On October 27, 1981, a Whiskey-class Soviet submarine, U 137, zigged when it should have zagged and ended up running aground in Swedish waters. But why were they in Swedish territory in the first place? According to the crew, it was simply an accident—poor navigating. That seemed unlikely. So in 1994, when the Swedish detected an underwater metallic clicking noise suspiciously similar to noises made by submarines just outside of Stockholm Harbor, then-prime minister Carl Bildt feared the worst. However, it turns out the only thing he had to fear this time were fish.
To be fair, Swedish naval forces found the 1981 sub—dubbed the “Whiskey on the rocks” incident—pretty close to Sweden’s largest naval base and had pretty good evidence it was armed with a nuclear weapon. So, perhaps they were right to be on high alert. However, the whole thing quickly turned embarrassing when the Swedish scientists tasked with getting to the bottom of the mysterious clicking noise didn’t find threatening Soviet subs, but rather herrings farting.
Yes, fish fart. But it’s not just that they fart, it’s that herrings in particular actually use farting as a means for communication. Two separate teams of scientists—the Swedish team and another Canadian-Scottish alliance—published similar findings confirming this fact at the same time, earning both teams the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology in 2004. According to National Geographic, “Researchers suspect herring hear the bubbles as they’re expelled, helping the fish form protective shoals at night.”
To make matters worse, upon initially hearing the noises Bildt apparently sent out a nasty letter to Russian prime minister Boris Yeltsin. We can only imagine his reaction was “OMG, the one time I didn’t do it!” While we can put the 1994 incident to rest, the fish farts don’t account for any of the prior incidences or, most recently, Russia’s intrusion of Swedish and Finnish airspace and a possible Russian submarine sighting last year. How do you say Hunt for Red October in Swedish?
(h/t Improbable)
