The Lake Baikal Swimmers

**Discussion begins at 5:15**

In the 1970s and 80s, the USSR had a dedicated branch of the navy researching “anomalous phenomena”, which used Soviet submarines to track USOs in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, Lake Baikal, and the Arctic Ocean.  These objects allegedly moved at impossible speeds, changed directions instantly, and were seen emerging from or diving into the water without creating splash disturbances.  Then, in 2009, a number of documents related to the USSR research into UFOs/USOs revealed the story of the Lake Baikal swimmers.  There were declassified reports that 7 Navy divers on a training mission in Lake Blaikal, the world’s oldest and deepest lake, had encountered mysterious humanoid beings underwater.  These figures, which came to be known as the Baikal Swimmers, were 9-10 feet tall, wearing tight silver suits with umbrella like helmets on their heads, but lacked scuba gear or breathing apparati.  The divers told their superiors who instructed them to capture one.  The divers again made contact with these acquatic beings, but failed to capture one as  a sudden and powerful force allegedly repelled them.  As a result, the divers all were propelled to the surface and leading them all to suffer from decompression sickness.  Three of the divers died as a result.  But what were the swimmers really?   Extraterrestrial?  Unknown sea creature? – perhaps one of the many species endemic only to Lake Baikal..  Or is this another urban legend gone viral?  

Transcript

Hey, guys.

Hiya.

What's up?

One, two, three.

Welcome back to 3SchemeQueens altogether again.

3SchemeQueens.

We're back.

She's back.

Episode three of the season.

S2E3.

Yeah.

S2S2E3.

Season two.

Season two of the season.

Oh, oh, S2S2E3.

E3, yeah.

I feel like it's a little confusing.

You know what also?

This is just episode 249.

Right.

We won't yapp too much about this.

We will get right into our drink check.

Drink check.

Yes, we have a Russian theme here, as I teased last week.

Yuck.

So the drink.

Russian song?

Yeah.

I was thinking actually that when we did the other Russian episode.

I didn't do a Russian accent.

You did not do a Russian accent.

Oh my God.

That feels like a missed opportunity.

Here's your chance this week, okay?

Okay.

So there you go.

That's good.

Katarina, okay.

Okay.

So we're having the Reagan meets Gorbachev.

I discovered this on Reddit.

Yeah.

Megan didn't even make me one.

I just sipped hers.

She watched me make it and she was like, no.

I will not.

I will not.

To be honest, it's not bad.

It tastes like bourbon with a little bit of juice in it.

Yeah.

But it's so strong.

I'm going to be honest, I was skeptical about mixing bourbon with vodka.

Yeah.

It feels wrong.

You really can't taste the vodka.

No.

Typically, I can taste vodka in things.

It's not bad, but it does feel like I'm going to have to sleep here tonight.

Yeah.

It's supposed to be a take on a mint julep.

So it's bourbon.

We used Eagle Rare.

Yeah, Eagle Rare.

And then I just had a Russian Vodka.

I just have Absolute.

That's what I used, Absolute.

And then I had a little splash of the crowberry liqueur that I have left over from Iceland, which again, Kait was a little skeptical about, but it just adds a little like...

It's just a little something.

Yeah.

I don't know what crowberry is.

It's like a blueberry.

It's endemic to Iceland.

And then some mint from the garden and just a little bit of simple syrup.

So it's definitely not a...

It's not like a tall boy or anything.

You're not sipping these while you're day drinking.

What are they called?

High?

Well, high balls and low balls.

Yeah.

A tall boy is a beer.

High ball.

High ball.

I love a tall boy.

It's pretty good.

I mean, if you like bourbon, it just is like, again, it's like bourbon-y and...

I just feel like bourbon boy would feel like it's blasphemous to mix vodka and bourbon.

This is the recipe.

I know.

Reagan meets Gorbachev.

Yeah.

Here we go.

Who's Gorbachev?

Somebody from Russia.

Tear down that wall.

Right.

No.

Gorbachev was who the...

He was in charge of the USSR, the Russia, when Reagan was president.

Before Putin?

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

There's like 80s.

89, I think is when Reagan said...

How long has Putin been in, though?

Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1990, so back when it was still the Soviet Union.

