The winds get funnelled through Bass Straight & can cause seriously rough seas. (The East Australian Current is the one from the movie Finding Nemo.) The unusual commingling of the longstanding UFO issue with drones has arguably created a potent cultural blindspot that can be exploited by adversaries. : 1881 - 1895), Sat 26 Mar 1892, Page 30 - THE SEALERS OF BASS STRAIT. 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). [4] The Australian military would conduct an extensive search of the area. A briefing slide states that the objects were not distinguishable by the naked eye. 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. Speculation has swirled around these incidents in the last year, following high-profile leaks of night vision video footage depicting objects with an apparent triangular shape overflying Navy vessels. Oil facilities in Saudi Arabia have been significant targets of drone attacks in recent years, with massive economic consequences. There are over 50 islands in Bass Strait. There appeared to be a burned patch only several centimeters wide. Crabbers work the dangerous waters of the Bering Sea in winter. The company also co-facilitates the Global Drone Security Network conference, a recurring series that brings together a wide spectrum of industry, academic, and government specialists. Meanwhile, America's adversaries, especially China, are investing massively into drone swarm capabilities, especially for use in the maritime environment, for wartime use and for dual-role applications. Thus, when a southwesterly sea storm, blowing at 80 - 160 km/hr collides, head-on, with a northesasterly katabatic wind blowing at similar strength, the result is a kind of atmospheric hammer-and-anvil effect. We now know that in several instances, the Navy had significant information about the potential origin of the drones deployed in some of the most serious incidents, although the specific operators remained unknown. However, the newly released documents contain several clarifying details. Perhaps strangest about the incident are the reports of strange lights being in the skies over the Bass Strait. [6] Tasman was on a mission to find the Southern Continent, not more islands, so he abruptly turned away to the east and continued his continent hunting. (Yes, thats a bit before the 19th century.) He then claimed that the object had moved directly in front of his plane; the airport personnel then heard a metallic "scraping" sound, followed by silence. According to Page, public reports started to escalate in late 2019. It is not man-made like the canals. This last account, as crazy as it sounds, is very similar to both ancient texts and other contemporary accounts that speak of portals or gateways to other dimensions. The first is that Bass Straits geomorphology the shape of the sea floor changes rapidly over a very short area. winter southern ocean gales can turn the crossing into a real adventure. Further analysis suggested that the area had been in flames, and other material appeared to show someone had tried to intensely stamp it out. Neither they nor even the smallest amount of wreckage was ever discovered despite extensive searches by military aircraft and vessels. CROSSING THE BASS STRAIT. Included among the documents were other images, now highly recognizable from video leaks and congressional hearings. Despite myths and legends of piracy, wrecking and alleged supernatural phenomena akin to those of the Bermuda Triangle, most disappearances . By Les Christie @CNNMoney July 27, 2012: 5:47 AM ET. Were working to restore it. 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. A tranche of deck logs from Navy vessels indicated that several ships had encountered drones over an extended period of time. Indigenous Australians crossed into Tasmania via the Bassian Plain tens of thousands of years ago. During the height of the gale, crewman Chris Rockell was thrown . 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). Does Bass Strait still produce oil? Bass Strait is shallow. Notably, a night scope image of an apparently triangular object can be seen in the lower left corner. All Rights Reserved. One of those changes was the separation of 'Tasmania' from 'Victoria'. B. The Russell has attracted particular attention in the last year as the vessel that captured the leaked flying triangle footage. 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. Spiders fill the jungles of the Darin Gap, but one of the most "medically important" is the Brazilian Wandering spider. This program is a FRONTLINE co-production with The New York Times and Granada Television. The vessel was part of a salvage operation for the Sydney Cove, which had recently become wrecked on the rocky coast. Once a target has been shown to be defenseless or easily overwhelmed, subsequent drones can be deployed to accomplish a particular mission. The first of these incidents came just days after the initial events. The USS Gabrielle Giffords also queried what it believed to be the UAS "homeplate" a term used to indicate an aircraft's home airfield or ship. 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. To the north lies New Guinea and to the south Cape York Peninsula (Queensland, Australia). On November 25 in Sanfrod, a woman reported a doorway of light suddenly appearing in front of her property. Australian Journal of Earth Science, 35, 303-311. If you'd like some expert background on an issue or a news event, drop us a line at explainers@smh.com.au or explainers@theage.com.au. The strait often experiences rough water and heavy swells from strong winds, especially from the south. These events were significantly less clear than the earlier incidents. While drone overflights of Navy vessels are not new, the use of multiple drones simultenously is an emerging phenomenon. The Eliza seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth during the rescue attempt. The incident occurred over a period of approximately one hour. It is a narrow and deep strait. 28. 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. Aboriginal Tasmanians arrived in Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago during the last glacial period, across a broad prehistoric land bridge called the Bassian Plain between the nowaday southern Victoria coastline (from Wilsons Promontory to Cape Otway) and the northern Tasmanian shores (from Cape Portland to Cape Grim). ai thinker esp32 cam datasheet The report referenced one notable incident that involved the simultaneous use of 15 drones to distract and overwhelm a prison facilitys security systems. In fact, the first recorded incident appears to be the disappearance of the Eliza in 1797. In the United States, says the report, the fatality rate for . Bering, Gibraltar, Bab-el-Mandeb, Bosporus and Torres, etc. Sea strait between the Australian mainland and Tasmania, Map of Australia with Bass Strait marked in light blue. Its exploitation began in 2005. A major release of documents provides the highest level of detail yet about mysterious drone swarms involving U.S. Navy ships off California. Why is Bass Strait so rough? Proud owner, Kevin King, recently . Finally, a photograph of one of