It is a HiPAP device, used for submarine positioning:

https://www.kongsberg.com/globalassets/maritime/km-products/...

High accuracy positioning for deep-sea structure placement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvxeWCoAZPw&feature=youtu.be

This plus the search pattern ("mowing the lawn") the ship is running in that area tells me that they're surveying the region accurately with sonar. There must be something on the bottom they want to find or build.

That's fairly near the location of Adria-1 submarine cable, so it's possible they are looking at something related to that.

At 1:22 of the video it shows a similar pattern being used. I'm assuming that pattern provides an inch by inch accuracy reading.

However, they could have just been testing it out in shallower waters near the coast before venturing into 1+ mile depths. Especially considering the mystery piece just recently arrived (according to the DHL tracking).

Are you all sure that is not the pattern of the ship looking for the device?

mhandley mentioned in a comment that the pattern tracking map is from today. It sounds like the device was returned prior to today, considering this article was published today.

The device was returned, but that pattern is the ship that likely carried/deployed the device, not the device itself.

Per another post that box is part of a fine grained positioning system, so I'd expect the ship deployed it then started doing whatever it was doing, and the fisherman trawled it up in the meantime.

Stennis Space Center is also the location of a Naval Research Lab, and specifically the Naval Oceanographic Office and Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.

https://www.usno.navy.mil/NAVO https://www.public.navy.mil/fltfor/cnmoc/Pages/home.aspx

"CNMOC is focused on providing critical environmental knowledge to the warfighting disciplines of Anti-Submarine Warfare; Naval Special Warfare; Mine Warfare; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; and Fleet Operations (Strike and Expeditionary), as well as to the support areas of Maritime Operations, Aviation Operations, Navigation, Precise Time, and Astrometry."

This is almost certainly some kind of sensor array.

What kind of sensor would be useful for finding submarine internet cables?

A phone would probably be the most useful sensor. You call the people that laid the internet cables and ask.

Russia here, can you tell me exactly where that cable is so I can do a mid ocean fiber tap, ya, thanks.

There are many clandestine reasons for finding deep sea cables.

Indeed. Croatian coastline. Possible game of phones?

Try using OpenCV on some images of stretched uncoiled rope and attempt to segment out the rope if you can. You will get the idea pretty quickly. Think ultrasound, that sort of thing.

Note that it’s almost certainly not a “NASA device;” the Navy’s oceanographic office is located at the Stennis center, so it would make sense for it to be returned there.

That ship route sure looks like it was looking for the lost item, whatever it is.

According to MarineTraffic, most of that track is from today. Unless the found article was only given back to them this afternoon, they wouldn't have still been looking for it today. Seems more likely they're doing a sonar survey of the seabed, given it's an oceanographic survey vessel.

Either that or they were using it. Possibly towing it behind. Maybe it's some sort of sonar scanner.

Oceanographic sensor array of some kind — they may have been sampling ocean characteristics near the coastline for research purposes.

It is bright orange with white, my first thought when I saw the title was something you'd want to hide on the ocean floor but this doesn't appear to be the right color or shape.

Based on the link provided in another comment, it looks like some sort of underwater surveying

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22003320

The bottom of page 11 shows a similar pattern. Not sure if it’s related

Navy Oceanographic research is an euphemism for submarine hunting, right?

NAVOCEANO does all sorts of stuff. some of it's even unclassified.

I've taken fleet money and gotten peer reviewed open access open source publications and code out of it before.

Oceanography research supports a lot of different functions like navigation which requires maps of the seafloor and how they change, waste disposal so that toxic waste doesn't end up in civilian water ways and bays, maintenance which depends on the environmental conditions, and so on.

No. They support surface ships, too, and it's not just sub hunting, it's also hiding our boomers.

Funny that the guy only asked for 3 grand. Could have probably asked for 30 and gotten away with it.

From what the fisherman says, he’s really only asking for the repair costs of his fishing nets.

Probably, but he's lucky anyways. For a Croatian fisherman, asking for 20,000 Kuna is like asking for 30 grand in the US.

150 pounds is quite heavy. It could be a seismic air gun. They may float just below the surface.

The route of the ship also matches that of a seismic or some other kind of survey.

What's the shipping waybill from?

Huh, it's a waybill stickered to the device; in the picture with the man, you can see the shipping sticker on the front left of the orange cube.

Which makes the device boring. If it had secrets inside or it was for military use, they would not have sent it naked, using DH-effing-L!

At first I thought they sent something to the fisherman, and since he was complaining about his fishing net, I thought the article was about to tell me that he got a replacement fishing net straight from "NASA", as we can see from the DHL package he got... but sadly that wasn't the case.

Much easier to hide things in plain sight than say a big box that says "Classified" or "Government Only"

Classic story: All for $79.25: How Russia Somehow Shipped a U.S. Missile To Moscow by Mail

https://warisboring.com/the-kgb-shipped-a-sidewinder-missile...

It was shipped by DHL, and had a bar code with the tracking ID on it.

Ah oops, yeah, I was scanning the article and by the time I scrolled down to the DHL printout I had gone past the photo at the top.

From the looks of it, this device was shipped from the US to Croatia, where it was (theoretically) brought onboard the US ship, then used in some operation where it was (possibly) lost, and/or not recovered during a search operation, which is (maybe) shown in the ship activity log ..

This fisherman might be a tough negotiator, but clearly not a keen businessman. Could've gotten a top coin from the Russians for the same. I'm sure they even have a sub in the area already.

The Russians could just buy one if they were so inclined; I don't think HIPAP devices like the one pictured are under export control. (The HIPAP is just the yellow pipe - the orange thingy looks like flotation whereas the glide pads on the sides are to make launching the device simpler.

(I haven't worked on such kit myself, but my customers do and I encounter them several times a year.)