The ominous reputation of the Bass Strait goes back to its very discovery in 1797, when the vessel Sydney Cove, . According to the timeline, one of the objects hovered over the ship at an altitude of about 700 feet. This program is a FRONTLINE co-production with The New York Times and Granada Television. TrailerBoat had a lot of fun testing this Bass Strait Offshore 24, against the beautiful, yet rugged backdrop of Victoria's Cape Woolamai. For much of the worlds ancient history, Tasmania and Australias mainland were connected by a long strip of land called the Bassian Plain. It made use of four independent engines, with the likelihood of all four engines failing at the same time being almost universally dismissed. In 1858, the British ship HMS Sappho met the same fate as it ventured into the straits apparently deadly waters. 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. are straits which separates the continents . Last year Marine General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. said that drones are "the most concerning tactical development since the rise of the improvised explosive device in Iraq." Sea level rise during the marine transgression flooded the basin, forming an westward embayment from 11,800BP to 8700BP, and the basin rim was completely flooded by about 8000BP, at which point Bass Strait was formed and Tasmania became an isolated island.[15]. So, a year ago, after cruising from New Zealand through the islands of Vanuatu and on to Australia, we sailed Sahula, David's Van de Stadt 40, south to Hobart, Tasmania. Were working to restore it. On November 25 in Sanfrod, a woman reported a doorway of light suddenly appearing in front of her property. Fovex Strait. The sailors Adrian Beswick and Josh Philips accompanied by a support vessel successfully completed the crossing in 14 hours 53 minutes. You can see evidence of old sand dunes that should be on the coastline that are now 50 or 60 metres underwater, he says. The timeline also indicates that Bunker Hill's AN/SPY-1 radar system held "valid tracks" of the drones, including up to an altitude of 21,000 feet. It is still one of Australias most well-known UFO cases on record. 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. 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. This prompted Governor King to send two vessels from Sydney to the island to establish a garrison at Hobart.[11]. 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). Please try again later. Carbonate mud sedimentation on a temperate shelf: Bass Basin, southeast Australia. In the previous year, it has been difficult to get definitive answers regarding these incidents. The Bosporus is different. As in the earlier incidents, an unidentified pleasure craft was operating in the vicinity. 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. The exact nature of what happened in this incident was previously unknown due to heavy redactions in ship logs. Our initial investigation leveraged automatic identification system (AIS) ship location data in conjunction with deck logs to reconstruct the incidents. However, after sailing for two hours westward towards the strait against the wind, he turned back east and noted in his journal that he was "doubtful whether they [i.e. 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 . The first windsurfer crossing was in 1982 by Mark Paul and Les Tokolyi. But when he and his crew started getting slammed by 12-metre waves and 80km/h winds as they journeyed towards Tasmania, Oxley knew something wasnt right. And they all affect what happens on its surface. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. However, two of the military aircraft involved in the search also vanished. Swarming capabilities are seen even by top U.S. think tanks and the Pentagon as being so critical to future conflicts that they could be decisive in a major peer-state battle, such as one over Taiwan. It carried three passengers and two pilots. Theres no better example of this than at the eastern edge of the strait, right where the Sydney to Hobart adventurers pass: the Bass Canyon. so a higher than normal number of incidents can only to be expected. These included the previously mentioned DRAKE system, a man-portable backpack that allows sailors to jam the radio frequency signals used to control drones. The War Zone previously laid out this reality and its implications in great detail in this feature. 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. Bass boats are made to float on the water. However, the newly released documents contain several clarifying details. Bass Strait sea conditions and wind forecast. In 1901, 22 crew members vanished into thin air along with the SS Federal in the Bass Strait, and five years later in 1906, the Ferdinand Fischer, a German cargo ship, met a similar fate as it made its way to the coast of Tasmania. Bering, Gibraltar, Bab-el-Mandeb, Bosporus and Torres, etc. Exactly a month later in Hobart, a taxi driver was suddenly forced to slam on his breaks due to a strange green glow in the middle of the road. Email info@bst.net.au. Some suggested that, due to an increase in wind around the time the ship disappeared, it was possible that damage could have been inflicted upon the mast, or perhaps a loose container from the many ships passing through the area had damaged the rudder. 6. Almost a year following the disappearance of the Miss Hobart airliner, another plane, the Loina, would vanish while traveling from Melbourne to Tasmania. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided . Meaning of place name. In 1798, Bass explored along the southern coast of what . Documents show that the Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Russell, also referred to by its hull number, DDG 59, and the abbreviation RSL), first reported an interaction with three unknown UAS on July 17th, 2019 approximately 62 nautical miles southwest of San Nicolas Island. [10] A similar event took place 12 years later when the Harlech Castle disappeared, taking all 23 crew members with her. And all of them seemingly have strange stories to tell. On 5 December, Tasman was following the east coast northward to see how far it went. These new documents leave little doubt in that regard. Even if that had happened, the plane was designed so that it should have been able to be guided to an emergency landing. [4] After the glacial period ended, sea levels rose and flooded the Bassian Plain to form Bass Strait at around 8,000 years ago, leaving them isolated from the Australian mainland. Battlefield commanders in Syria and Afghanistan have both had to constantly contend with drone threats. The stories of the ancient world made the whirlpool into a much more deadly threat. It is somewhat dangerous due to rocky and narrow passages, tricky currents and winds along the way but it is sheltered from major open ocean storms. The domestic sea route is serviced by two Spirit of Tasmania passenger vehicle ferries, based