STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- A frogman who may have come from a trapped foreign mini-submarine slipped through a military blockade despite an intensive pursuit in the area of top-secret Karlskrona naval base, officials said Thursday.
Lt. Col. Evert Dahlen said an 'alien person' had crossed over Almo Island and escaped a military blockade about 5 miles west of the key Karlskrona base on the Baltic Sea 250 miles south of Stockholm.
A frogman escaping from the area could only be making for a mother submarine just outside the closed-off area where Swedish forces have been hunting suspected foreign mini-submarines, military sources said.
No alien underwater vessels were known to have left the restricted archipelago, sealed off for three weeks in Sweden's biggest submarine hunt, Dahlen said.
Soldiers at Almo Island observation posts late Wednesday threw hand grenades into the water after apparently seeing the diver near shore, defense officials said.
'An alien person came up out of the water on the east side of Almo Island, crossed the island and continued on into the water on the other side,' Dahlen said.
Ships fired flares and helicopters aimed searchlights while soldiers and police with dogs combed the sealed-off island in fruitless pursuit, witnesses said.
'He came out of the water and walked 300 meters (yards) across the island,' said Karlskrona police chief Dag Fallin, quoting police witnesses. Police sources said the alien person was a frogman.
'Our burglar alarm system worked,' Dahlen said. 'The military spotted a suspect and called in the police to assist, but they failed to capture the villian.'
It was the first indication any of the intruders, believed to include frogmen riding in mini-submarines, had escaped across the island barrier out to open sea. Defense officials have imposed a news blackout to keep information from the intruders.
A shock bomb was set off Thursday near the main approach to the archipelago to deter underwater intruders from destroying anti-submarine nets blockading the restricted zone, officials said.
During a similar hunt in Karlskrona's 20 square-mile basin last fall, an unknown saboteur cut an anti-submarine net linking two islands.
Navy frogmen Wednesday inspected a suspicious-looking tube attached to the hull of a Soviet cargo vessel refused entry to the sensitive Karlskrona search area, ordered off-limits to all traffic.
The Baltisky-68, a Soviet vessel that unloaded scrap metal in Karlshamn west of Karlskrona, left port following the hull inspection. The navy usually keeps an eye on Soviet merchant vessels during submarine hunts to see if they may be assisting underwater intruders.
In Brussels, defected Soviet diplomat Arkady Shevchenko said Wednesday the Kremlin in the early 1970s gave the Soviet Navy a free hand to send submarines to map out Scandinavian waters.
In 1981, a Soviet submarine ran aground off Karlskrona, leading to an international incident.
