In Hunt for Russia Sub, Sweden May Have Finally Found One

Last year, Sweden authorities kept insisting a Russian submarine was lurking in the Stockholm archipelago. Now it appears they may have been right—but it isn't the sub they thought. The country's military is checking out video (see part of it here) by exploration company Ocean X, which claims to show the wreckage of a WWI vessel that likely sunk almost 100 years ago, NBC News notes. "The submarine is about [65 feet] long and [11.5 feet] wide … with Cyrillic letters on the hull [indicating] that it is Russian," Ocean X says in a statement. A Russian online newspaper says the ship is probably a Catfish-style sub named "Som" that crashed into a Swedish steamer in the Baltic Sea in May 1916. "We are now analyzing the material," a Swedish armed forces spokesman tells NBC. "We can't give any further comments until that work is finalized."

According to the Swedish paper Expressen, authorities think the sub may have been on a "secret mission," the Local reports. That's because any legit submarine would have radioed for help in dire straits, per Sputnik News. An Ocean X diver makes a morbid conclusion about the wreck, per NBC: "The submarine is completely intact, has no visible damage to the hull, and the hatches are closed"—meaning those on the ship remained trapped inside when it sunk. Russia's reaction is a lot of eye-rolling, the Local reports. "Here We Go Again?" reads one headline, Sputnik adds, noting that Swedish "paranoia hasn't ceased." Ocean X says it's planning another expedition, tweeting yesterday, "It may be an older submarine yes true, but there's only one way to know, and that is to examine it with the divers." (Maybe Sweden's drunk synchronized swimmers should check out the wreck.)