Sweden has been hunting for some sort of mystery... something, in its waters for about a week now. They never were entirely sure what it was, but the best guess was that it was a small Russian submarine. We may never find out now, though, because Sweden just called off the search.
The country has sent its naval and amphibious forces searching for the intruder home, according to the AP:
"We assess that the (vessel) that violated our waters has now left," Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad said.
Sadly for people who love nicely wrapped-up mysteries, it might just remain a mystery for a few more years, at least until someone writes a book or something. It all started when Sweden said it was launching a search operation as a response to "foreign underwater activity."
Rumors at the time suggested that Sweden may have intercepted Russian-language distress calls on a radio frequency reserved for emergencies. The most plausible identity of the intruder, if there ever was an actual intruder, was that it might've been a small Russian "midget" submarine, specifically designed to infiltrate littoral waters like the ones that surround the convoluted Swedish coastline.
At one point, Sweden was even gearing up to bomb the thing, whatever it was.
But who knows? As the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Forces himself said, this whole thing was all kinds of fucked up.
Photo credit: AP