The Strange Mysteries and Bizarre Beasts of the Black Sea

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There are ancient places in the world filled with secrets and mysteries that have existed for millennia. Sitting at the edge of the ancient world, we can find places that both enthrall and puzzle even today. One such place is the dark and forbidding Black Sea, located between Southeastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by the Pontic Mountains to the south, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and bordered by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine.

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With an area of 436,400 km2 (168,500 sq. mi) and a maximum depth of around 2,212 m (7,257 ft.), the Black Sea is a vast body of water that was once a major waterway in the ancient world, and has long been an essential part of the many ancient civilizations that shared its shores, including the Greeks, who considered it the edge of the known world.

At one time it was called simply “The Sea,” and later came to be known as the “Inhospitable Sea,” due to the savage tribes that lived along its shores in the days before the Greeks who tamed the region. Afterward it became known as the “Hospitable Sea,” and has long been a crucial place lying at the crossroads of ancient civilization. It is also a place of both ancient and modern mysteries, ranging from lost civilizations, to strange phenomena, unexplained disappearances, and bizarre beasts.

The Black Sea

The Black Sea

Considering this long history, it is no surprise that the Black Sea holds a number of historical mysteries and oddities. One of the most often discussed and indeed controversial mysteries is the idea that the lost City of Atlantis can be found in these waters, and that it was indeed the location of Noah’s Biblical flood.

The story of the 2,000 year old legendary Atlantean civilization can be traced back to accounts by the great Greek philosopher Plato, in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, in around 360 BC. Plato claimed that Atlantis was the home of a powerful seagoing civilization that was larger than ancient Libya and Asia Minor (modern Turkey) together, and that its great kings had originally descended from the God of the sea, Poseidon, before being diluted with mortal blood.

Over its long history, the civilization of Atlantis was said to have conquered large areas of land, including Western Europe and Africa, and they were described as an unstoppable force. This reign was said to have continued until the Atlanteans tried to invade Athens, after which an unknown cataclysmic event sank the entire civilization “in a single day and night,” burying it deep in the sea and sparking historical debate over its existence and true location.

While it has often been argued that Atlantis was merely an allegorical tale told by Plato to illustrate the intricacies of politics, there have obviously been those who believe it to be a literal place that really existed, and the search for Atlantis has become a legendary quest for thousands of years.

The problem lies in the fact that not only is it not known if Atlantis was ever a real place, but despite the fact that the land itself was described by Plato in great detail right down to its mountain ranges, plains, forests, plant life, architecture, and culture, its actual location is rather vague.

For centuries, the location of Atlantis has been claimed to have been “discovered” in such disparate places as the North Sea, at Land’s End off the British coast, the Mediterranean Sea, and even Antarctica, Indonesia, the Caribbean, and the coast of Africa. One of the most popular theories is that Atlantis represents the Minoan civilization on the islands of Crete and Santorini, which indeed was wiped out by a catastrophic volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunami that inexorably tore through everything in its path.

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Another theory which has gained momentum in recent years is that Atlantis was actually located under the Black Sea, and was submerged by a great flood in around 5,600 BC. The notion that a devastating flood occurred in the region is not in and of itself far-fetched, as there has been a good amount of research that has uncovered intriguing evidence of just such an event.

One of the main driving forces behind the idea of an ancient great Black Sea flood, also called the ‘Black Sea deluge hypothesis,’ is research conducted in 1996 by two Columbia University marine geologists by the names of Dr. William B. F. Ryan and Dr. Walter C. Pitman III. Based on geological and climate data from the area, the two scientists theorized that the Black Sea had once been a freshwater lake, and had experienced a storm of water from the Mediterranean and Aegean seas via the Bosporus, which is a narrow strait that connects them to the Black Sea.

The scientists claimed that for 300 days, water roared in through the strait at a terrifying, phenomenal rate, quickly inundating 155,000 km2 (60,000 sq. mi) of land, raising the water level by over 500 feet, and greatly increasing the size of the Black Sea. Other research has supported these findings and it is mostly agreed upon that flooding did indeed occur in the region, although there has been much debate as to the suddenness and extent of the flooding, with some researchers coming to the conclusion that it was mild rather than the sudden, catastrophic deluge postulated by Ryan and Pitman.

Despite the controversy as to how rapidly this flooding occurred, if Ryan and Pitman’s theory is correct then it gives credibility to the idea that a sudden flooding event could have quickly swallowed the region, and this has led to the idea that the ancient land of Atlantis may have been one of the casualties.

There have been a few researchers who claimed to have found credible evidence that Atlantis lies in the Black Sea. Notably, German researchers Siegfried and Christian Schoppe concluded that it was inundated here based on a clue to the location of Atlantis given by Plato; that it was located near the Pillars of Hercules, which is often thought to be the Strait of Gibraltar but which Siefried and Schoppe believe to be the Strait of Bosporus at the Black Sea. Other suggested possible locations for Atlantis in the Black Sea are near the coastal cities of Sinop or Trabzon, in Turkey.

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More recently researcher and  archeologist Robert Ballard of Titanic fame has uncovered such underwater evidence. Ballard agrees with the theory that a great flood swept through the region, and puts the timeframe at around 5,000 BC.

The Ballard team used robotic submersibles to explore an area off the coast of Turkey and found evidence of an ancient submerged shoreline 400 feet below the surface, as well as remains of what appears to be human habitation, such as artificially placed rectangles of stone and evidence of a structure believed to have been possibly a farmhouse.