But he...

Yeah, we just know Reagan.

Reagan said...

Yeah, but I just know...

Oh, in 1987, that was the year when Reagan went to Berlin.

He said, Mr.

Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

And that's why Reagan's statue in the Capitol has the Berlin Wall on it.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

I understand.

Wait a second.

So, when Reagan was president, East and West were divided, and then they tore down the wall.

Wow.

That wasn't that long ago.

Why does everything feel so long ago?

I mean, it was over 40 years ago.

You know, it's not that long ago that America became a country, if you really think about it.

It's probably 150 years next year.

In comparison to England, yeah.

So, no, it says that the Berlin Wall had divided the city since 1961.

And anyway, yeah, it's just like the famous line, because it's all about, this was all like during the Cold War and communism, and being like, tear down this wall, and it was supposed to be like this representation of like, you know, anti-communism.

Yeah.

That's your Colleen history lesson for the week.

That history lesson for the week.

So, let's get into the story.

I actually discovered the story when I was researching the Dyatlov Pass hikers.

Yeah.

And when I was on Reddit, looking through that one, people were like, oh my gosh, but what about the Russian divers?

I was like, what's this about?

So that's how I discovered the story.

Yeah.

Went down the rabbit hole.

So let me tell you about it.

In the 1970s and 80s, the USSR had a dedicated branch of the Navy researching anomalous phenomena, which used Soviet submarines to track USOs, unidentified submersible objects, which we talked about last season.

Right.

In the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, Lake Baikal, and the Arctic Ocean.

Okay.

These objects allegedly moved at impossible speeds, changed directions instantly, and were seen emerging from or diving into the water without creating splash disturbances.

Whoa.

Then in 2009, a number of documents related to the USSR research into UFOs and USOs revealed the story of the Lake Baikal swimmers.

The Declassified Reports claims that seven Navy divers on a training mission in Lake Baikal, the world's oldest and deepest lake, had encountered mysterious humanoid beings underwater.

Humanoid.

These figures, which came to be known as the Baikal Swimmers, were 9 to 10 feet tall, wearing tight silver suits with umbrella-like helmets on their heads, but lacked scuba gear or breathing apparatus.

Oh.

The divers told their superiors who instructed them to capture one.

So the divers again made contact with these aquatic beings but failed to capture one, as a sudden and powerful force allegedly repelled them.

As a result, the divers all were propelled to the surface, leading them to suffer from decompression sickness.

Okay.

Three of the divers died as a result.

You know, decompression sickness is when you get the, when nitrogen...

Girl, you are jumping in to the story.

Oh, sorry.

Pause.

You can talk about that later.

Okay.

This is my intro.

But what were the swimmers really?

Extraterrestrial?

Unknown sea creatures.

Perhaps one of the many species endemic only to Lake Baikal.

Or is this just another urban legend?

Hmm.

So suspicious.

Has anyone heard of this?

No.

No.

So no one ever?

I'm interested.

So no opinions, but you're interested.

No.

No opinions, but except for my...

If you can't wait to talk to you guys about the bends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I didn't know it was called the bends.

So Lake Baikal, we'll just tell you about this because this, even if we had no other mystery, just learning about this lake was enough to like creep me out.

Right.

Okay.

So where's Lake Baikal?

I'm so happy you asked.

It's in Siberia, Russia.

Every time you've been saying it, I want to say Baikal.

Like a bird?

Yeah.

I'm glad.

It's in Russia, but it's like the border of Mongolia.

But I mean, we think about Siberia, we think that is rough.

Cold.

Yeah.

It's rough.

Rigid.

Isn't that like what we used to say as kids?

Like, where do you go into Siberia?

Yeah.

Wasn't that like a thing?

You're in Banner, someone is like, they misbehave or whatever.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this lake is the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world.

It measures 395 miles by 49 miles, with the surface area the size of Belgium.

So if we just look at the surface area, this is only the seventh largest lake, but it is the deepest lake in the world with a maximum depth of 5,387 feet.

Holy crap.

It holds about 20% of the world's unfrozen fresh water.

And so this lake is so deep, it's deeper than most oceans.

And okay, so it's so deep that many military subs can't even go down to the bottom.

