IN THE summer of 1997, an array of underwater microphones, or hydrophones, owned by the US government picked up a strange sound. For a minute, it rose rapidly in frequency; then it disappeared. The hydrophones, a relic of cold-war submarine tracking, picked up this signal again and again during those summer months, then it was never heard again. No one knows what made the sound, now known as “The Bloop” (hear it at www.thebloop.notlong.com).
It’s not the only mysterious sound heard in the ocean. In May 1997, hydrophones picked up the “Slowdown” sound. Over the course of about 7 minutes, it slowly dropped in pitch, rather like the sound of an aeroplane flying past (www.theslowdown.notlong.com). Its origin has been only loosely pinned down: it seems to have originated from somewhere off the west coast of South America, and could be heard from 2000 kilometres away.
So what’s behind the strange noises? The Bloop sounds like it might have been created by an animal, but it is far louder than any whale song, so a marine creature that made it would either be bigger than any whale, or a much more efficient producer of sound. The most popular speculation about Slowdown is that it was caused by the break-up of Antarctic ice – which means it might give an indication of climate change.
New Scientist (thanks, Fosca)
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The sound of climate change…
Hmm, spooky stuff.
So that’s where Nessie got to.
Well its obviously Nessie gone on holiday! Duh!
It’s the aliens. It’s ALWAYS the aliens.
Typically these things tend to be quite ordinary causes that get over analysed into something they are not.
Any thoughts on this one yourself Derren?
Omg! That’s soooo strange! >.<
I love things like this, find them soooo interesting!!
ps. Love your work Derren. I'm a psych student. You're a proper inspiration to meee
I like to think it’s Cthullu. :3
I get ‘page no longer available’ when I tried to access http://www.thebloop.notlong.com
Nessie!!!
Shame, the bloop website no longer working.
Wow…That’s amazingly cool, yet so scary. =/
If it is an animal, I want it as a pet. Nobody would ever steal my stuff again.
It is a running joke among fans of the work of H P Lovecraft that The Bloop is a creature from his Cthulhu Mythos
I suspect the real explanation is a little more Earthly, however, but am stumped as to what. Interesting that The Slowdown has a probable explanation, though.
That is ‘Freaky Deaky’. There are undoubtably kinds of sea creature that we haven’t discovered yet, but bigger than a whale?! How could we have missed that? I think I’m in favour of the Antarctic ice theory.
It was the cloverfield monster!
>>No one knows what made the sound, now known as “The Bloop” (hear it at http://www.thebloop.notlong.com).
This website is no longer available from the VENTS Program:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/sounds/bloop.html
Contact the webmaster if you feel you have reached this page in error.
Not more climate change bollocks.
IN THE in caps? Is this just a wee bloop, Phillis?
The links for the sounds are wrong. The one for the bloop is http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop.wav and the one for the slowdown is http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/sounds/noise97139.wav . Both have been sped up 16 times my the NOAA
DBs links don’t work but the sounds are on Wikipedia, for those who want to listen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Down_%28unidentified_sound%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop
It’s the underwater aliens coming to attack us. Quick hide! Run for your lives.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
(I, for one, welcome our be-tentacled overlords)
that is actually incredible. if it is true.
The site appears to be down.
Some nutters think it’s Cthulhu…yes, a work of fiction can actually exist. True story.
Cloverfield?!
Very intriguing and slightly unnerving. Check out the earthquake sound as well – a little scary!
How brilliant and strange! A refreshing change to not have speculators jump to conclusions and refer to theses “noises” as supernatural or some other sort of fictional nonsense.
However, another gem to the old ‘Brown Blog’, keep up the good work!
sounds to me like someone’s just lost a game of underwater super mario
It was jsut the dolphins leaving. Three pints of beer and a packet of peanuts please. Three pints? At lunchtime? Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. Drink up!
omg i was listening to my ipod reading this article and just as i was about to switch it off to listen to The Bloop, The x-files theme tune came on!!! Spooookyyy!! hahaha.
It’s probably not an animal, nor something due to climate change (otherwise it would not have disappeared .. would it.) But hey .. some prefer to see the climate change as a cause for everything going on on planet earth by now . ). What about ships, oil platforms and stuff like that. Boats are more often on the water in spring and summer. The owner probably got if fixed after that summer. Or the animal, if that was it, died.
No peace and silence down there either anymore (oh well, then you only get to hear your body noise .. the blood puming through your veins .. the heartbeat in it .. your breathing … your bowels .. your stomach … )
I’ve solved this: it was mistranscribed as ‘bloop’ because the glottal fricative that precedes it was too low in frequency to be picked up. It should read ‘Mmmbloop’ because it is a distorted snippet of the song ‘Mmmbop’ by Hanson. It was EVERYWHERE in the summer of 1997, you couldn’t get away from it even underwater…
They are actually whale farts. Honest.
The sounds must be from USO’s:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread14006/pg1
Makes sense, reportedly there is huge UFO activity in South America.
Just kidding, but you never know!
Oooooh, bit eerie……
LC x
Somebody must be playing Pong on a massive TV.
check on http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/sound01/background/seasounds/seasounds.html
I think the thing that alot of human beings seem to forget is that planet earth is a living, breathing planet. We and the world’s wildlife just happen to reside on it. I’d throw a guess into the dark that the sounds are actually from the earth itself, afterall it is constantly on the move and constantly shifting. Most of these sounds can’t be heard by the human ear so we just presume that the planet itself is silent when in fact it is most likely as noisy as the rest of it’s inhabitants lol.
Why do we follow you, when you don’t follow us?
maybe there’s a link to the bumuda triangle.
Cthulhu stirs. He’s about to wake up and when he does, we’re all gonna know about it.
“That is not dead which can eternal like. And with strange aeons, even death may die.”
IA! IA! Cthulhu Fhtagn!