Posted by Cody on October 06, 1999 at 18:51:15:
In Reply to: "New" Discovery posted by Skip Simons on February 01, 1999 at 12:45:39:
Over a decade ago, divers started reporting
seeing a large, mysterious, unidentified
object lying in Chicago's Turning Basin
(where the Chicago River meets Lake
Michigan), but nobody really explored it
until the Autumn of 1998.
The Illinois DNR, responding to a court
order to stop the "leaking" of water from
Lake Michigan into the Chicago River,
elected to rebuild the walls surrounding the
Turning Basin and discovered that in doing
so, they would have to deal with this
mysterious object... in one way or another.
They contacted the UASC and asked that
we get involved in identifying the object and
moving it out of the construction team's way.
The UASC contacted the Chicago Tribune
and on January 25th, a feature story
appeared on the front page soliciting
information regarding the "object". CNN,
Fox and several other news outlets picked
up the story both locally and nationally and
over 250 responses poured in "guessing" at
what the object could be. It was less than two
weeks later when the truth finally emerged.
Mr. Michael Tym, a Chicago financial
advisor, called the UASC to say, "My father
built that thing and I have documents to
prove it and identify it!".
The object in question, since referred to as
the "TymBarge", was built by Mr. Tym's
father, Michael Tym Sr. It was a small scale
prototype (30'x10') of a semi-submersible
liquid hauling barge. It was built in
November, 1942. Mr. Tym Sr's idea was to
build these tankers of wood (a nonstrategic
material in those war years) and intended
them to be drawn behind ships going to the
European theater of operations to increase
our capacity of carrying fuel for the war
effort.