in Devonport, Tasmania. Andrew McAuley was the first person to cross Bass Strait non-stop in a sea kayak in 2003. The images from the incident include these photographs of what appears to be the Bass Strait. In terms of treacherous water, its got to be up there with the most treacherous in the world.. Espionage collected in these areas is of extreme value to potential adversaries and poses a serious and ongoing national security threat. (1988). Answer (1 of 6): Location, climate and sea bed morphology. His crew named the passage Cook Strait in his honour. Strong currents between the Antarctic-driven southeast portions of the Indian Ocean and the Tasman Sea's Pacific Ocean waters provide a strait of powerful, wild storm waves. Arthur Lane, a Sydney to Hobart veteran who leads the race's organising committee, says the shallow water means "a bit of a twist on the stomach". Technology, performance and design delivered to your inbox. It has an average depth of just 60 metres, presenting risks to less experienced sailors who are used to navigating in deep ocean waters. Ive seen it pretty gnarly, he says. The Alaska Bering Sea crab fishery . Notably, Ralph Johnson assessed the UAS as operating in a safe and professional approach that was "in accordance with the internationally recognized COLREGs 'rules of the road' and internationally recognized maritime customs" in a draft public affairs statement. I struggled to make my way into the shower as the ship listed . Then there are local tides, which generally flow west to east in the strait. The children would follow the object for several minutes before it vanished over the trees and out of sight. He also has a liking for the NFL, film and music. Bass Straight oil production still amounts to between 17% - 19% of Australia's oil and 42% of LPG. The national park is wholly contained by the Beagle Commonwealth Marine Reserve. It also indicates that the UAS incident continued after the Bass Strait departed the area. 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. Bass Strait is regularly crossed by sailing vessels, including during the annual Melbourne to Hobart Yacht Race. So if that happens, obviously you can get a fairly sudden deterioration in conditions and quite strong winds and heavy seas.. Spiders fill the jungles of the Darin Gap, but one of the most "medically important" is the Brazilian Wandering spider. These images were captured by the Ship Nautical Or Otherwise Photographic Interpretation and Exploitation team, or "SNOOPIE team." Wind speeds up be. In addition to the technical challenges posed by drones, the Department of Defense has also struggled to encourage aviators and service members to report what they see, even if they cant clearly identify it. Esso Australia has made significant progress on our well plug and abandonment work, which puts non-producing platforms in a safe state until final decommissioning occurs. Alinta owns a submarine gas pipeline, delivering natural gas to large industrial customers near George Town, as well as the Powerco gas network in Tasmania. The realities of China today. Several days later, the USS Gabrielle Giffords (GBG), an Independence class Littoral Combat Ship, encountered a set of four drones in the same general vicinity. The Australian Hydrographic Service does not consider it to be part of its expanded definition of the Southern Ocean, but rather states that it lies with the Tasman Sea. [16]:485. These details were obtained after The War Zone successfully appealed extensive redactions of the ship logs. Your buddies will want to blame fishing pressure. The Eliza seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth during the rescue attempt. By Les Christie @CNNMoney July 27, 2012: 5:47 AM ET. It also indicates that the UAS incident continued after the Bass Strait departed the area. The table below provides detailed information about the sea conditions for the next . King Island and the Indian Ocean lie at its western extremity, and the Furneaux Group is at its eastern end. Associated with the less than 50m (160ft)-deep Bassian Rise is the Furneaux Islands, the largest of which is Flinders Island (maximum elevation 760m[2,490ft]). 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. Australian Journal of Earth Science, 35, 303-311. It can be a preferential area for them to develop and intensify, Louis says. Deck logs further revealed that radiofrequency data was captured from the drones during the incident. Valentich and his plane subsequently vanished and neither Valentich nor his plane were ever seen again. Carbonate sandwaves in Bass Strait. By the time he had returned his gaze to the road, the green object was nowhere to be seen. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 71, 49-71. 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. Though there are relatively few details, a briefing slide describes that multiple drones were observed, with some coming as close as 200 yards (closest point of approach; CPA) to the ships bow. Many vessels, some quite large, have disappeared without a trace, or left scant evidence of their passing. Today the wave height in Bass Strait exceeds 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) and it is dangerous for swimming. 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. While drone overflights of Navy vessels are not new, the use of multiple drones simultenously is an emerging phenomenon. Starting at Cape Otway, Victoria, it went via King Island and Three Hummock Island, made contact with the Tasmanian mainland at Stanley Head, and then continued on to George Town. While this data offers some perspective on the scope of incidents, it suffers from a number of limitations inherent in ad hoc reports. In the case of the naval incidents, some ships indicated that they did not yet have any operational C-UAS technologies. An email dated July 14, 2019, sent while the incident was in progress, stated that there was a pause between periods of UAS activity. Finally, the USS Ralph Johnson (RJN), another Arleigh Burke class destroyer, also prepared briefing slides about the incident. Torres Strait, passage between the Coral Sea, on the east, and the Arafura Sea, in the western Pacific Ocean. The unusual commingling of the longstanding UFO issue with drones has arguably created a potent cultural blindspot that can be exploited by adversaries. Strong tides flow through the relatively narrow and shallow Strait and timing is critical to avoid meeting huge, washing machine seas or being flushed out of the Strait in the . Roys son, Jason, was with his father on the evening in question. Formosa Strait. Bass Strait was named after a British explorer named George Bass, who passed through aboard the Norfolk in 1799-99. This sea strait has a maximum length of 310 miles and a maximum width of 220 miles. Is a FRONTLINE co-production with the likelihood of all four engines failing at the same time almost. 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