the drones was included with the report: While our initial investigation focused on the cluster of drone events in July described above, these new records also indicate that at least two other significant drone swarm events occurred in the waters off Southern California earlier in 2019. (Supplied: Leo Lambers)Armed with an Epirb and a beacon each, dehydrated food and camping gear, the brothers set off from . Answer (1 of 6): Location, climate and sea bed morphology. The briefing slide states that the Navy assessed that the commercial cargo ship was likely conducting surveillance on Navy vessels using drones, or unidentified aerial vehicles (UAV). So the tides need to squeeze through the Bass Strait every day, going backwards and forwards and that may be in a different direction to all the other currents rushing around.. The Ticonderoga class cruiser USS Bunker Hill (BKH) noted as many as 11 drones operating nearby. Hence, The Bosphorus strait is of great significance. Scott Nichol, the director of national seabed mapping at Geoscience Australia, has spent years exploring what lies beneath the surface of Bass Strait. The circumstances of these incidents vary widely. In this map, sand dunes under Bass Strait reveal evidence of the Bassian Plain.Credit:Geoscience Australia. The great English navigator, Captain James Cook first explored the strait in 1770, thinking that it might be a large harbour in the great southern continent that he had been sent to find. Bass boats are made to float on the water. Three of the planes seats were discovered, as well pieces of the petrol tank. The table below provides detailed information about the sea conditions for the next . Fast replacing the Somalian coast as the piracy hotspot, the Gulf of Guinea has become one of the most dangerous places to go sailing. 8 The Loina Incident. A lighthouse was erected on Deal Island in 1848 to assist ships navigating in the eastern part of the Straits, but there were no guides to the western entrance until the Cape Otway Lighthouse was first lit in 1848, followed by another at Cape Wickham at the northern end of King Island in 1861. East Coast of the United States this year. The Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria. Our previous coverage began with a series of drone incidents that occurred on July 15th, 2019 approximately seventy nautical miles off the east coast of San Clemente Island. 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. Its not just whats happening under the water that makes it difficult to cross Bass Strait. Whether this small detail had anything to do with the fate of the plane is unknown. The strait was named after George Bass, after he and Matthew Flinders sailed across it while circumnavigating Van Diemen's Land (now named Tasmania) in the Norfolk in 179899. Manifold believes what he heard was connected to the disappearance of Valentich. To date, more than four billion barrels of crude oil and around eight trillion cubic feet of gas have been . Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made. Notably, the public affairs statement characterizes the behavior of the drones as dangerous, and not in accordance with the rules of the road or internationally recognized maritime customs.. According to Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, the video was definitively identified as an unmanned aerial system (UAS) following a second swarm event that occurred off the East Coast of the United States this year. DroneSec cited a 2020 Department of Justice audit focused on the use of drones in delivering prison contraband as an example of how swarm technology is increasingly used in practice. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 71, 49-71. Nothing of the boat or the people on board was ever discovered. We got hit by a fairly decent breaking wave, rolled upside down and stayed there, he said back in 2006, recalling the races worst-ever year that saw six people die, 55 more rescued by helicopter, and 60 yachts forced to retire. Even aboard a cruise, the waters around the Drake Passage are still known as one of the most dangerous maritime routes in the world. There are seemingly certain parts of the world where strange things are seen and even stranger things happen. I struggled to make my way into the shower as the ship listed . Pirates here mainly target tankers . The team at DroneSec also spoke to the complexity of comprehensively defending against drone threats, emphasizing that no single technical solution exists yet. Wind speeds up be. TrailerBoat had a lot of fun testing this Bass Strait Offshore 24, against the beautiful, yet rugged backdrop of Victoria's Cape Woolamai. 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. Sign up for our Explainer newsletter enlightening explanations for complex questions, delivered to your inbox Sunday night from January 15. It also states that communication was never established with the nearby pleasure craft, though a standard UAS warning script was read over the radio. This sea strait has a maximum length of 310 miles and a maximum width of 220 miles. So, just what makes this stretch of water so tumultuous? 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." In 1978, one of the most famous UFO incidents in Australian history occurred over Bass Strait. The details available in these official Navy documents stand at odds with the widespread perception of Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday's statement last year that the Navy was unaware of who was operating the unidentified aircraft. The two larger reserves, Flinders and Zeehan, extend mostly outside of the Bass Strait area. Flinders Island has the largest population. Bass Strait and its Islands. To get a sense of how frequently drone swarms are occurring in recent years, we recently spoke with DroneSec, a drone cybersecurity firm based in Melbourne. Forty miles into its Bass Strait nightmare, Midnight Rambler was confronted with a situation that could easily have ended its race. 6. 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. Unclear images of the drones are also attached to the report, though few details can be made out: Based on these documents, the U.S. Navy had at least eight distinct encounters with groups of multiple drones in the waters off California in 2019. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray took pains to emphasize in a recent congressional hearing that the military "train as they would fight." 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. 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. Deck logs previously indicated that another more complex incident occurred around July 30th, again involving multiple Navy vessels. At times it becomes dangerous because of its narrowness and acute turns the ships have to take. The existence of the strait had been suggested in 1797 by the master of Sydney Cove when he reached Sydney after deliberately grounding his foundering ship and being stranded on Preservation Island (at the eastern end of the strait). Was part of a salvage operation for the Sydney Cove, which had recently become wrecked on rocky... 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