NewScientist (13 June 2020, paywall) notes a mystery in our technology:
Ships around the world are reporting false locations, seeming to circle Point Reyes near San Francisco when they are actually thousands of kilometres away.
The locations are broadcast by each ship’s Automatic Identification System (AIS). These are required under international law to signal a vessel’s identity and GPS location. Bjorn Bergman of the environmental watchdogs SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch discovered the anomalies from a historical database of AIS information.
Bergman was tipped off when he noticed records from 2018 and 2019 of satellites receiving AIS locations outside areas they cover, for example, a satellite over West Africa picking up a ship supposedly off California. Vessels affected included a livestock carrier near Libya, a cargo ship in the Suez Canal, a small boat off Chile and a Norwegian tug.
Most incidents lasted just a few hours, but a boat carrying oil workers to installations off the coast of Nigeria spent two weeks apparently circling Point Reyes, then veered off inland to Utah, occasionally jumping back to a Nigerian oil terminal. Most vessels appeared to circle off California, but others were displaced to Madrid or Hong Kong.
The obvious explanation, detailed in the article, is some sort of malicious attack, although exactly why Point Reyes is significant is not apparent. Not noted is the possibility of some sort of flaw in the system.
What lurks in the back of my mind is that this is a symptom of new physics, of something we thought we knew thoroughly, but didn’t. Call me a child, if you like. Sure, it’s not going to be that – but I refuse to stop hoping until hard evidence comes in.