Whoa.

Very deep.

Also, what makes this lake interesting is that, so most of our lakes are created from the, we talked to last...

Glaciers.

Yeah, we talked last year about the glaciers and the glaciers.

So glaciers melting, that's how we got our lakes.

This one is different.

This was created by tectonic plates separating between Europe and Asia.

My gosh.

I love plate tectonics.

You know who got to snorkel between tectonic plates in Iceland?

You did?

That is so cool, Megan.

Me.

That was a, I got to be honest, shout out to Lindsay who listens to the episode.

She was like, I found this thing where we swam in Iceland between tectonic plates and you have to get all like warm weather, you know, snorkel gear and stuff.

And Rachel and I had zero interest.

We were trying to be good friends.

And then it was like, the coolest thing.

So cool.

Did you see any aliens?

No, we weren't deep.

We weren't very deep, though.

It was kind of shallow waters.

So this lake was created 20 to 30 million years ago, making it also one of the oldest lakes in the world.

This is so cool.

Yeah.

Despite the brutal and inhospitable conditions of the lake, the freshwater ecosystem seems to thrive.

This is likely thanks in part to the hydrothermal vents and springs.

So there are higher than normal oxygen levels in the water.

And usually when you deeper, you go into water, the less oxygen there is, but that's not the case in this lake.

Something must be.

Because of the vents?

Yes.

So it's so highly oxygenated that the animals all grow into these massive animals.

Oh my gosh.

That's so cool.

They're like on steroids because they have a choxygen.

Are they found anywhere else?

I'm so happy you asked.

No, there are animals that are only found in this lake.

I'm going to tell you about them.

So a lot more animals can survive in this lake, and again, they grow to be much larger because of all this oxygen.

There are over 1,500 species of animals, 1,000 plant species, and again, most of these species aren't found anywhere else on earth.

That's crazy.

So I'm going to tell you about the animals shortly, but let me get back on track with the USO.

Okay?

Okay.

So in July 2009, there was a declassification of Soviet documents surrounding UFO reports.

This declassification is kind of what's credited for a number of these stories coming to light I'm going to talk about.

And there were a lot of encounters in and around Lake Baikal dating back to the 1950s.

So there's a story where a submarine detected six disc-shaped objects coming toward them at 265 miles per hour.

Oh my god.

Yeah, they said they just like raced them and they just like sat there.

And then the submarine freaked out so they surfaced.

And when they surfaced, they looked at their periscope and they saw the lights leave the lake and take off into the sky.

And so they thought, was this a squadron of like extraterrestrial?

In 1977, the Soviet Academy of Sciences had a submersible, which reported seeing a USO radiating a yellow light above the ocean floor.

So they were like, the Soviets had purchased these two research vessels from Canada, the Pisces 2 and the Pisces 7.

I'm a Pisces.

The Pisces 7 was a mile down in the lake and they shut off their external lights, like they finished whatever they were doing, they turned off their lights, but they were like, wow, it's still illuminated down here, what's that about?

And they looked at their little window and there was like this bright yellow glow.

Glow fish?

And then some bioluminescence.

Yeah.

And then the light source raced off.

Whoa.

I bet it was a fish.

When they returned to the surface, they said, hey, was the Pisces 2 down there also?

Like, was it their light we were seeing?

They said, no, the Pisces 2 isn't sitting here.

It is not submerged at all.

In fact, the Pisces 2 could not have tolerated a depth, a dive at this depth of 1400 meters.

So no, you were the only ones down there.

Oh my gosh.

Lots of USOs down in Lake Baikal.

Exactly.

But today we're gonna talk about, again, the most famous story.

So this event allegedly happened in 1982.

A number of Russian Navy divers were participating in a training exercise at 50 meters, which is 164 feet.

They're doing the exercise, it's all routine, and then they kind of feel like they're being watched.

I hate that feeling.

And then they see three figures up here.

Oh my God.

These figures were bizarre-looking swimmers, dressed in silvery reflective suits, Mermaids.

wearing protective helmets, which seemed to be fully opened.

Mermaids.

Exposing them to the surrounding water.

These helmets were described as looking like an open umbrella over the creature's head.

