is the ocean really that big??

Mystery deepens over missing cargo ship
Ransom demand reported amid conflicting accounts of whereabouts

msnbc.com news services
updated 32 minutes ago
HELSINKI - A ransom demand has been made for the lost merchant ship Arctic Sea, Finnish media said on Saturday, but the whereabouts of the vessel were still unknown in a saga looking increasingly like the plot of a spy thriller.

"A ransom demand has been made ... let's say it's a largish amount of money," Markku Ranta-Aho, of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, told national YLE radio Saturday.

He said the demand was addressed to the Finland-based company that owns the Arctic Sea, but he would not give further details or say where the ship might be located for fear of endangering the crew.

The report was the latest fragment of information to surface about the missing ship and its 15-member Russian crew, which has been cloaked in mystery since failing to deliver a $1.3-million cargo of timber to the Algerian port of Bejaia on August 4.

"I don't sleep. I don't eat. I have been working 24 hours a day," said Viktor Matveyev, director of Solchart, the Finland-based operator of the vessel. "We hope that the crew is alive," he told Reuters.

The vanishing of the Maltese-registered vessel and its crew has unsettled authorities in Europe and North Africa and explanations for its disappearance have included piracy, foul play or a secret cargo.

Moscow sent warships to find it and a Russian report said on Saturday the ship was briefly identified off France's coast. Other reports have put it off Cape Verde.

Mikhail Boytenko, editor of Russia's respected Sovfrakht maritime journal, has said the ship may have been carrying a secret cargo unknown to the vessel's owners or operators.

"I don't think that it was pirates who took this vessel but it really smells of some sort of state involvement. This is real cloak and dagger stuff, like a le Carre novel," he told Reuters.

Solchart's Matveyev declined to comment on any ransom demand and said his main focus was on trying to find the Arctic Sea, which the firm last had contact with off Portugal on August 1.

A wave of piracy has hit shipping off Somalia, and an international naval force patrols its coast in an effort to protect merchant vessels. But a hijacking in European waters would be almost unprecedented in modern times.

Conflicting signals
Russia's Sovfrakht magazine said the Arctic Sea's automatic identification system briefly came online and sent a signal at 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT) on Saturday before falling silent again, and the vessel was currently in the Bay of Biscay.

French navy spokesman Jerome Baroe said he had heard about the report, but French authorities had no information to back it up. He added that the French believed the ship was still probably in the southern Atlantic heading toward Brazil.

"We still think it is off Cape Verde, but can't guarantee it 100 percent. If it is the same boat then it has been partly disguised, which would not be a surprise if it had been hijacked," he said.

"We have not flown over it, the Portuguese did. According to our information, this boat is not heading our way but is still off Cape Verde and heading in the direction of Brazil."

But, adding to the confusion that has swirled around the ship, a Russian envoy said on Friday reports the 4,000-tonne, 98-meter bulk carrier was off Cape Verde were untrue.

Malta's Maritime Authority said an international criminal investigation was under way into the disappearance, focusing on alleged aggravated extortion and hijacking.

"The Finnish, Swedish and Maltese authorities are conducting investigations in close cooperation into the alleged offences relating to the cargo vessel," the MMA said. It said more than 20 countries as well as Interpol and Europol had contributed to the investigation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32428467/ns/world_news-europe

It is good to see you posting Sky. The story is most interesting because it is hard to think of something that big just vanishing, but like you asked, is the ocean that big? It is hard for me to sometimes think of something like this vanishing when there are so many satellites up in our skys, but it happens fairly often it seems.

this is strange for sure. Think for a second about what could be happening here a Russian ship goes missing. Could be it is being disguised as something else and then sailed into a port some where in the world and the next false Flag is born .

We are waking at an all to alarming rate for the elite to phantom they can see their demise and it is scaring them . The FED is Dead they are broke they can not get any more money out of China or Russia Trillions in derivatives are coming in due and the money for them is not there . Commercial Real estate is about to explode on the scene just like the housing bubble did High Rise office towers,Malls and hotels will default next .

The Powers That Were are not going to play around much longer they need to be able to control us and they see more of us everyday waking up and their control slipping away . So they plan the next phase in order to regain control. Question is which city is getting sacrificed in the name of terror next ? They see the town Hall meetings where the puppets being sent back to their districts are now running scared and exiting them like rats leaving a sinking ship . They know it is just a matter of time till they hear the knock on their door and the angry mob is outside waiting


I hope I`m wrong but it`s just not adding up the a ship goes missing it is found and then ooops no its not ? Something tells me that this might be part of the next plan to steal what freedoms we have left and kill how ever many live in the area where the ship turns up at

You may be correct Northern Boy, and your thoughts on this might be right on as well. Like you I hope it does not happen, but with the wicked in power we just never know for sure.

