Abandoned 5.5 Ton Anchor Found Near Damaged Fiber Optic Cable

February 9th, 2008

Magic Anchor theories are already swirling around the blathersphere. Rather than wasting any more words on this, speculating about what went on in Davy Jones’ Locker, I put together an image for all Magic Anchor theorists to consider.

Have a nice day.

Via: AP:

An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea Internet cables severed last week, causing disruptions across the Middle East and parts of Asia, the cable’s owner said Friday.

A FLAG Telecom repair crew discovered the anchor near where the fiber-optic cable was severed Feb. 1 in the Persian Gulf, 35 miles north of Dubai, between the Emirates and Oman.

Weighing more than 5.5 tons, the anchor has been pulled to the surface. The company did not immediately explain whether the anchor moved and snapped the cable or whether the cable itself was drifting when it was sliced.

It remains unclear exactly how any of the cuts occurred.

It also was unclear whether FLAG knew what vessel the anchor belonged to. Rough weather was reported nearby at the time of the cut, but conditions have improved since.

Meanwhile, a second FLAG repair ship continued work on two undersea cables that were cut Jan. 30. They are about 5 miles off the north coast of Egypt, near the port city of Alexandria, and run between Egypt and Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily.

Repairs at both locations are expected to be done by Sunday.

One of the two Mediterranean cables was owned by FLAG. The other, identified as SEA-ME-WE 4, or South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable, was owned by a consortium of 16 international telecommunication companies.

Egypt’s telecommunication ministry said no ships were registered near the location at the time.

One Response to “Abandoned 5.5 Ton Anchor Found Near Damaged Fiber Optic Cable”

  1. anothernut says:

    Mystery solved. lol!

    More lullabies to calm baby’s nerves:
    http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/08/internet.outage/
    Great quote: “”Theories that the U.S. government was behind the cable cuts to create an information blackout for whatever reason are ridiculous, Beckert said. “The U.S. military uses those cables,” he said, “they would find it quite inconvenient,” although Beckert added that the military also uses satellites to run communication traffic as a secondary route.”
    Similar reasoning was used, no doubt, after the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953, and put a dictator in his place: “The United States loves democracy and only wants to help it thrive throughout the world. The idea that we’d topple a democracy to install a dictator is ridiculous!”

    even better:
    http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/02/08/whats-cutting-the-cables-cont/?mod=googlenews_wsj
    “The other day we wrote that the most likely explanation was an errant boat anchor. And, indeed, we’ve just received word that Flag Telecom, which operates the cable that was cut between Dubai and Oman, found an abandoned five-ton anchor at the scene. We did allow that there was a chance – albeit slight – that the cables were cut by sharks with laser beams on their heads. But by and large, our goal was to persuade people to take off the tinfoil.”

    “Our goal was to persuade people to take off the tinfoil.” That’s so clever! Of course, their “rational” theory only accounts for one f’ing cable! Don’t tell me: anchors all over the world are just falling off their ships, and just happen to be landing on internet cables, hundreds of miles from each other. That’s perfectly reasonable! Anchor chain-eating bacteria are probably to blame! But that’s good enough. If you think otherwise, you also must think that aliens are beaming mind-control waves into your brain. It IS all or nothing, after all.

    Satan’s greatest tool: instilling the absolute, unquestioned need to “fit in”. Everything else — like the desperate need to find “reasonable” explanations for events that serve the powerful, no matter how, in fact, unreasonable such explanations are — flows from there.

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