Sweden's fishy submarine scare

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

The story of a scientist who helped solve a Cold War mystery involving flatulent fish and Soviet submarines. During the Cold War, foreign submarines infiltrated neutral Sweden's territorial waters. In response, the Swedish navy built up a secret database of tell-tale signs to detect the presence of lurking subs and conducted high profile submarine hunts. But the country's submarine scare continued even after the end of the Cold War. So in 1995, the Swedish government launched an investigation. Alex Last spoke to Swedish biologist, Dr Håkan Westerberg, who discovered that one of Sweden's key indicators for submarines, was not what it seemed.

Photo: Herring shoal (Science Photo Library)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex
0:38.2	Last and today we have something rather cheery.
0:41.9	It's the remarkable story of how a scientist solved a Cold War mystery
0:46.4	involving flatulent fish and Soviet submarines. Hunting foreign submarines is now top priority for Sweden's armed forces.
0:58.6	A conventional Soviet submarine just happened to run aground nine miles from the largest naval
1:04.8	base in the country. The incident focused attention on what the Swedes see as a growing
1:09.8	threat. When in 1981 during the Cold War a Soviet submarine ran on to rocks nearest
1:15.6	Swedish naval base, it triggered a panic in Sweden that would last for years.
1:19.7	Submarine hunts became a serious business in Sweden.
1:24.0	Depth charges were dropped, underwater mines were detonated.
1:28.0	This neutral country now finds itself on high alert
1:32.0	and a worried government has ordered emergency money
1:35.0	solely for submarine detection.
1:37.4	With their detection system Sweden built up a secret database of telltale signs,
	...

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