Police say ransom demand for missing Arctic Sea ship (Roundup)
Europe News
Aug 15, 2009, 14:37 GMT

Helsinki - Finnish police said Saturday demands for an undisclosed ransom have been made for the missing freighter Arctic Sea as the search for the vessel continued.

'I can confirm there is a question of ransom,' Detective Superintendent Markku Ranta-Aho told the German Press Agency dpa.

The sum was a 'significant amount of money but not huge,' he added, but declined to offer details of the amount or how the demand had been made to the Solchart Management shipping company, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.

Finnish police were investigating suspicions of 'aggravated extortion,' he added.

The fate of the Arctic Sea has remained a mystery since July 24 when a group of armed men allegedly posing as drugs enforcement officers boarded the vessel in Swedish waters.

After 12 hours the men left the vessel without taking, anything according to the crew.

The ensuing investigation has included alleged hijacking.

'This is a serious crime,' Ranta-Aho said, adding it was also 'a matter of naval security' as the mysterious chain of events appeared to have begun in waters close to Finland and Sweden last month.

Earlier Saturday, Victor Matveev, Director of Solchart Management - which owns the vessel - made no mention of any ransom demand when asked by dpa.

In addition to Finnish police, authorities in Malta - where the vessel is registered - and Sweden were cooperating in the investigation and were in contact with authorities in some 20 countries via Interpol and Europol, Ranta-Aho said.

Like Matveev, the Finnish police spokesman dismissed a report that the ship had Saturday shown up on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) used to identify and locate vessels.

Ranta-Aho said police had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the vessel but were 'eager to know if any other vessel' might have any sighting or radar contact with it.

Police had good cooperation with the company, he said.

The freighter left Finland on July 23, transporting lumber worth some 1.3 million euros (1.8 million dollars) en route for Algeria.

Matveev said the ship had plied that route without incident for the past four years and had 'very modern equipment.'

He expressed disappointment that a sighting reported on Friday near the Cape Verde islands proved wrong.

'It is such a huge operation to find the ship, it is out of our control,' he told dpa, referring to search efforts including Russian and NATO vessels.

'My only concern now is the crew, I am praying for their lives.'

The cargo was supplied by, among others, Finnish-Swedish forestry company Stora Enso and Finnish group UPM.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1495594.php/Police-say-ransom-demand-for-missing-Arctic-Sea-ship-Roundup

There are so many possible senario's about a missing ship at sea.

My mind is like a parachute..wide open.

Bermuda triangle is a huge mystery. A vortex at the location of the old Altantis where ships and planes slip into a parallel reality????Another geometric vortex? Somebody stop me.

Oh and NB I love the phrase..the powers that were. Has a nice ring to it.

No now you reminded me that we need a vortex thread... I've always been fascinated that the Bermuda Triangle and the Devil's Triangle off Japan are opposite each other. If you inserted a pole through one it would come out the other. There is something going on here, more than we understand. I love mysteries.

ah the plot thickens, me thinks



From The Times August 18, 2009

Crew of Arctic Sea under interrogation in hopes of yielding answers to mystery

Arctic Sea was supposed to be transporting a cargo of timber to Algeria, but vanished en route
Tony Halpin in Moscow 2 Comments
Recommend? (16) The crew of a cargo ship that disappeared in the Channel were being interrogated on board a Russian warship last night after the vessel was found off the West Coast of Africa.

The Russian Navy intercepted the Arctic Sea 300 miles off Cape Verde, a group of islands west of Senegal, three weeks after it vanished and sparked international intrigue.

The crew, also Russian, were being questioned after reports that they had been the victims of pirates, hijackers and mafia smugglers.

“The crew have been transferred to our anti-submarine ship, the Ladny, where they are being questioned to clarify all the circumstances of the disappearance,” Anatoli Serdyukov, the Defence Minister, told President Medvedev. “The crew are all alive and well.”
He said that the ship, owned by a Finnish company, had been found at about 1am Moscow time (10pm Sunday BST) and had not been under armed control. But the circumstances of how the 320ft (98m) vessel came to be 2,500 miles off course remained a mystery.

Mr Serdyukov said that they expected to soon be able to explain in more detail what happened to the crew, why contact with them was lost and why the ship changed its course.

