With the depths of the oceans being so treacherous, opportunities to venture to the most distant points for research purposes are few and far between. Fortunately, probes, SONAR and other devices have made searching the oceans depths a little more manageable. One such device is the hydrophone, which hears noises beneath the surface of the water by converting them into electrical activity.
Back in 1997, hydrophones in the Pacific Ocean detected a very unusual sound. It came to be known as the Bloop, and though you’d think that blooping would hardly be an unusual thing to hear in an ocean, this particular sound was anything but typical. The National Ocean Service provides a recording of the sound, which has a peculiar, otherworldly quality. It was deemed to have been emanating from the ocean near Chile, but other than that, and the fact that it was of an incredibly low frequency, it wasn’t immediately clear what made this booming disturbance in the ocean.
It turned out, it seems, not to have been a kraken, Godzilla, a dramatic car backfire in Atlantis, or anything else fanciful. The prospective cause, however, is something perhaps just as impactful.
