The Devil's carousel is an inexplicable phenomenon occurring in the ocean

Scientists believe, not without reason, that space has been explored better than the oceans. Many phenomena that sailors have observed for centuries, science still cannot explain. One of them, the "devil's carousel" is a grandiose and frightening sight known to navigators of different eras and continents. In Asia, it had a less threatening name — the "Buddha Wheel", but it scared people no less.

It is not known exactly who first encountered the "Devil's Carousel" and when exactly it happened. Descriptions of this phenomenon are found in ancient sources and medieval chronicles. For a long time, many did not believe in the existence of rotating circles of light on the water and attributed the stories about them to sea tales.

The phenomenon was first documented in 1879. The captain of the British warship "Hawk" by the name of Evans wrote in the logbook about a strange glow under the surface of the water, which was seen by dozens of crew members. He even wrote a report to the Admiralty, but no one believed him. Moreover, Evans was promised to be punished if he continued to spread his fantasies and was reminded that liberties in the ship's log are strictly punished.

Evans didn't mention the circles anymore, but the sailors of the Hawk made the story famous. It all happened on a windless night when the sailboat was drifting in the Persian Gulf. Two huge glowing circles with a diameter of at least 300 meters appeared from the starboard side. Everyone who saw them was seized with panic terror. Some later recalled that they also felt a strong pressure on their ears.

The circles glowed and rotated for several minutes, after which they began to fade, and disappeared. Immediately after that, everyone felt relieved. When they started talking about the "Devil's Carousel" in English ports, it turned out that many people had seen it. In 1902, the ship "Fort Salisbury" passed right through these circles in the Gulf of Guinea. At the same time, the ship's crew was also seized with fear. Some also saw an object surrounded by lights rise out of the water to the side of the ship, and after a few moments it sank again.

In 1907, the sailors from the ship "Delta" encountered a "carousel" in the Strait of Malacca off the island of Kalimantan. The captain's mate clearly followed the instructions and recorded the event in the log. He recorded that he saw yellow rays that rotated like a propeller on the surface of the ocean. The length of each beam was at least 300 meters.

The "Devil's Carousel" was also mentioned by sources that are difficult to dispute. Something similar was described by the English naturalist Charles Darwin in his famous "Voyage on the ship "Beagle". And in 1977, in the center of such a circle, with a radius of 150-200 meters, there was a Soviet research vessel "Vladimir Vorobyov". It happened at night in the Bay of Bengal. The circle rotated for at least half an hour, after which it began to decrease, and disappeared.

Scientists did not miss the chance and tried to investigate the phenomenon. They measured the water temperature in the circle area and took samples. It turned out that the ocean in this place near the surface was, as in other places of the bay, warmed up to +26 degrees. No traces of plankton and other organisms capable of causing the glow of water were found in the water. So nothing unusual was noticed. Before that, glowing circles were explained by the presence of plankton, which gathers in certain places due to underwater earthquakes.

To date, there are more than 100 hypotheses of the appearance of the "Devil's carousel". But none of them can be called scientifically sound enough to claim the solution of the mystery.