The Russian envoy to Nato, Dmitri Rogozin, added to the sense of conspiracy by telling Itar-Tass, the news agency, that the media had been given deliberately misleading information “which did not allow them to calculate the true actions of the Russian forces”.

He said that there had been intensive exchanges of information with Nato forces, which had enabled the Russian Navy to seize the ship and “save the crew”.

The Portuguese Navy first reported what it thought was the Arctic Sea in international waters off Cape Verde on Friday night.

A navy source described the situation then as “very delicate and sensitive”, saying: “This is not a question of search and rescue, it is a political and police decision.”

The Maltese-registered ship left Finland with a cargo of timber worth $1.3 million (£800,000) around July 23, bound for Algeria. It made contact with British coastguards at Dover on July 28, but went missing after it passed Penzance on July 30. Its Finnish owner reported final contact with the crew on August 1, but the ship failed to dock as planned in Algeria three days later. A rescue mission was launched amid lurid stories of armed hijackers, alleged boardings, ransom notes and claims that the Russian mafia were forcing the crew to smuggle drugs or guns.

There were also suggestions that the crew had seized the ship in a dispute with its operators or that it was heading to an undisclosed location in West Africa to be rebranded and turned into a “phantom ship” so that it could steal cargoes.

The Arctic Sea’s disappearance prompted speculation that it had fallen victim to an act of piracy, an unprecedented crime in modern times for European waters. Investigators in Finland reported on Saturday that the ship’s owners had received a ransom demand for $1.5 million, although nobody could say whether it was genuine or an attempt by opportunists to make money.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6798996.ece

something just doesn't feel rght with this..but we will probably never know what the real story is..oh well..


http://www.dailypress.com/news/national/sns-ap-missing-ship,0,1166127.story?page=2

Officials say they hid missing freighter's location to protect hijacked Russian crew

LYNN BERRY
Associated Press Writer
4:05 p.m. EDT, August 18, 2009

MOSCOW (AP) — For more than two weeks, the freighter Arctic Sea seemed to have vanished in the Atlantic Ocean's vastness, but officials said Tuesday they knew where it was all along and were just staying mum in order to bring a dangerous hijacking drama to a bloodless end.

A Russian naval vessel reached the Arctic Sea late Sunday in waters near Cape Verde, thousands of miles (kilometers) from the Algerian port it was to have docked at on Aug. 4. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Tuesday that eight suspected hijackers were in custody.

It was the first official confirmation that the ship had been attacked, after weeks of rumors and clues about why the vessel might have disappeared.

The Maritime Authority in Malta, where the Russian-crewed ship is registered, said in a statement late Tuesday that "The movements of the MV Arctic Sea were always known for several days, notwithstanding reports that the ship had 'disappeared.'"

Authorities in Finland, Malta and Sweden had agreed "not to disclose any sensitive information in order not to jeopardize the life and safety of the persons on board and the integrity of the ship," the statement said.

The ship left the Finnish port of Pietarsaari with a load of timber on July 21. More than a week later, Swedish police said they were investigating a report that masked men had raided the ship and beaten the crew near the Swedish island of Gotland before speeding off 12 hours later.

The Interfax news agency reported Tuesday that a Russian company that insured the vessel had received a ransom demand of $1.5 million on Aug. 3. Finnish investigators said a ransom demand had been made, though it was unclear to whom.

The caller "was threatening to shoot dead the crew and sink the vessel," said Vladimir Dushin, vice president for security at the insurance company Renaissance Strakhovanie, according to Interfax.

Security and maritime experts had suggested the Arctic Sea's mysterious four-week journey pointed to something other than piracy, with some suggesting state involvement or a secret cargo, possibly of nuclear materials.

The suspected hijackers — citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Russia — were arrested without a shot being fired, state news agencies quoted Serdyukov as saying. The ship's 15 crew members were safe and were taken aboard by the navy for questioning.

The armed hijackers had boarded the freighter under the pretext that there was a problem with their inflatable craft, Serdyukov reportedly said. They then forced the crew to change course and turned off the Arctic Sea's navigation equipment, he said, according to Russian news agencies.

By the time the report of the attack had emerged, the ship had already passed through the English Channel, where it made its last known radio contact on July 28. Signals from the ship's tracking device were picked up off the French coast late the next day, but that was the last confirmed trace of it until Monday.

The ship's signal going dead coincided with news of the reported attack.

Experts and officials across Europe said the saga of the missing 98-meter (320-foot) freighter was perplexing.

