Conspiracy Theory: The Gulf Of Aden Vortex

What did you do this past Saturday? I spent it reading about the Vortex in the Gulf of Aden, subject of one of the most popular conspiracy theories out there today.

First things first: the Gulf of Aden is situated in the Arabian sea, (now part of the Suez canal sea route), between Yemen and Somalia - where once upon a time the Arabian peninsula was locked into the African continent. When they separated, a body of water was created, enabling a passage connecting Europe, Asia and Africa via sea. That was millions of years ago.

In the past decade, an unknown magnetic force has created a vortex in the Gulf of Aden, which has increased dramatically in size in the past 3 years.

Of late, we have also been hearing of Somalian pirates taking over merchant ships, despite being (relatively) poorly armed and manning what can only be described as weak motor boats and bona fide life rafts. The U.S. has sent part of their Navy to escort ships, and many NATO countries have since followed suit, dealing a hard blow to the Somalian pirates.

Last year, Wikileaks released a ton of diplomatic cables, including some from Russian Admiral Maksimov about the U.S.' Combined Joint Task Force - Horn Of Africa base, where many nations have assembled to monitor the vortex: the United States, Russia, Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Bulgaria, Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Japan, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and Turkey. It is the largest naval force ever assembled in human history.

And that's where it gets interesting. There is no way in fucking hell it gathered just to fight off a few armed skinny guys with AK-47s while so many of the countries above are involved in so many actual wars elsewhere (Afghanistan, Iraq and Congo, to name just three...), and to have the U.S. there alongside Iran, China and Russia, given all their diplomatic disputes and tensions about other war fronts opening eventually just adds to the mystery.

But wait, there's more!

On December 9th, 2009, a giant spiral briefly appeared in the skies of Norway, as can be seen in this NBC Nightly News video. Some say that roughly a month after this event, the vortex also sported a spiral-like shape for some time, which led many observers - both casual and professional - to associate both events.

Stranger still, when the spiral appeared in the Norwegian skies, American authorities rushed President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a secret military bunker called 2012 Alice. That's right, 2012 - as in ''the end of the world''. Adds to the mystery, doesn't it?

One piece I was not able to sit through was the documentary/interview with one Aaron McCollum,  a 90-minute video shot with a single camera featuring a tattooed-and-pierced alleged former U.S. soldier who claims to have witnessed secret American bases in the Gulf of Aden first-hand; he seems as credible as an opossum on crack, but he seems to have convinced himself, at least.

And if you can withstand a few spelling and grammatical errors, the conspiracy theory-infused blog Attainable Mind has an interesting take on these events.