corn snake hatchling

Pictured: Finland's Sakkiluoto Island as seen from Google Earth... 9 piers and a (highlighted) helipad mysteriously purchased by a Russian oligarchic with deep military connections.

On September 22nd, 2018, Finnish retiree Leo Gastgivar was outside working in his garden on the tiny island in an archipelago between Finland and Sweden where he lived. Suddenly, his peaceful afternoon was interrupted by a most unusual presence. Gastgivar noticed two black speedboats packed with Finnish commandos in camouflage fatigues waiting in the bay short of his front door.

Awkward greetings were exchanged, as Gastgivar remained utterly at a loss as to what this somewhat sinister military presence signified for his peaceful island life. Seemingly satisfied with whatever they were observing, the commandos began to reverse their boats and continue onward. Gastgivar went inside his home, collected a pair of binoculars and watched in amazement as the commandos raced off toward another tiny island belonging to his nearest neighbor, a mysterious Russian businessman he had never met or even seen.

Mr. Gastgivar was certainly unnerved by the spectacle. He would later recall: “I thought: ‘Wow! That is certainly unusual,’” “Nobody ever visits that place...”

When history reflects on Pearl Harbor, the attack is often remembered as a strictly aerial battle. But there was another, much smaller group of Japanese soldiers who were extensively trained for a little-known second phase of attacks to correspond with the air raids. This mission was comprised of ten men making up a secret and elite midget submarine force. Called the “Special Attack Naval Unit,” they would ultimately be unsuccessful, and yet even their failure wouldn’t go as planned. Tasked with destroying his own submarine, one of those men would instead accidentally pass-out and become the first Japanese POW of World War II.

It was late into the night of December 6, 1941. America did not know it yet, but it would awake the next morning to find itself under siege. On the morning of December 7, the Pearl Harbor Naval Base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu would be bombarded with a series of surprise attacks from Japanese aircraft. It would be the final straw that drew the U.S. out of its isolationism and into the global scuffle of World War II.