"The whole thing has been sniffy from start to finish," said David Osler, a maritime journalist at Lloyd's List in London.

Mikhail Voitenko, the editor of the online Maritime Bulletin-Sovfracht, said he had spoken with some of the Arctic Sea's sailors and was more puzzled than ever.

"The vessel had all the necessary modern means of communication and emergency alarms, and was located in waters where regular mobile telephones work," he said at a news conference. "To hijack the vessel so that no one makes a peep — not one alarm goes off — can you imagine how that could be? I can't."

Voitenko, whose company Sovfracht specializes in anti-piracy security consulting, said the hijacking was beyond the means of ordinary pirates.

"The operation cost more than the cargo and ship combined," he said.

The 18-year-old freighter had a cargo of timber that Finnish wood supplier Rets Timber said was worth euro1.3 million ($1.8 million).

Port officials in Pietarsaari confirmed the timber was on board before the Arctic Sea left and said no radiation had been detected on board.

Voitenko said he suspected the freighter was carrying an undeclared cargo and that state interests were involved. He refused to elaborate.

Prominent analyst Yulia Latynina also said she believed the ship had a secret cargo, and noted that before setting sail the freighter was in the Russian port of Kaliningrad for repairs. Latynina, writing in the online Yezhednevny Zhurnal, said she suspected the involvement of special services.

She and others have reported widespread speculation that the Arctic Sea was smuggling nuclear materials.

British maritime security expert Nick Davis said he considered state involvement to be far-fetched and predicted it would turn out to be "a straightforward case of criminals trying to extort money out of an owner."

Swedish police were still investigating. Police spokeswoman Ylva Voxby said they had received pictures of the crew's injuries from the Arctic Sea's operator, which had received the pictures from the ship by e-mail.

Voxby also said Swedish police still haven't received any witness reports confirming that an inflatable boat approached the freighter in the Baltic Sea. However, police have confirmed through radar pictures and other vessels in the area that the Arctic Sea made strange movements at the time of the alleged hijacking.

Davis, of the Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre, said the full story may never be known, in part because the Russian government has been playing it down.

The government initially appeared reluctant to take action, and only sent the navy to search on Aug. 12 after relatives of the crew publicly appealed for help in finding the missing ship.

The Arctic Sea, which flies under a Maltese flag, is operated by the Finnish company Solchart, which has Russian management and a sister company providing technical support in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk, the home of all 15 crew members.

Investigators question Arctic Sea crew, hijackers in Moscow

MIKE ECKEL

Associated Press Writer

2:41 p.m. CDT, August 20, 2009
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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities questioned crew members from the Arctic Sea cargo ship after the seamen and eight alleged pirates ship were returned to Moscow on Thursday, adding new details to the mystery of the ship's monthlong odyssey.

Three heavy-lift air force jets, reportedly carrying 11 crew members, the alleged hijackers and other investigators, arrived at a Moscow region military base after flying from Cape Verde, the West African island nation where a Russian frigate stopped the ship four days ago.

State television channel Rossiya said the suspects claimed to be were ecologists who had been arrested by mistake.

The saga of the Maltese-flagged freighter, which left Finland on July 21 carrying a load of timber to Algeria, has gripped much of Europe. The ship was found nearly two weeks after it was to have docked in Algeria, thousands of miles off course and long out of radio contact.

Speculation on what was behind the freighter's diversion was heightened by the involvement of the Russian navy, the slow trickle of information and claims that news media were fed bogus information about the ship.

It was unclear why three planes were needed to fly such a small group of people to Moscow, nor why Il-76s — among Russia's largest planes — were used for the operation.

Federal investigators said in a statement that crew members told them that, while the Arctic Sea was in Swedish waters, the ship was boarded by eight men who wore uniforms that read "POLICE" on the back and who threatened the crew.

The statement did not give more details about the seizure or say if the men left the ship 12 hours later as earlier had been reported.

The Interfax news agency said the 11 crew members and hijackers were taken to Moscow's Lefortovo prison, run by the main KGB successor agency. It cited an unidentified law enforcement official as saying the crew members will be freed if the investigators confirm they were not involved in the hijacking.

Russian TV channels showed footage of what it said were air force planes arriving at the Chkalovsky base near Moscow, and men believed to be the hijackers being escorted roughly by special forces troops.

Rossiya said the alleged pirates identified themselves as ecologists when they were arrested. But in footage from the hold of one of the planes, a suspect identified as Andrei Lunev was asked what ecological organization he was connected with.

