The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Dauphin Lib r , France, le 11 ao t 1977.
Bergen (Norway) (A.C.P.). -- After years of investigating mysterious Unidentified Marine Objects said to haunt the deep waters of the fjords, the Norwegian Navy has yet to discover - or reveal - what is going on at the bottom of these underwater valleys.
Even last July, an operation involving patrol boats, helicopters and planes in the Sognefjord was unsuccessful. The geographical configuration of the Norwegian fjords makes it particularly difficult to read sonars.
First, because these are submerged valleys with rugged terrain, the sonar echoes bounce off the walls and create "ghost" images.
Then because the waters have different temperatures and degrees of salinity depending on the depth, which distorts the sound waves.
But at the same time taking into account all these hazards, it is difficult to believe that it is whales, sperm whales or sea turtles that trigger all these "false" alerts.
Part of the Norwegian naval staff in Oslo is convinced that foreign submarines occasionally violate the country's territorial waters.
When asked about these unidentified objects, Commander Bjoern Bruland of Navy HQ, replies: "There have been submarines in the fjords. Reports accumulate over the years."
The most recent incident occurred in the area where previously unidentified phenomena had been reported, in the Sognefjord. The fjord, Norway's largest, juts nearly 150 kilometers inland north of Bergen, is several kilometers wide at its outlet into the ocean and in various places reaches depths of more than 1,000 meters.
Fishermen have indeed reported seeing two columns of water moving at about eight knots in the same area where the big hunt took place in 1972.
At Naval Operations Headquarters in Stavanger, near Bergen, it is believed that the description of the fishermen could very well match the water movements created by the two masts of a submarine moving just below the surface. Given the narrowness of a fjord, a subversible commander would logically prefer to navigate with a periscope.
If they are submarines, what nationality would they be? American strategic submarines and NATO submarine hunters haunt these parts. But, in principle, the Norwegian Navy is kept informed of the movements of all NATO ships in the area.
We can therefore logically think that they would be submarines of the Warsaw Pact and more particularly of the USSR, although the Norwegian authorities refuse to say so publicly...
If these theories turn out to be correct, the Norwegian fjords are therefore home to monsters far more dangerous than "Nessy", the host of Loch Ness in Scotland, always ready to feed the newspaper column in summer.
