of the Darin Gap, but one of the most "medically important" is the Brazilian Wandering spider. Of the more than 60 islands only three have permanent residents: Flinders Island, Cape Barren Island and Clarke Island. [7], The next European to approach the strait was Captain James Cook in the Endeavour in April 1770. Formed 8,000 years ago by rising sea levels at the end of the last glacial period, the strait was named after English explorer and physician George Bass (1771-1803) by European colonists. Watch the waves batter the vessel in the video above Watch the latest News on Channel 7 or stream for free on 7plus >> It doesnt take a geoscientist to work out what might happen here, when tonnes and tonnes of water, sometimes flowing at 90 centimetres a second, hit kilometre-high walls: a lot of movement - or, in technical parlance, upwelling - where deep water is forced up the canyon walls and meets the surface. Most notably the Kent Group National Park covers the Kent Group islands of Tasmania, as well as the surrounding state waters which is a dedicated marine reserve. Formosa Strait. Battlefield commanders in Syria and Afghanistan have both had to constantly contend with drone threats. In 1978, one of the most famous UFO incidents in Australian history occurred over Bass Strait. Blom, W. M., & Alsop, D. B. Although this is perhaps the first strange occurrence in the Bass Strait to be connected with potential UFO activity, two other very similar accounts took place in the 1900s. The Eliza seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth during the rescue attempt. Many vessels, some quite large, have disappeared without a trace, or left scant evidence of their passing. [32][33][34] Fewer sea kayak crossings have been made via King Island, due to the 100km (60mi) leg between Cape Wickam and Apollo Bay. What makes his seemingly trivial detail all the more intriguing is that it comes up again in our next strange encounter, which, coincidentally or not, happened almost 44 years to the day previously. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. As he surveyed the area, a huge bronze disc came out of the clouds and settled alongside the plane for several moments before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.[9]. Why the Taiwan issue is so dangerous. A note on the slide states that the cruiser unsuccessfully attempted to contact the Bass Strait. There were also other, less fatal incidents. In 1858, the British ship HMS Sappho met the same fate as it ventured into the straits apparently deadly waters. Also, the strait has international commercial shipping traffic, as well as fishing ferries of both private and public organizations. 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