With news of this possible UFO in the Baltic Sea, Twitter ignited with buzz. People on the social media giant can’t get enough of the story.

Is There a UFO Wreck in Baltic Sea? Treasure Hunters Probe Mystery abcn.ws/xphWJB

— ABC News (@ABC) January 31, 2012

Shipwreck in Baltic Sea? A UFO? The Millennium Falcon? Disc-Shaped Object on Sonar as Large as 747 abcn.ws/xWju7h — Riki Beck (@rlbocean) January 31, 2012
 

Shipwreck in Baltic Sea: Disc-Shaped Object on Sonar as Large as 747 – ABC News#.Tyf-iCOkl4s#.Tyf-iCOkl4s abcn.ws/zMNqG4 (via @ABC)

— Barry Leis (@Barry_Leis) January 31, 2012

The Truth is at the bottom of the ocean. Shipwreck in Baltic Sea: A UFO? Disc-Shaped Object on Sonar as Large as 747 -http://abcn.ws/AoWouN — Dan Hacker (@danhacker) January 31, 2012
 

Baltic Mystery: Disc-Shaped Object on Sonar as Large as 747 sgp.cm/3f8254

— Trey Dunn (@oncetreyminator) January 31, 2012

Paranormal stories: Shipwreck hunters find mysterious UFO-like object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea – Daily Mail bit.ly/xkeGzS — spacebuggz (@spacebuggz) January 29, 2012
 

Unexplained Object Discovered At Bottom of Baltic Sea – Shipwreck hunters have located an unusual object at the bott… ow.ly/1gWOYS

— The_Professorr (@The_Professorr) January 26, 2012

Team Leader Peter Lindberg said:

“I have been doing this for nearly 20 years so I have a seen a few objects on the bottom, but nothing like this, we had been out for nine days and we were quite tired and we were on our way home, but we made a final run with a sonar fish and suddenly this thing turned up.”

On the run, the team used a side-scan sonar, with this tool they found a 60 meter in diameter disc shaped object with a tail-like protrusion measuring 400 meters long, then on a second pass they discovered a second object 200 meters away.

In the professional opinion of Lindberg’s team, they say the objects are too big to have fallen off a ship or to even be part of a wreck, but they say it’s anyone’s guess as to what’s down there.

Lindberg went on to say:

“We’ve heard lots of different kinds of explanations, from George Lucas’s spaceship — the Millennium Falcon — to ‘it’s some kind of plug to the inner world,’ like it should be hell down there or something, but we won’t know until we have been down there.”

Andreas Olsson, Sweden’s Head of Archaeology at Maritime Museums says he is intrigued by the picture, but he remains a skeptic on what it could be. The problem with the picture is the reliability of one-side scanners, It makes it difficult to tell if it’s a natural formation or something un-natural. Lindberg says the picture “isn’t the best it could be”, but the team plans to investigate further into the matter. If the mysery object doesn’t turn out to be something awesome, still adrenaline junkies with money want to pay to get an up-close view via submarine.

I saw it when it was posted, and though for a split second I thought we really were being invaded, I took note that it was just 22 seconds of footage and news of it appeared no where else – no footage of people screaming in terror? Less than half a minute of the most significant event in human history? – and then decided that in an age of digital imaging and CGI, you just don’t know what’s real anymore, and thought I’d wait and see if little green men appeared at a White House press conference – you know, where they tell "the truth."

And nothing. Which could mean, obviously, government-media cover-up.

Meanwhile, a debate was raging on YouTube. Immediately people started calling it a hoax while others defended it as the real thing, possibly confirming what they’ve been saying all along.

But it does look pretty real:

Eventually, a video popped up with what appears to be a military jet fighter sputtering out so many missiles that the jet itself looks like it’s on fire. The view on that one, though, is obviously studio-produced, unless the video was submitted by the aliens – it’s shot from their point of view. (Maybe they dig YouTube, too?)

Still yet the debate rages, with a few true-believers in the comments sections arguing even the fighter jet is proof, and with several uploaded attempts to debunk the videos as hoaxes. The palm trees were exactly the same, they said.

But don’t all palm trees kinda look alike?

In super slow motion, says a skeptic, you can see that the crafts are exact copies and that all of their lights are pointed toward the camera at the same time.

Maybe they vaporized the camera man? Maybe that’s why it’s just 22 seconds?

Another debunker walks viewers though a demonstration of Vue 6 video editing software to show how it could be done.

