Finland Times

The Finnish Navy said it used alert level depth charges to try to get an unidentified object out of Finnish territorial waters early Tuesday.

     The navy announced that they had made the first observation of the object at noon local time on Monday (1500 GMT). The depth charges were fired at 3:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) early Tuesday.

     The incident took place near the border of Finnish territorial waters in the Gulf of Finland, off Helsinki.

     The chief of operations of the Finnish navy, Commodore Olavi Jantunen, was unwilling to speculate as to what kind of an object it was.

     The underwater warning charges fired were not intended to damage the object, but to let it know it had been detected.

    

The material collected by the Finnish observation systems is being analysed. The process may take several days or weeks. The navy did not explain whether the object had been observed leaving the area.

     The Finnish Coast Guard has also launched an investigation into the incident.

     The Gulf of Finland separates Finland and Estonia. There is a narrow segment of international waters between the territorial waters of both countries.

     The Gulf of Finland is not very deep. The depth ranges a few tens of metres.

     Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported on Tuesday that the previous known usage of alert charges by the Finnish Navy had taken place in 1982 in western sea areas off the coast of Turku.