One likely explanation floated by the Times is a collision with a dysfunctional mine.

*groan*

It was Godzilla.

Indolent: It was Godzilla Gojira.

FTFY and to keep Raymond Burr out of the picture

See! I told you 5,999 hulls was enough.

Yep, woman driver.

Plobably some huge fixed conclete stluctlue in polt.

//Read like a Japanese

lantawa: Plobably some huge fixed conclete stluctlue in polt.

//Read like a Japanese

that doesn't look a thing like Kanji

I would expect an explosion to leave some sort of charring or shrapnel damage from the exploding body of the device. A sub is not in my opinion possible either since the dent is above the water line and you can see where it is back to normal at the water line.

I want to say breaching whale maybe, but the size of the dent is probably too large. Another ship, due to the lack of scraping damage above and the lack of another ship or wreckage again not likely.

Indolent: It was Godzilla.

Ah, damn it....

shakes tiny green fist, roars smally

Are you guys sure the picture itself isn't misleading? I mean, the pic could have been taken after off-loading so she's riding higher in the water than when the incident occurred. (Which you'd kinda want to do to inspect it...)

If that's true, then you may have a at-waterline impact but nothing penetrated the skin of the ship. Give the flash and blast, the dysfunctional mine actually makes sense if all it managed to do was create a wall of water that slammed into the side.

Even a badly designed high-explosive blast from an above-water boat would likely have torn apart or penetrated some of the skin of the ship. So what's the terror theory here, a suicide submarine?

A depressed whale that somehow creates an explosion and flash?

Or a rotten >10-year old magnetic mine...