Deep sea cryptid???

[AzurePhoenix]

For a long time now I've heard stories about a peculiar sound emanating from a mysterious deep-water source that marine scientists confidantly believe to be produced by a very large organism that they're calling "Bloop".

 

Apparently some years back a series of sounds of very low frequency of a strength that suggests a creature much larger than a whale were recorded by submarines at a certain depth where sounds carry particularly far.

 

I haven't been able to find anything but laymen articles, recordings of the sound, and a short reference in a documentary about whales, (nothing that I'd consider official), but what I've heard doesn't sound like some Big-Foot or Nessie Report.

 

Some UK scientists supposedly think it might be an enormous squid, while others claim squid likely wouldn't be large enough or have the anatomy to produce the sound, but I haven't heard anything outright denying the idea of a creature in general (unlike stories regarding most cryptids)

 

Has anyone else heard anything about this or have any idea about the validity of the story?

[herpguy]

Yes, I have heard this many times, and I think there is some form of giant snake-like creature that lives deep in the ocean. "Bloop" did not match the sound of anything large enough to create it, i.e. something like a whale or a man-made object did not make the noise. So there must be some large species deep underwater unknown to science.

 

Why it could be a giant sea snake like animal:

There are many species of sea snake, and there are large amounts of food in the ocean. Perhaps a specie of sea snake adapted to the large quantities of food and grew to an extraordinary size...

[AzurePhoenix]

I really can't imagine this being a possibility for a number of reasons, mostly that the largest known snakes are just over 30 feet long, while sea-snakes aren't very large at all. For something to evolve to be more massive than a whale...

 

I've considered whether or not some giant marine reptile or mammal could evolve to take oxygen directly from the water, otherwise I don't see how something so allegedly huge could not be seen surfacing to breath. The breathing thing would be unprecedented, so I have to wonder if its a fish or invertebrate. Bah, I have sinking feeling we'll never know, if it even exists in the first place.

[herpguy]

The largest snake known is just over 48 feet long. However, this was just published in an Indonesian magazine, and no one knows for a fact. Anyway, perhaps an anaconda, which is usually about 18 feet long, found its way into the Atlantic Ocean millions of years ago, and slowly evolved.

 

Witnesses of giant snake-like marine animals report gills on the sides of the animals. So maybe, if the witnesses were not trying to create a hoax, they did evolove to take oxygen directly from water...

 

I hope that if there is something, we will find it and prove that it exists, but we are destroying ocean life faster than we can adapt to new technology .

[gcol]

If it is there, and it is not too repulsive to eat, the Japanese will find it, kill it, and eat it for scientific research. I hope it manages to hide forever.

[herpguy]

If it is there, and it is not too repulsive to eat, the Japanese will find it, kill it, and eat it for scientific research. I hope it manages to hide forever.

I guess you are right now that you put it that way. It may be best that we don't know everything about earth.

[AzurePhoenix]

Unfortunately the python reported to be 48 feet was a hoax. I was psyched about it, but when researchers went over to check out the claims they found it wasn't even thirty feet long, though it was particularly girthy for its size.

 

I guess the main thing is that I can't picture any snake adapting itself to such bitterly unsurvivable depths, including the breathing mechanisms and the fact that it seems to use vocal communication. At least it wouldn't have to come to land to breed considering many snakes give livebirth. I guess my biggest issue with the idea is that there simply isn't anything to support the idea besides one of the many offshoots of sea monster sightings.

 

Hell knows you could be right, but I'm of the mind that the fewest and simplest steps will lead to the most likely answer. Giant mammals are already prevalent, giant marine reptiles once were, fish used to get enormous and we know invertebrates get quite large in the deep. And from there we could narrow it down enough to exclude the first two based on what we do know. It doesn't eliminate any possibilities of course.

[gcol]

Newsflash

 

Godzilla lives! But it does not roar, it goes "bloop bloop", it is really a big softy who got some bad press.

[herpguy]

Unfortunately the python reported to be 48 feet was a hoax. I was psyched about it, but when researchers went over to check out the claims they found it wasn't even thirty feet long, though it was particularly girthy for its size.

Oh, that stinks.

 

Well, I'll stop arguing about a giant snake and move onto something else.

 

Does anyone know the approx. size of the thing that made "bloop"?

[AzurePhoenix]

Does anyone know the approx. size of the thing that made "bloop"?

That's one of the "speculations" I was hoping to find out by posting this thread, I still haven't been able to find any quality scientific articles or serious theories (besides the UK "big squid" proposal)

 

Bah, nothing refutes the Bloop claims, but it's like no one seems to care enough to mention it at all.

[Phi for All]

The Bloop sounds weren't picked up by subs, IIRC, they were picked up by a passive hydrophone system that listens for subs. The sound had all the hallmarks of a marine life form and was considered huge because it was recorded on two different sensors quite a ways apart.

 

I guess not even a whale could make a sound loud enough to trip two sensors but that's the part that makes me question the whole thing. Couldn't some kind of anomalous current or combination of factors have caused the same sound to be recorded by two remotely separated devices? Isn't that more likely than an enormous cephalopod or something?

 

It would be so cool though to discover something like that!