"I don't know," the man said. He also denied that he or the other suspects were armed and said they went aboard the Arctic Sea to ask for gasoline for their inflatable vessel.

Earlier, men identified as Arctic Sea crew members told Vesti that the ship was seized in the Baltic Sea by gunmen. One unidentified man told Vesti that a crew member sent a text message saying the ship had been hijacked, but the hijackers then forced the captain at gunpoint to report that everything was normal on board.

Vesti also showed men in handcuffs, whom it identified as the suspected hijackers, being led by Russian marines to buses in Cape Verde. Russia has said four were citizens of Estonia, and the others were from Russia and Latvia.

There were conflicting statements about the fate of the Arctic Sea and its euro1.3 million cargo of timber. The Foreign Ministry said that the ship's captain and three remaining crew members stayed behind to help in return the ship to its owner.

The Kremlin said the ship was en route to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, but federal investigators said it was drifting off Cape Verde.

More than a week after the Arctic Sea's departure from Finland on July 21, Swedish police said they had received a report that masked men had raided the ship in the Baltic Sea and beaten the crew before speeding off 12 hours later in an inflatable craft.

The freighter gave no indication of any difficulties or change in its route during radio contact while passing through the English Channel on July 28. Signals from the ship's tracking device were picked up off the French coast late the next day.

Swedish authorities last had contact with the ship July 31 in a brief telephone call with a person who identified himself as the captain, according to police spokeswoman Linda Widmark.

"It was a very short phone call, it was cut off, but it seemed as if everything was normal," she told The Associated Press.

The ship had been due to dock in Algeria on Aug. 4. Eight days later, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Defense Ministry to take "all necessary measures" to search for the ship — raising suspicions that the ship may have carried more than just timber.

Arctic Sea was operated by the Finnish company Solchart, which has Russian management and a sister company providing technical support in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk, the home of all 15 crew members.

Officials have said the hijackers demanded a ransom and threatened to blow up the freighter if their demands were not met. A Russian company, Renaissance Insurance, said it received a ransom demand for $1.5 million Aug. 3.

But Russian and European maritime experts have cast doubt on the ransom reports and speculation has grown that the freighter was carrying contraband cargo, possibly weapons or drugs — suspicions fueled by dearth of information from the Russian government.

Yevgeny Limarev, a former Russian security agent who is now a French-based consultant on Russian security affairs, said the Arctic Sea was likely at the center of a struggle between competing business and Kremlin clans in Moscow, and the Kremlin was forced to intervene to prevent an international scandal.

___

Associated Press writers Malin Rising in Stockholm and Dave Nowak in Moscow contributed to this report.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-missing-ship,0,6992084.story?track=rss

This story keeps getting stranger by the moment. Thank you for posting it, and for the updates.

..i will still wonder what this was all about..hummmmmmm

Russia Arctic Sea gun-running claims need looking into - investigator
REUTERS/ SOVFRACHT Related NewsRussia says no suspicious cargo found on board Arctic Sea so far
Arctic Sea lawyer says no reference to gun-running in case files
Two of eight Arctic Sea hijack suspects appeal arrest
20:4025/08/2009
MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Allegations that the Arctic Sea merchant ship may have been involved in illegal operations will be probed, Russia's chief investigator said on Tuesday.

Press speculation on the mystery surrounding the Arctic Sea's disappearance has been rife with some media saying the Russian authorities are trying to cover up a smuggling or trafficking operation. Moscow-based columnist Yulia Latynina speculated that the vessel was secretly shipping arms via Algeria to a rogue state such as Iran or Syria.

Other reports have suggested that the Arctic Sea was hiding a second, smaller vessel while sailing off Sweden's east coast.

Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin has dismissed such allegations as "fantastic" and "ridiculous."

"We do not rule out that it may have carried more than just sawn timber," Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigations Committee at the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta that will be published on Wednesday.

He confirmed that the Arctic Sea crewmembers were in custody and being questioned.

"This is part of the reason why we have detained the crew: It has to be established if some [of them] have been involved in the events."

He added that the bulk carrier could be impounded for a thorough search.

"I do not rule out that we will hold the vessel until trial as material evidence," he said.

The defense lawyer for two of the alleged hijackers arrested aboard the Arctic Sea last week said on Tuesday there has been no mention of arms trafficking in the court files.

Konstantin Boronovsky stressed, however, that he could only cite the files that he had actually read.

Last Friday, Moscow's Basmanny District Court remanded in custody eight unemployed men from Estonia in the case. All eight deny accusations of piracy and hostage-taking.

