I didn't downvote you, however the problem with your reasoning is that every country has literally hundreds of devices scattered around and measuring every day data that could make someone unhappy. The current US administration (which I deeply dislike as well) would gain nothing but the great risks involved should the agents be caught with the pants down. While they could well sabotage a few stations, there are so many around that hitting all of them is plain impossible. If we accept your theory, we should also take into account Russia as well since this happened about two weeks after that nuclear incident, and having sensors measuring radiations far away from the event would make them unhappy too. I'm assuming that station has radiation sensors on board although their presence has not been reported because they're cheap and it would be stupid not to include them especially in that area. Same problem as above: let's say some Russian agents managed to destroy that station, how would they deal with the hundreds or thousands other stations doing similar measurements around without risking a lot of PR damage if caught?

To me, assuming it was intentional, it was either someone needing spare parts for his projects (kidding) or someone who didn't want measurements to be taken in that area because they are involved in illegal dumping of pollutants or similar things.

edit: knowing the exact type of sensors on board would help a lot to find the motivations in case of deliberate sabotage; eg, a magnetometer can detect anomalies in Earth's magnetic field, such as those produced by big ships or submarines passing by.

It might also have been abducted by aliens, but it's not constructive to suggest something with a 0% probability, when rounded.

It seems like submarines splicing spy equipment into undersea cables is their biggest peace time application - and it looks like every country that can do it, does it in some form or other. It just came to light that South Africa is doing that, and they can barely keep the lights on as a nation. If a basket-case like South Africa does it, probably every developed nation does it.

It's extremely unlikely the US would do something like that to an ally. In regards to 'spying' in general, usually you don't really sabotage. You just note what's being collected and control it. Because by sabotaging something you give away that you know about it, that is has value, that you're possibly actively looking for similar things, blah blah.

I would bet money that someone dragged an anchor across the line or the device, and it has since been dragged across the sea floor to an unknown location by accident.

Highly doubtful that someone dragged an anchor across a restricted area in 72 ft of water.

I'm not an expert on nautical stuff, but only the largest vessels would have anchor chains that long. Moreover, you'd have major problems getting your anchor detached from that thing. If you cut your chain (unlikely) then it would still be at the bottom of the sea. If you somehow managed to detach the sea station, it would also be laying nearby. Presumably the divers checked the nearby seabed?

Anchors dropped where not allowed is one of the top reasons international communication lines break.

That device did not look particularly heavy when compared to the weight of a chain/line required to drop anchor at that depth (normally 5:1 or 7:1 ratio). And the amount area a diver would have to check us significant.

Well yeah on land 750kg seems heavy. In water it's not really. A 50 foot boat/ship could easily snag that and drag it off. A larger ship might not even notice until they brought the anchor up.

As far as the dog piled parent, intelligence services are known to be loony paranoid and do really dumb stuff. Not to mention research and science projects are commonly used as cover. So sometimes the loony paranoia isn't misplaced.

It would be far from the first time somebody's science or fishing vessel was spying on someone else.

But would it would be the first time the US has interfered with an ally's spy rig? Five eyes, and all that, it's in our interest, right?

Maybe someone else messed with it.

Germany is not in the five eyes. Its a Commonwealth thing. The US is doing mainly industrial espionage in Germany and drag net mass surveillance...

TIL.

5E :- Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

FYI the USA is not in the Commonwealth.

True. We could be, but we literally fought a couple of wars to stay out of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations_member...

The current US administrations tact is "the science is wrong" or "the science is being misinterpreted". Why go to the trouble of some cloak and dagger mission when you can simply ignore it.

I think the Bay (Eckernförde) is so small and shallow that any US Submarine would have been spotted immediately.

Highly unlikely. Those waters are too shallow for any US-Submarines (Or british) to operate in. And its one of the prime hunting grounds for german submarines, which are based in the Area. Much too risky.

Yeah seems rather risky to be operating literally in the backyard of a major German submarine base. Six Type 212 subs are based in Eckernförde, one is actually on the marine tracker linked in the comments above [0] right now. If a submarine pops up there unannounced that's a diplomatic incident at least and with a naval base nearby the risk of discovery would be rather high.

[0] https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:9.973/cent...

Not even a diesel microsubmarine will be able to manoeuvre freely there unless surfaced

The current administration is pro science.

I believe OP means the current US administration.

Trump is not Der Kinderlumper.

Climate deniers have managed to ignore inconvenient, extensive data for decades. I doubt they see a need to perform an act of war to prevent a trickle of additional data.