[JustStuit]

Could it have been some interference that didn't come from a living thing at all?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The Bloop sounds weren't picked up by subs' date=' IIRC, they were picked up by a passive hydrophone system that [i']listens[/i] for subs. The sound had all the hallmarks of a marine life form and was considered huge because it was recorded on two different sensors quite a ways apart.

 

I guess not even a whale could make a sound loud enough to trip two sensors but that's the part that makes me question the whole thing. Couldn't some kind of anomalous current or combination of factors have caused the same sound to be recorded by two remotely separated devices? Isn't that more likely than an enormous cephalopod or something?

 

It would be so cool though to discover something like that!

There are deep-sea layers (actually just differences in water temperature) in water that can channel sound quite clearly, so any object that makes sound underneath one of those layers can be heard for miles around. The layers reflect sound, so they can be used to hide ("hiding under the layer" is a technique submariners can use to hide from passive sonar), but they also channel sound very well.

 

So I don't think it's physical seperation that lead them to believe that it was very large. Perhaps the sheer volume.

 

ps: the sonar system is called SOSUS, or SOund SUrveilance System.

[herpguy]

If anyone has never had bloop, I found a link for it. It's 16 times faster than the original recording, though.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/sounds/bloop.html

 

It sounds like a bubble rising to the surface to me, but that probably cannot be picked up by two sensors.

[JohnB]

I first read about Bloop some time ago.

 

Like AP, I have yet to find anything to suggest it is some sort of hoax. The sound that gave it it's name has been studied enough to give us two facts about it.

 

1. It is biological in origin. (Some sort of animal).

 

2. Because of the abnormally long wavelength of the sound, the creature that generates it must be a minimum of 100 metres long.

 

It aint no snake or whale. My guess would be that the sound is from the propulsion of a Giant Squid. While 100 metres may seem large, a report from HMS Pearl in the Indian Ocean dating from 1856 tells of a squid that surfaced near the ship. The squid's head was level with the bow and it's eye was level with her stern. HMS Pearl was 185 ft (nearly 60 m) long at the waterline so that was one bloody big squid.

[Sisyphus]

I first read about Bloop some time ago.

 

Like AP' date=' I have yet to find anything to suggest it is some sort of hoax. The sound that gave it it's name has been studied enough to give us two facts about it.

 

1. It is biological in origin. (Some sort of animal).

 

2. Because of the abnormally long wavelength of the sound, the creature that generates it must be a minimum of 100 metres long.

 

It aint no snake or whale. My guess would be that the sound is from the propulsion of a Giant Squid. While 100 metres may seem large, a report from HMS Pearl in the Indian Ocean dating from 1856 tells of a squid that surfaced near the ship. The squid's head was level with the bow and it's eye was level with her stern. HMS Pearl was 185 ft (nearly 60 m) long at the waterline so that was one bloody big squid.[/quote']

 

How does it tell us it's biological in origin? That's quite a big leap to make from one "bloop," especially considering the size the thing would have to be. Rather than assume some impossibly huge creature (what would it eat, for God's sake), I take the absurd size constraint as proof that it isn't biological. It does tell us something about us that as soon as we hear an unidentified noise, the first thing we leap to is "huge monster enormously bigger than anything anyone has ever seen."

 

My guess is a big mudslide that released a pocket of methane or something.

[JustStuit]

I think it would be important to realize that large sounds does not always equivicate to large animals. E.g. some tiny birds are very loud. It may be a different species which creates loud noises while being a small size. Just conjecture though.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It's the wavelength, not the amplitude, that makes them believe the animal is very long.

[JustStuit]

It's the wavelength, not the amplitude, that makes them believe the animal is very long.

Oh I see. How did they arrive at the snake idea?

[herpguy]

How did they arrive at the snake idea?

Many reasons:

1) An explaination is needed.

2) The legendary sea serpent is known to reach very large sizes, like over 100feet.

3) It is definitly possible for a sea serpent to exist.

Those immediately came to my mind, but there are many more.

[Sisyphus]

And how come it's only been heard once? Guys, I really don't think it's an animal...

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Errr...

a series of sounds

[AzurePhoenix]

It's a big sea, it was first heard in extreme depths, there's no telling how rare "Bloops" might be in the event of it being an organism.

 

Additionally, the people who determined that it's supposed to be alive are as far as I can tell experienced in identifying underwater sounds. It is a true science, and as such I would think that there are telltale signs indicating what the nature of the sound might be.

 

a series of sounds

Erm, yeah... that too.

 

The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown' date=' but it was traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W[/quote']

[Phi for All]

My guess is a big mudslide that released a pocket of methane or something.

Remeber that this "bloop" was detected by a SOSUS array, very sophisticated and extremely well tested. Underwater acoustics have been monitored by the US Navy since the early part of the Cold War. We've had decades to catalog sounds and ty to figure out exactly what made them. Beleive me, these guys know the difference between a pocket of methane and an architeuthis fart.

[Sisyphus]

Unless it's a relatively rare event, in which case 1997 might have been the first time it's happened since we've been listening, and it wouldn't be catalouged. By "only once" I mean there was the series of noises in 1997, and nothing before or since. Unless I'm wrong about that? Anyway, nobody has said what about the sound makes it seem like an animal. All I see is that it had to be something at least 100 meters long, which to me makes it seem like most definitely not an animal.