The figures were nine to ten feet tall, and they said they just kind of stared at us, like we looked at them, they looked at us, we didn't really interact, and then they just kind of turned around and swam away.

So the Russians resurfaced, the Navy divers, and they tell their commander what they saw, and the commander's like, you got to capture one of these creatures.

So they send them back down.

So these, again, seven divers go back into the lake in an attempt to capture one of these creatures, and they said the creatures found them again, they kind of came and made contact again, they're just kind of like looking at them.

Right, like just curious.

Yeah, and so they tried to snare one.

Oh!

Oh, wow.

Poor mermaid.

And they were unsuccessful in snaring one, right?

But then they probably just pissed it off.

You are correct.

So then they say that a creature pointed a device at them, and they suddenly felt this whirlwind that sent them forcefully to the surface.

Like Triton.

Yeah.

And they had enough decompression chambers on the shore for four divers, but not seven.

Oh, no.

So three of them died of the bends, or decompression sickness.

I was going to tell you all what the bends is, but Kait has been dying to share her knowledge.

It's just when nitrogen, you like come up too quickly, and the nitrogen overloads you.

Where does the nitrogen come from?

Atmosphere.

So like just the air.

Yeah.

So the rapid pressure change causes nitrogen bubbles to form in your body's tissues and bloodstream.

Oh, that's so terrible.

This can lead to obstruction of blood flow, nerve damage, and you can have symptoms ranging from like joint pain to like pulmonary embolism and death.

And so three of these divers died as a result.

Oh my gosh.

And then the entire event allegedly was covered up and classified.

Mechanical circulatory failure.

Until 2009.

Interestingly, two years after this happened, they built a special base where dives were conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

The Ministry of Magic.

The town was...

So this town was founded again in 1984, two years after this whole event happened.

They're like, we've never had a single death of a diver.

We know what you're talking about.

But I'm like, well, why did you build a base so quickly after this event happened?

And also, likely story, no, no one's ever died.

It's never happened.

Because it was all classified.

How would you know?

So, the theories we can talk about here was, one of my thoughts was mermaids.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

I got mermaids, we got ET, we got animals, some other animals we can talk about.

So you're thinking mermaids.

Well, here's the thing.

I tried, here's the picture that is described.

That looks like a freaking mermaid.

You know what's weird though about the mermaid is like, the mermaid theory.

Looks like a squid.

It's like, what's up with that head?

It's part squid.

Yeah, they could be wearing a hat.

I mean, do we think mermaids actually look like part human?

No, I think that mermaids do not look as human-like as we think.

That's what I'm like, that's a mermaid.

Okay, that was kind of what I was thinking as well.

I'll be interested to hear what Mermaid Girl thinks of this, but I don't have any literature or anything to support that.

It's just the fact that also I like to think mermaids probably would want to be in warmer water.

I don't know, actually.

Maybe they like how much oxygen is down there.

Yeah, they could probably stay down longer.

Okay, interesting take, interesting take.

And then the obvious other possibility is extraterrestrials, which I feel like I've kind of talked about.

This does just seem to be an area that has a lot of USO activity.

That's true, too.

And we talked at length last year about why wouldn't they live in the ocean?

Why do we think they have to live?

And so those are some theories.

Here are some other theories if we're getting a little less paranormal conspiracy.

Some people think this could be a Nerpa seal.

Nerpa?

So the Nerpa seal...

So let me tell you about them.

That does not look like it.

This is a species of seal that is only found in Lake Baikal.

No one even knows how this creature got to the lake to begin with.

We saw this tectonic split and suddenly we have these seals.

They have been there for over 2 million years.

Oh my gosh.

They tend to hug the shore when the lake ice melts and they're known to be very curious.

They'll approach boats and divers.

They have a silvery coat with a very shiny abdomen.

They can dive to 1,300 feet and they can stay submerged for up to 40 minutes.

So people are like.

So, the thought is, did they see, is this what they saw?

Did they see a Nerpa seal, and they panicked, and they thought it was extraterrestrial?

What other creatures are in the lake?

But then, how did it point something at them, and like...

Play with things in the water?

Yeah, but they claimed they were propelled.

Yeah, well, it's not messed up.