Boronovsky's clients formally appealed their arrest on Tuesday amid speculation that they may have been in cahoots with the alleged hijackers.

Meanwhile, some media reports have dismissed the hijacking theory as a ploy.

The Maltese-flagged vessel, which had been missing in the Atlantic for more than two weeks, was discovered off Cape Verde last Monday by a Russian warship.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090825/155924761.html

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Russian ship's voyage into ocean of conspiracies Story Highlights
•Disappearance of cargo ship Arctic Sea spawned conspiracy theories

•Internet speculation talks of pirates, drugs, weapons and supernatural

•Russian navy has tracked down the missing ship, according to ship's owners
updated 11:28 a.m. EDT, Mon August 17, 2009Next Article in World »
ReadMAPBy Barry Neild
CNN
(CNN) -- Whether or not it had anything more dangerous than a cargo of timber on board, cargo ship Arctic Sea, which was found Monday after vanishing for two weeks, certainly carries the answers to an intriguing maritime mystery.

The Arctic Sea was found Monday by a Russian naval vessel.
The ship's owners, Solchart Management, confirmed to CNN Monday that the vessel and its crew were safe, following Russian media reports that it had been found near the Cape Verde islands off the west African coast.

Since it disappeared off the charts, rumors and conspiracy theories have stirred in the Russian-crewed vessel's wake, with a fog of conflicting sightings and reports doing little to help separate fact from fiction.

Conjuring plots worthy of "Hunt for Red October" author Tom Clancy, online chatter threw up numerous possibilities about the fate of the Arctic Sea, casting the ship variously as a covert weapons transporter, a drug courier or the booty in a mutinous crime venture.

Then there were the predictable supernatural explanations, invoking Bermuda Triangle legends or drawing comparisons to the Mary Celeste "ghost ship," a twin-masted merchant vessel that was found under full sail -- minus its crew -- in the Atlantic in 1872.

Fueling the Cold War-style conspiracies was Moscow's involvement: The Kremlin said the Russian Navy, backed by space hardware, was in hot pursuit of the Arctic Sea. Sightings of Russian attack submarines off the U.S. coast last week have only helped to fan the flames.

However fanciful, these theories did at least attempt to explain why anyone -- whether hijackers, pirates, or spies -- would be interested in a 17-year-old Turkish-built, Maltese-flagged vessel with a rather mundane payload of Scandinavian wood.

An apparent ransom demand, which Finnish police said had been issued to shipping company Solchart Management, suggested some motive for abducting the vessel, but did little to clarify the events since the ship was reportedly boarded by hijackers on July 24.

After that incident off the coast of Sweden, according to a confusing array of sightings and reports, the Arctic Sea sailed through the English Channel, was possibly hijacked a second time off Portugal, vanished on July 31, was sighted off the Cape Verde islands on Friday and then blipped back onto computer screens in the Bay of Biscay for a fleeting moment on Saturday.

There is the real possibility that much of the mystery surrounding the ship is as a result of a media blackout imposed by military and law enforcement agencies to protect the lives of the 15 crewmen as they attempted to take out or negotiate with those behind an extortion bid.

Micro-blogging site Twitter, meanwhile, worked overtime to try to fill this vacuum of facts, with users collating and swapping a litany of claims by unnamed sources and sketchy media reports.

Some speculated the disappearance was part of a Russian military training exercise, or perhaps a rehearsal for a 9/11-style terror event involving non-military merchant craft bound for the United States.

Piracy theorists meanwhile speculated that the ship's original boarders never left, maintaining an illusion of normality through the English Channel before spiriting it off to an unmonitored port for resale.

Others worked with the premise that the ship was never boarded in the first place, and accounts of the hijacking were fabricated by the crew with the intention of making off with the ship and selling it on.

The most dramatic theories argued that the Arctic Sea picked up weapons or a mafia drugs consignment while undergoing maintenance during a recent port call in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, then the drug deal went sour, or the weapons mission attracted outside intervention.

Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian Maritime Bulletin, told CNN he believed the Arctic Sea must have been carrying a "secret cargo", to attract such attention, however he would not elaborate on its nature.

In a breathtakingly bold piece of geo-political deduction that now looks largely discredited, one Russian Web site took this even further, detailing a plot that had the Kremlin using the Arctic Sea to deliver cruise missiles to Iran with the aim of drawing U.S. attention away from territorial disputes with Georgia. However, it claimed, the mission was thwarted by a covert U.S. military operation

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/08/17/russia.ship.conspiracies/index.html