Ah! Now we’re on to something. A viral marketing video to promote Vue 6!

If not, I just gave them some collateral advertising.

And just when you thought the hysteria was dying down, the mother ship appears at Daily Motion, a nearly two-minute video this time with a plea for anyone with information to email (wouldn’t do that if I were you, by the way.)

In this video, which honestly isn’t as cherry as the other ones, the mother ship nearly touches down in Los Roques Venezuela. These aliens seem to prefer the Caribbean to Nevada.

And who doesn’t?

We’re going to assume the videos are fakes until we actually see them zipping down I-75, and chalk up the You-FO sightings to someone with a real talent for digital video, or a viral marketing effort for an upcoming movie called "YouTube Is for Suckers."

Yahoo says it expects the time capsule, designed by Internet artist Jonathan Harris, to be the largest one in history and is taking worldwide submissions for it beginning Tuesday, and ending November 8.

The best submissions will be projected on the side of the 216-foot tall Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, while also being webcast from October 25-27. The pyramid was chosen “because of its role in the preservation of ancient culture.”

The company will also bury the time capsule on the Yahoo campus, donate copies to the Smithsonian and The National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico, and beam the digitized version via “light beam” into space, just in case the aliens missed our previous messages.

With any luck, the Vogons will drop by to pick up long lost fellow bureaucrat Dennis Hastert. Forms for the trip will have to be filled out in triplicate, of course, and plans displayed for a predetermined amount of time on Alpha Centari. So it may be a while.

While we wait, someone should alert Tom Cruise to the expected rise in Thetan levels as Dark Lord Xenu plots his next move, which we’ve pretty much narrowed down to some sort of Google/YouTube collaboration. This must have been why Cruise visited the Yahoo campus last Spring.

The purpose of the time capsule, says Jerry Yang, cofounder and Chief Yahoo, is “to document this moment in history to celebrate the power of the global online community and to provide a snapshot of who we are in 2006 to share with generations to come.”

Future generations and aliens will be wowed by headlines like “Hilton and Richie Seen at L.A. Steakhouse” and “George Clooney Caught Picking Nose At Oscars.”

But it’s not just American culture Yahoo is trying to capture. The stunt seeks out “what Afghani women feel about love; Brazilian teenagers feel about anger; Chinese men feel about the past; American mothers feel about hope.”

“Wherever people use Yahoo! – from Mexico, Germany or China to the U.S. – we want them to represent their culture and show us what’s important to them by participating in this historic Internet time capsule event,” said Yang. “It will be fascinating to see what people submit as their part of this 2006 snapshot.”

Yeah, and the aliens will love the Zidane head butt.

The Yahoo! Time Capsule will be featured on at least 20 localized Yahoo homepages. Users are invited to upload personal photos, stories, thoughts, ideas, poems, prayers, home movies, music and art to the site, for inclusion in the capsule, with a focus on celebrating and understanding the world culture in 2006.

Visitors will be able to browse time capsule contents and compare contributions by country, region, race, age, gender, et cetera, says Yahoo.

After the pyramid projection, the webcast, and the beaming into space, Yahoo says the capsule will be buried at the company headquarters to be opened back up in 2020, the company’s 25th anniversary.

That is, of course, unless Thetan levels rise to uncontrollable heights and the Vogons decide to destroy us.

According to MindComet, BloginSpace has been compiling blogs and posts since July 19th and have accumulate over 2,700 messages for transmission in less than a month. The Deep Space Communications Network will transmit those messages although apparently, some controversy occurred over content regarding extraterrestrial communication protocols and the possibilities of intergalactic war because the messages were uncensored.

“We are aware of extraterrestrial communication protocols and because of this encouraged bloggers to not use offensive language,” commented Ted Murphy, President and CEO of MindComet. “We don’t anticipate the blogs to create intergalactic warfare, and we were excited to be able to launch today in coordination with Atlas V.” Murphy says MindComet continues to support intergalactic free speech, as they have since the launch of BloginSpace.com and Space Post messaging.

There are two galactic transmission services provided by MindComet. The first, BloginSpace allows users to run a blog, transmitted at regular intervals, into the interstellar expanse. SpacePost is for folks merely wishing to send one message, perhaps to catch up with an old friend or relative living out in Alpha Centauri.

BloginSpace is still open for transmission and they say Friday’s launch marks the first of many transmissions planned for the coming months. The next one is planned for Sept. 12th. MindComet says BloginSpace generates 40,000 unique sessions daily.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.