I will say that some of the theories are, if they saw one of these animals and mistook it, did they panic?

And then they ascended too quickly, and they were too embarrassed to be, like, we're expert divers, and we ascended too quickly and got the bends.

Right.

So instead, they kind of, like, made a story up.

All tried this story a little bit.

But were all of their stories the same, or was there someone just like, who was, like, the designated story guy?

Well, then, yeah.

Why did they keep it secret?

Well, they said that their stories were all the same, but after this event happened and everything was classified, no one ever spoke of it again, because they were too traumatized.

Wow.

Okay, so here's my counter to the thought that it could be a Nerpa seal.

We all agree that that Nerpa seal does not look like the picture I should go.

Clearly, that's a seal.

It does not have, right?

It does have, like, a very shiny, silvery skin, which, so that could explain them thinking these...

But didn't they say they were, like, tall and long?

Bingo.

That's a wolf.

So these...

Not as old as he was.

Not long.

So the seals, there's about 80,000 to 100,000 in this lake.

Sightings are very common.

So this is not something that they were, like, these divers would have seen them.

They would have used to seeing.

Yes, they wouldn't just be, like, whatever.

The seals are 3 1⁄2 to 4 1⁄2 feet long and 150 pounds.

The largest that was ever found was only half the height of these swimmers that they reported seeing.

So, and again, this, like, umbrella helmet-looking thing, I don't know how they got that from a seal.

So, that's one of the things people like, they just saw seal, they saw seal.

I don't believe it.

You guys with me?

Yeah.

Okay.

Was it another creature?

There's the Lusud Khan, which is also known as the Baikal Monster or the Water Dragon Monster.

It is pretty much Russia's Loch Ness Monster.

Now, this is a monster with a prominent snout and armored plates along its back.

So, there have been multiple sightings reported, and there's a lot of legends from the Buryats, which are, like, the indigenous people.

Mm-hmm.

In this area.

But there is no proof, proof of its existence.

People think that, instead, maybe they've been seen the Baikal Sturgeon, which is a local fish, which I'm going to tell you about, but, like, these fish, again, are just, like, very large because of the auction content, and so maybe people have just been, like, misidentifying this in any way.

The Baikal Monster, again, we have no proof, proof of it exist.

That could be a whole other episode on itself when you do your Loch Ness Monster coverage, May.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I would say the description that they're describing, again, does not sound like the description that the people, the divers reported.

And then, again, just me, I was telling you that all of these animals are, like, gigantic.

There's not all of them.

Like, the high-action content lends to gigantism amongst the sea creatures.

Right.

So the two big examples are the Baikal Sturgeon.

The Baikal Sturgeon can be seven feet long and 100 kilograms.

Oh, my gosh.

They generally live at about 40 meters.

They'll go down to 150 in certain weather.

So, that could match up with the depth of the site.

You have a picture of them?

I do.

Let me see.

This does not look like a human being or a creature.

Yes.

I don't think that that site...

I'm committed to mermaids.

Either mermaids or aliens.

No, it's definitely not that.

But that does have a dome-like quality to it.

It doesn't look like it's got an umbrella on its head.

Yeah.

No.

And it looks like a weird mouth.

Yeah.

It's like a platypus.

Again, these are just what all the people online are like, oh, that's what they saw.

Okay.

And then there's also an oil fish, the Golo Myanka fish.

This is one of them that comes up as like maybe that's what they saw.

This, I don't even understand how people made that leap because, so this is another fish that is only found in Lake Baikal.

So it's an oil fish.

It is known, it's like completely see-through.

It doesn't have any bones.

It has a pink, pearly body, completely transparent.

Apparently, you can read a book through it.

Whoa.

The depth is appropriate, but these is like a tiny fish.

It's very tiny.

It's like the size of a goldfish.

Yeah.

It's see-through.

Yeah.

They're saying this is a small fish that is pretty much the fish that every other creature in this ocean lives on.

I just don't know how you would see a little fish like that and be like, oh my God, it was a 10-point extraterrestrial.

Right.

There's no way it was mermaids.

I do not believe it was one of these creatures that people are claiming.

Mermaids.

I'm still in mermaids or ET.

