Bloop
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- This article is about the underwater sound. For the programming language, see BlooP programming language. For the classroom study & review PC game see Bloop (PC game).
The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown. A recording of the Bloop is available on the NOAA website.
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[edit] Analysis
The sound, traced to somewhere around (South American southwest coast), was detected repeatedly by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array, which uses U.S. Navy equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines. 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." Though it matches the audio profile of a living creature, there is no known animal that could have produced the sound. If it is an animal, it would have to be, reportedly, much larger than even a Blue Whale, according to scientists who have studied the phenomenon.
[edit] Possibilities
To date there has been no explanation as further efforts to research the sound have been unsuccessful, because it has not been heard since 1997. It is possible to identify animals by the sounds they make. Normally, when sounds are unidentifiable, they are given names like Whistle, Slowdown, Upsweep, and Train. The Bloop, although it sounded like a blue whale, originated 4,800 km away, seemingly ruling out any known marine animal. However, some believe that this sound could have been emitted by a whale and carried that distance by warm water currents.
Some postulate that the sound may come from a huge and as-yet-undiscovered species of octopus or squid, or possibly a new species of gigantic whale or fish even larger than the blue whale. Others dispute this, pointing out that all known cephalopods lack the gas-filled sac necessary to produce this type of sound, and that a cetacean larger than a blue whale would still have to surface for oxygen, making it susceptible to sightings, unless it had some smaller breathing apparatus, not unlike an elephant's trunk. The Bloop theoretically could have been the product of a machine. The frequency of the Bloop technically is not too low for a machine, but it would be difficult for a machine to produce a sound of such volume.[citation needed]
It is also possible that the sound was made by a large number of creatures emitting a synchronous vibration.
[edit] References in popular culture
- The electronic band Dntel produced a song entitled "Pillowcase," composed of the Bloop recording.
- In Steve Alten's novel The Loch the main character encounters the Bloop in the Sargasso Sea. It later turns out to be a large and ancient species of eel.
- The site of the Bloop is remarkably close to the site of the fictional city of R'lyeh from H. P. Lovecraft's short story The Call of Cthulhu, where an ancient undersea monster (Cthulhu) lies sleeping. Lovecraft said that R'lyeh is located at in the southern Pacific Ocean, with the bloop also being targeted somewhere in that range [1].
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Tuning in to a deep sea monster CNN, June 13, 2002
- "Bloop" NOAA Vents Program for Acoustic Monitoring. Has a link to a wav file of the (sped up) sound, as well as a spectrogram.
- A dedicated Bloop-page
[edit] References
- ^ Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon, 1st ed., Tempe, AZ: New Falcon. ISBN 1-56184-129-3
