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Estonia

uke2se

Penultimate Amazing
uke2se
Joined
Jan 4, 2010
Messages
14,424
A bit of an old story with a new twist.

M/S Estonia sank in 1994 on it's way from Tallin, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden, somewhere in the Gulf of Finland. She took about 900 people with her with just under 200 survivors. There was a pretty fraught investigation at the time, leading to an accepted reason for the sinking, and the wreckage was then covered with sand and other deposits to prevent looting. The wreckage was then designated as a grave-site.

There have been multiple conspiracy theories over the years about what "actually" caused the sinking (the investigation showed that the bow visor got loose - probably due to joint fatigue - in heavy weather, which in turn opened up the loading ramp and letting in water), not least from a German "journalist" named Jutta Rabe. Her book about the disaster was the source of a movie, and it speculated about post-cold war spycraft and secret explosives. She was eventually charged with disturbing a grave-site in Sweden and kept away from the country until the statues of limitation expired.

Now there has been another dive on the wreckage by a new batch of "journalists" (two of whom are charged with disturbing a grave-site), and they seemingly have discovered that there is a hole in the side of Estonia. They produced a five-part documentary that showcases the disaster and their investigation, and they had experts(?) on claiming that the hole could not have come about without a tremendous force. They further interview surivors claiming to have seen "something in the water" (the subtext is "submarine"), and there is a story going around about military equipment being transported on the Estonia. Who the supposed submarine belonged to is not speculated openly.

I'd like to ask if anyone's seen the entire documentary series (I plan to watch it, only seen the first episode). It's on a paid-for streaming site in Sweden, so I don't expect anyone to bother. Does anyone have any experience in the kinds of claims being made?
 
uke2se said:
M/S Estonia sank in 1994 on it's way from Tallin, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden, somewhere in the Gulf of Finland. She took about 900 people with her with just under 200 survivors.
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In an odd coincidence, I went to the Estonia monument in Tallinn and read the monument's description of the event. It is in a major botanic garden near the president's palace. :)
 
You have to be careful not to say his name too many times or he appears, but conspiracy theories the Estonia sinking promoted by Anders Bjorkman, aka Heiwa:

http://heiwaco.tripod.com/disasterinvestigation.htm

tl:dr - it's too long, don't read it, but underwater collision with stuff is covered. His credibility is somewhat undermined by his insistence that space travel is impossible, 911 did not happen as advertised and atomic bombs are faked.
 
threadworm said:
You have to be careful not to say his name too many times or he appears, but conspiracy theories the Estonia sinking promoted by Anders Bjorkman, aka Heiwa:

http://heiwaco.tripod.com/disasterinvestigation.htm

tl:dr - it's too long, don't read it, but underwater collision with stuff is covered. His credibility is somewhat undermined by his insistence that space travel is impossible, 911 did not happen as advertised and atomic bombs are faked.
Click to expand...

Was Trofim Lysenko involved?
 
I alway find it eerie listening to the radio traffic from that night. I suppose it hits closer to home when the captains on the other ships switch to Swedish, which I can readily understand.


I remember reading summaries of interviews with the survivors, including some of the crew members. I could've sworn that at least one of them stated that while doing rounds, he had found a substantial amount of water on the car deck. This was way before the loud noise occurred, generally accepted to have been when the bow visor detached itself, lending credence to the theory that it was a failure of the bow visor.

threadworm said:
You have to be careful not to say his name too many times or he appears, but conspiracy theories the Estonia sinking promoted by Anders Bjorkman, aka Heiwa:

http://heiwaco.tripod.com/disasterinvestigation.htm

tl:dr - it's too long, don't read it, but underwater collision with stuff is covered. His credibility is somewhat undermined by his insistence that space travel is impossible, 911 did not happen as advertised and atomic bombs are faked.
Click to expand...
Good lord, I'd forgotten he was into that stuff too.

Edit: I stand corrected, it was the third engineer who saw water enter the car deck around the ramp: https://web.archive.org/web/20040626020301/http://www.onnettomuustutkinta.fi/estonia/chapt06_1.html

Edit 2: Oh, and any theory depending on the four meter hole in the hull as the cause of sinking, would also have to explain what happened to the bow visor.
 
