Bloop
Coordinates: 50°S 100°W / 50.000000°S 100.000000°W
The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.
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[edit] Analysis
The sound, traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W (a remote point in the south Pacific Ocean west of the southern tip of South America), was detected several times by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array.[1] This system was developed as an autonomous array of hydrophones that could be deployed in any oceanographic region to monitor specific phenomena. It is primarily used to monitor undersea seismicity, ice noise, and marine mammal population and migration. This is a stand alone system designed and built by NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) to augment the U.S. Navy SOund SUrveillance System (SOSUS), equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines.
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According to the NOAA description, it "rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km." The NOAA's Dr. Christopher Fox does not believe its origin is man-made, such as a submarine or bomb, or familiar geological events such as volcanoes or earthquakes. While the audio profile of the Bloop does resemble that of a living creature[2], the source is a mystery both because it is different from known sounds and because it was several times louder than the loudest recorded animal, the blue whale.[3] Five other significant unexplained sounds have been named by NOAA: Julia, Train, Slow Down, Whistle, and Upsweep.[4][5][6]
Dr. Christopher Fox of the NOAA speculated that the Bloop may be ice calving in Antarctica.[7] A year later journalist David Wolman paraphrased Dr. Fox who suggested it was likely animal in origin.[8]
[edit] Popular culture
- In Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore, the source of the Bloop is a living colony known as the "Goo".
- In Frank Schätzing's novel The Swarm, the Bloop is the speech of the intelligent species, the Yrr.
- The roughly-triangulated origin of the Bloop is approximately 950 nautical miles (1,760 km) from the more precisely-described location of R'lyeh, a sunken extra-dimensional city written of by H. P. Lovecraft in his famous short story The Call of Cthulhu.[9][10]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Acoustics Monitoring Program". http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/sounds/bloop.html. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
- ^ David Wolman (2002-06-15). "Calls from the deep". New Scientist. http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/102ns_001.htm. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
- ^ "Animal Records". Smithsonian National Zoological Park. http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AnimalRecords/default.cfm. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
- ^ "Tuning in to a deep sea monster". CNN. 2002-06-13. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/06/13/bloop/. Retrieved 2010-01-06.
- ^ "Acoustics Monitoring Program". http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/specs_all.html. Retrieved 2010-01-06.
- ^ David Wolman (2002-06-15). "Calls from the deep". New Scientist. http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/102ns_001.htm. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
- ^ "Scientists tune in to sounds of the sea". CNN. 2001-09-07. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/09/07/listening.ocean/. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
- ^ David Wolman (2002-06-15). "Calls from the deep". New Scientist. http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/102ns_001.htm. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
- ^ Jonathan Strickland. "Cthulhu goes Bloop". How Stuff Works. http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/cthulhu2.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-07.
- ^ Sean Michael Ragan (2009-11-16). "The Bloop of Cthulhu". http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/11/the_bloop_of_cthulhu.html. Retrieved 2010-10-07.