Although not necessarily evidence of Atlantis, it does support the idea of an ancient, epic flood in the region, and even if Atlantis is a myth it could have possibly been influenced by this very flood. The notion of a great deluge in the Black Sea has caused much speculation and tales of this cataclysm could have well been passed down over the generations by spoken traditions of the illiterate mountain survivors. It is believed this is the original basis for the mythical biblical story of Noah’s great flood.

The Black Sea has more modern mysteries as well. There is an area not far from Snake Island that has, since at least the 13th century, been associated with strange and bizarre disappearances and other weird happenings.

The approximately 8 to 10 square kilometer expanse of water was first mentioned by the Turks and Russians in the Middle Ages, who spoke of sudden whirlpools that appeared out of nowhere to swallow flocks of sea birds, ships and even small islands. The Turks called this terrifying phenomenon the “Whirlpool of Death,” and the Russians referred to it as the “White Whirlpool.”

Fishermen in the area long avoided this place, and considered it to be cursed.  It was said those who entered never returned. Some tales of the mysterious whirlpools claim they actually sought out and hunted down sea going vessels, as if they had a malevolent will of their own, often appearing on calm and placid waters with no warning.

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Whether these strange whirlpools ever existed is the subject of much speculation but the Black Sea has nonetheless been the scene of any number of bizarre disappearances. On May 31, 1944, the Soviet battleship Tiolkovsloi was approximately 70 km south of the Crimea peninsula, in daylight, under clear conditions, when another ship reported that it had been enveloped by a black fog with green flashing sparkles, after which it dropped off of radar and was never again seen. Only two months later, 5 reconnaissance aircraft were also allegedly overcome by a black fog with similar green sparkles and were also never seen again.

On December 5, 1945, five Soviet bombers disappeared after sending transmissions that they had encountered a curious, heavy fog. Search efforts to locate the planes failed to find any trace of them, not even one scrap of wreckage. To this day their fate remains unknown.

Such strange disappearances have continued right up through modern times, such as the inexplicable disappearnce of a Greek plane in 1990 in clear weather.  It is believed such instances  may have been caused by a large magnetic anomaly. The phenomenon has gained the nicknames “The Black Sea Triangle” and “The Black Sea Vortex,” as well as the more sinister “Triangle of Death.”

Even creepier is an incident that allegedly occurred in 1991 on an offshore Russian oil platform. One day, the platform suddenly went silent, and all efforts to contact it failed. A team was sent to investigate, and found that the hulking platform had broken free of its moorings to drift 50 km over the ocean from its original position. When a boarding party went to investigate, it was found that all 80 oil workers were nowhere to be seen, and had left behind all of their belongings and half-eaten meals. An air search of the area found no trace of any of the 80 missing men, and their disappearance has never been solved.

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The Black Sea is not without its strange creatures as well. One such report is recounted in an article entitled UFOs in the Soviet Waters, by Paul Stonehill. In the account, a spear fisherman by the name of Borovikov was diving in the Black Sea’s Anapa region when a group of three bizarre creatures that can only be described as some sort of merfolk, came swimming up out of the murk.

According to the report, the strange creatures had milky white skin, humanoid faces with bulging eyes, and fish-like tails. One of the creatures allegedly noticed Borovikov and stopped to observe him, with its two companions following suit before one of them waved a webbed hand at the human diver and swam closer. The group apparently came unsettlingly close to the frightened diver before stopping and darting off in unison. What were these enigmatic beings and what did they want? Did they exist at all beyond the imaginings of the diver?

Underground tunnels

The mysteries of the Black Sea can be found not only in the sea, but also below it. According to accounts spanning back to before World War I, there allegedly exists an ancient subterranean system of two vast tunnels measuring thousands of kilometers long that wind through the earth under the sea to connect Romania to Turkey. Although it is unknown who built these tunnels, for what purpose they were constructed, or even when they were built, sheep herders from the region of Dobruja, in the south-east of Romania, were said to bravely venture forth into their dark recesses in order to take their sheep over into Turkey for export to the Ottoman Empire.

During World War I, it is said that the military closed off and guarded the entrances of these tunnels in order to prevent clandestine crossing of borders and surprise attacks. During the communist era, the Romanian government purportedly knew about these tunnels and did their best to keep people from entering them, either for safety reasons or because they were hiding something within.

Ostensibly, soldiers at work on construction of the Danube-Black Sea Channel in the 1980’s accidentally stumbled across a secret, mysterious tunnel entrance in a cemetery in the Murfatlar area, and used it to secretly cross over into Bulgaria. Although the origins of the alleged vast expanse of underground tunnels have thought to be everything from an advanced ancient civilization to aliens, no one really seems to know much about them.

The true, original, purpose of these tunnels, who built them, exactly how old they are, and how those responsible for making them managed such a technological marvel of engineering in ancient times, remains a mystery.

There will always be mysteries tied to the awe-inspiring, ancient places of our world, in particular those which have such long, rich histories. The Black Sea is an ideal example of a place which is at once a sweeping marvel of nature as well as an important cradle for early civilizations of the region. It is perhaps no wonder that it has cultivated its share of mysteries, legends, and oddities. The question, however, is do we believe them.

Edited from: Mysteriousuniverse.org

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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5 years ago

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[…] Read More here: madmikesamerica.com/2016/01/the-strange-mysteries-and-bizarre-beasts-of-the-black-sea/ […]

8 years ago

Now this is what I like to read about!! excellent old bean!!

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