Yeah.

I'm surprised you didn't think anything of a shared hallucination or menti bee.

I mean, when you have pressure poisoning, does it also affect your head?

I'm so happy you asked.

I wouldn't disregard that, but I just want to believe in mermaids.

Because again, this goes back to like, did they have a shared hallucination and they panicked?

Kind of like if they saw this animal, did they panic and surface and then they were too embarrassed to say that was an amateur move.

Right.

So you can get nitrogen narcosis.

Yeah.

And when you dive, the increased pressure compresses the nitrogen in the breathing gas, leading to a narcotic effect, which can impair, you know, it's like when they give you nitrogen for anesthesia.

Yeah.

So this can impair cognitive function and cause symptoms like poor concentration, confusion, and potentially hallucination.

I'm going to choose to believe in mermaids.

Okay.

Well, here's the last point for you.

I hate to do this.

I hate to-

don't ruin the mermaids.

I hate to debunk like the third episode in a row of our seasonal-

Come on.

Of our seasonal-

Tomato, tomato, tomato.

I'm throwing tomatoes at you.

I know, but what does it mean?

You don't like what I'm saying?

Yeah, like, boraing.

Throw the rotten fruit.

So, can we go back to this story?

The story that circulates is that this Baikal swimmer story came to light with the release of the official 2009 declassified documents.

In fact, there are reputable news sources that reported on this story.

Before?

No, after 2009.

Oh, okay.

Like, about, like, oh, we've had all these declassified.

One of the stories we heard was this one.

But here's the truth.

Okay.

While there was a release of information in 2009 regarding the Russian UFO, USO sightings, the extent was exaggerated.

The release did not constitute a complete or official declassification, and I could not find any evidence that this particular story was included in those 2009 documents.

Well, that's the question.

Oh.

The story has been largely propagated by Russian UFOlogist Vladimir Azhazha.

Vladimir.

There we go.

I've been waiting for an accent.

Yeah.

He is a former Soviet submariner and expert on underwater research, and he's also a prominent Russian UFO expert until his death in 2018.

A UFOlogist, if you will.

I want to be that when I grow up.

He served as chairman of the All-Union Commission for the Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, of the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies, and was on the editorial board of NLO, a Russian magazine about ufology, paranormal phenomena, and history.

While he is one of the most famous UFO researchers, he has also been accused of exaggerating and outright falsify his claim.

He's going to be a little bit crazy.

For example, he reported that a co-pilot involved in a UFO encounter experienced serious mental derangement and that his brain's encephalogram was not of an earthly character.

And then people were like, you have no proof of this.

What are you talking about?

The story doesn't even make sense.

So skeptics argue that many UFO sightings, including those investigated by Ajadjian and others, can be attributed to more mundane explanations, like a rocket testing.

So there's another Russian who was like, honestly, I think about 90% of the UFO sightings that are reported can be nullified.

We can explain them, and they're not necessarily extraterrestrial.

It's just the military doing stuff and not telling you.

Yeah, all kinds of things.

That's a big one.

But yeah, lots of potential explanations.

But this guy, Vladimir Zha Zha, says 50% of UFO encounters are connected with oceans, and 15% in addition to that are associated with lakes.

So UFOs tend to stick to the water, which again, we already bought into.

Right.

We agree with that.

So the point is that...

Uncharted territory, bleak ball.

The guy who has published this story in a book and who's been kind of telling...

Well, now he's dead, but who had been telling the story is not a super reputable source.

We also know that...

This are not trust, Vladimir.

Yeah.

This story has been...

That was good.

That was good.

This story has been being circulated since before 2009, which again, well, maybe that's because it's real.

I don't know.

But in 2016, there was a book published, Rush's UFO Secrets, and it states that this story was actually told by a senior officer who was visiting a training exercise in Kyrgyzstan, and he was trying to teach a lesson about the risks of decompression, and so that's why he told the story.

And so was this all just like a...

Oh, this is like a fabricated story.

It's like a fable.

A fable, yeah.

But what is...

I get the point of like, here's what could happen if you surfaced too quickly, but why would he...

Why would he come up with that?

Yeah.

These divers weren't stupid.

