From the TechTimes, the following:
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Oil tanker Willowy was on its course to
its next destination on May 31 when senior officers aboard it were called to
the bridge as it turns out, their ship, along with four other vessels in the
vicinity, had all started to sail in circles and were about to converge.
In a report by Sky News, the ships were unable to steer and were
sailing in the south Atlantic Ocean, west of Cape Town, South Africa.
According to the report, the
officers onboard Willowy initially believed that the cause of their strange
sailing was due to strong currents that were pushing the vessel around.
However, there were no such currents
at the time.
The next probable answer was that it
might have been caused by a systemic GPS manipulation, which was created to
undermine the tracking systems each commercial vessel must have under
international law.
The technology is known as an
automated identification system (AIS).
It broadcasts a unique identifier
from each ship to another vessel nearby, including their GPS location, their
speed, and where they are going.
The signals are also collected via
satellites and are used to track down any suspicious behavior at sea.
According to Phil Diacon, the chief
executive of marine intelligence company Dryad Global, the circles that
happened in China were indeed attributed to GPS interference, and it has been
happening outside of Chinese ports--going as far as San Francisco.
However, this was not the case with
Willowy.
"GPS interference can have
serious consequences, with half of all casualties at sea linked to navigational
mistakes," Diacon said.
In addition, GPS interference
attacking other vessels besides the AIS tracking system is incredibly rare,
especially as they were far from the South China Sea, wherein the most common
attacks have happened.
They are also far from the Straits
of Hormuz, which would suggest it was not done by the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps that use GPS interference to dupe vessels into entering their
waters.
With no strong currents and unlikely
GPS interference, what's causing Willowy and four other vessels to sail in a
circle?
Weakening
Magnetic Field
Apparently, the European Space
Agency (ESA) has the answer.
According to the report, the space
agency found out that the magnetic field is getting weak in a large
section between Africa and South America, and that this has been going on for
50 years now.
It even has a name and is called the
"South Atlantic Anomaly."
The area with a weaker magnetic
field has grown bigger and is moving westward, and in the last five years, the
second center of minimum intensity has grown southwest of Africa, extremely
close to where Willowy and four other vessels started sailing in circles.
Experts believe it is happening as
the Earth is headed towards a pole reversal that would occur over a few
centuries. [Now that would cause some major upset! ed
]
Certain vessels like Willowy use a
gyrocompass alongside other systems.
A gyrocompass detects true north and
allows the officers onboard to determine where they are headed and steer to
it--if a gyrocompass were to fail, the vessel would start sailing in circles as
the Willowy did.
Fortunately, the senior officers
knew what happened, and according to the news outlet, the ship was able to
resume its original course after switching to its secondary gyrocompass alongside
a magnetic compass.
The company that owns Willowy
explained the phenomenon as "an incidental breakdown" and that
"repair will be done at the next port where the cause will be identified
by shore technicians."
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So..... what happened with the other three ships?? Are they still out there boring circular holes in the South Atlantic? South Atlantic Anomaly indeed! And let's hope the North and South poles don't reverse; think of the confusion it would cause, not to mention the animal migrations involved (certain animals - think Polar Bears and seals - don't live at the South Pole, only the North.)
Until next time,
fair winds,
old Salt
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