A ghost ship off the coast of Scotland
An unmanned spy ghost ship, appears off the coast of Scotland, and nobody knows who it belongs to.
On the rocky cliffs of the island of Tiree, stranded, a strange ‘ghost’ ship appears. A strange unmanned boat puzzles the UK authorities.
It appeared unexpectedly off the rocky Scottish island of Tiree, but the surprise came when it was analyzed what it was really about: a much smaller than usual ship that was moving through the water remotely without a crew.
The British authorities are trying to find out who this ship belongs to, especially by appearing in an area of special strategic importance.
This boat has been identified as a Wave Glider, manufactured by the American company Liquid Robotics, which belongs to Boing.
It is, indeed, a small unmanned boat that is capable of traveling thousands of kilometers autonomously.
The boat does not belong to the British military forces and, due to the configuration of the elements of the ship, it indicates that it is not part of a scientific expedition either.
These types of boats are used regularly by the British Royal Navy and the United States. Besides, there are options to assess, that it really is a scientific research ship, since this type of ship is used to monitor fish populations in the North Sea.
It is to take into account that an unmanned boat of this type costs 250,000 euros, so if an investigator had lost it or had an accident that would have caused him to run aground on the rocks of the island of Tiree, he would have already claimed it.
In addition, this boat leaves the factory with a very peculiar bright yellow color, precisely so that it is easy to locate it in the water. The abandoned ship found had been repainted a gray color hardly noticeable at sea.
It also did not have the flags on the deck to make it easily detectable, the navigation lights had been removed and the radar reflectors had also been removed. Similarly, satellite communications had been cut off and the location of its antennas and sensors – all below the waterline – suggested that it was trying to investigate what was under the water.
Image of the Wave Glider, with its original color and configuration. (Liquids Robotics)
British intelligence experts believe that, precisely, that part of the configuration of her helmet is what has caused her to end up stranded against the rocks. The fact that it had no lights, no reflectors and its dark color almost certainly caused another much larger ship to hit it without possibly being aware of it.
That would explain why one of the antennas is broken and how it ended up lost against a cliff. But little or nothing else is known about the provenance of this mysterious ship.
That the British authorities had found this ship in this location on the island of Tiree is important, since this islet is one of the main routes of the United Kingdom’s nuclear submarine operations area, 100 kilometers from the base of Faslane.