If it happened like it's said, then they were victims of these extraterrestrials.

So why would he make up that part of the story if he's trying to teach them about the risks of the bends?

So I'm not sure what the lesson is regarding the alien beings.

So that's really what I have.

The question is, is this all a myth?

Did they have some...

We don't think it was another animal.

Do we think it was a mermaid?

Do we think it was an extraterrestrial?

Or do we think it's just a story?

Do we think they were hallucinating from their hydrogen poisoning?

I'm gonna go with mermaids.

Okay, I like that.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Extraterrestrial.

Yeah.

I'm on the extraterrestrial.

Bee, bee, bee, bee, bee, bee, bee.

Well, I don't know.

I'm just like, if they're...

Not that mermaids couldn't have this technology, but I just keep going back to the like...

Yeah, like they shot something at them that propelled them up.

Well, I think also what is important to note here is that we've already established that we think aliens are not here to harm us, that maybe they're studying us, maybe they're looking for a resource, right?

That's right.

That's our personal decision we've come to.

I feel like it's important to note that these alien beings were not aggressive until someone tried to snare them.

Right.

They had multiple encounters in which they just kind of looked at each other.

Right.

Observing.

Yes.

Well, and that's my question is like, like going back to the hallucination, like they all have the same hallucination.

Yeah.

No, they'd all be a little bit weird.

Right.

What if they were experimented on and this is what they left behind in their brains?

Maybe.

Wow.

Maybe they were given LSD before they went down.

Yeah.

I think unknown creature, mermaid or alien.

That's my theory.

I mean, I think more like it's a nonsensical story, but-

No, Megan.

Of course.

Of course, you think it's nonsensical.

No.

But if we say the story really happened, then my money is on extraterrestrials.

Again, why else?

This is a perfect location for a little alien colony.

It's super cold, super deep.

They don't even have that technology that can really dive down to the bottom.

We have limited technology that can really get down.

I know it also is super cold, like that.

What?

Space.

Well, I mean, maybe they've been down there for 2 million years.

Obviously.

Yeah, for 20 million years.

Maybe they've been down there for millions of years.

Well, maybe they came here millions of years before we were here.

Right.

And they've just been living down there in the ocean.

Those are the Scientologists.

The Mormons.

The head of the Scientology.

What, that we're all aliens were here first?

Yeah, that's what Scientologists are saying, right?

That's what they believe.

It's aliens.

Connect to our brains or something like that.

No, aliens dropped us off.

But then the reason why they donate money has to do with upgrading levels to then connect to them alien mothership or something like that.

You're right.

75 million years ago, Xenu brought billions of people to Earth and killed them with hydrogen bombs.

You think mermaid?

Yeah.

Come on, Megan.

Thanks, ET.

Yeah, ET.

Phone home.

I think probably a made up story.

But I do Lake Baikal is really creeping me out.

I thought that was fascinating.

It was just like reading about this lake and I think that there's probably other stories from this lake that might pop up in future episodes.

Or even the Great Lakes somewhere.

Well, the Great Lakes is on our Google Doc as well to cover the Great Lakes.

All right.

That's all.

All right.

So, Kait.

Guys, just a reminder, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens.

That's the number 3 SchemeQueens, all one word.

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As always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, listens, the likes.

Kait, what should the people do?

Yeah.

I'm going to do what Colleen did two episodes ago.

I do not sound like that.

Scroll on down, leave us a five-star now.

Leave us a five-star review.

Definitely don't have that.

I don't have a claim like that.

What I want you to do is I want you to take out your phone right now and send this to three people who have expressed interests in plate tectonics, volcanoes, and or earthquakes.

Right.

Yes.

Strike, slip, fault.

You could also send it to your Californian friends who live on a strike, slip, fault line, aka the San Andreas fault line.

Right.

Everyone thinks that California is just going to break off, but they're not going to break off.

They're actually just going to slide towards Canada.

Well.

Which is fine with me too.

No loss.

Not going to include that.

Send it to them, and then scroll on down.

Leave us a five-star review.

Leave us a comment.

Share us with your friends and family.

Share us on your social media platforms.

Interact with us on Instagram, and yeah.

All right.

Sounds good.

And we will see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.