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The emerituses appear to be on it, as a professor emeritus of marine construction claims that the hole was the cause of the loss of the bow-visor. Unclear what his reasoning is.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Of course the nation of Estonia is fake. Now that would be a fun conspiracy theory.
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Like the Bielefeld Conspiracy? :D

The Bielefeld conspiracy (German: Bielefeldverschwörung or Bielefeld-Verschwörung, pronounced [ˈbiːləfɛltfɛɐ̯ˌʃvøːʁʊŋ]) is a satire of conspiracy theories that claims that the city of Bielefeld, Germany, does not exist,[1] but is an illusion propagated by various forces. First posted on the German Usenet in 1994, the conspiracy has since been mentioned in the city's marketing,[2] and alluded to in a speech by Chancellor Angela Merkel.[3]
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uke2se said:
A bit of an old story with a new twist.

M/S Estonia sank in 1994 on it's way from Tallin, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden, somewhere in the Gulf of Finland. She took about 900 people with her with just under 200 survivors. There was a pretty fraught investigation at the time, leading to an accepted reason for the sinking, and the wreckage was then covered with sand and other deposits to prevent looting. The wreckage was then designated as a grave-site.

There have been multiple conspiracy theories over the years about what "actually" caused the sinking (the investigation showed that the bow visor got loose - probably due to joint fatigue - in heavy weather, which in turn opened up the loading ramp and letting in water), not least from a German "journalist" named Jutta Rabe. Her book about the disaster was the source of a movie, and it speculated about post-cold war spycraft and secret explosives. She was eventually charged with disturbing a grave-site in Sweden and kept away from the country until the statues of limitation expired.

Now there has been another dive on the wreckage by a new batch of "journalists" (two of whom are charged with disturbing a grave-site), and they seemingly have discovered that there is a hole in the side of Estonia. They produced a five-part documentary that showcases the disaster and their investigation, and they had experts(?) on claiming that the hole could not have come about without a tremendous force. They further interview surivors claiming to have seen "something in the water" (the subtext is "submarine"), and there is a story going around about military equipment being transported on the Estonia. Who the supposed submarine belonged to is not speculated openly.

I'd like to ask if anyone's seen the entire documentary series (I plan to watch it, only seen the first episode). It's on a paid-for streaming site in Sweden, so I don't expect anyone to bother. Does anyone have any experience in the kinds of claims being made?
Click to expand...

Do they have pictures or video of the alleged hole in the ship? Obviously these could be faked, but it should be pretty easy to establish whether this hole actually exists or not.
 
This is another one of those events where although there are clearly things not known, none of the JAQing efforts make sense. This ‘submarine’, for instance. Presumably a Russian submarine, which had to sink the Estonia because it was carrying...something...away from a then NATO ally (not member) to a neutral country? Seems unlikely, and much easier/cheaper to deal with another way if you knew the itinerary. Or ‘military equipment’ exploding? As I understand it, no-one reported an explosion at the time, so that seems to be a non-starter too.

The Anders Bjorkmann stuff is, as you say, too long to read in entirety, but is absolutely all over the place. I really struggled to see what his point was. He seems at some points to say it was an accident because the ship was unseaworthy, at others to say it was blown up for the insurance money (but the claim was invalid due to unseaworthiness), that some survivors were later executed, but some were given new identities, that a group of welders blew a hole in the ship then went to the lifeboat without telling anyone thus condemning their friends and colleagues to death, plus many more.

His summary of why it happened: MONEY!

His explanation of how this money was meant to occur: underpants gnomes.
 
gypsyjackson said:
This ‘submarine’, for instance. Presumably a Russian submarine, which had to sink the Estonia because it was carrying...something...away from a then NATO ally (not member) to a neutral country? Seems unlikely,.....
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More so, as 26% of the population of Estonia are Russians. If you buy sugar at at Rimi supermarket in Estonia, one side of the packet is in Estonian and the other side is in Russian.

The Russian submarine story makes absolutely no sense. :)
 
Matthew Ellard said:
More so, as 26% of the population of Estonia are Russians. If you buy sugar at at Rimi supermarket in Estonia, one side of the packet is in Estonian and the other side is in Russian.

The Russian submarine story makes absolutely no sense. :)
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Yeah, although worth noting a couple of my Estonian colleagues in Brussels were both ethnic Russian and proudly Estonian with the mild to noticeable anti-Russia sentiment that comes with it.

...or were they? :eek:
 
The most common allegations are that the collision was accidental or negligent, not deliberate (that's not a good idea for a sub anyway).
 
CORed said:
Do they have pictures or video of the alleged hole in the ship? Obviously these could be faked, but it should be pretty easy to establish whether this hole actually exists or not.
Click to expand...

There appears to actually be a hole, yes. There are images and video.
 
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