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. The sound, traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W (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. So, the bloop (50°S 100°W / -50, -100) is near Point Nemo, an oceanic pole of inaccessibility (48°50′S 123°20′W / -48.833, -123.333). Because the Bloop noise originated near the location of the fictional sunken city of R'lyeh from H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu", the Bloop has been linked to Cthulhu by Lovecraft fans.[2] In the alternate reality game promoting the movie, the Bloop was also linked to the monster from Cloverfield[3] The Bloop was seen in The Loch by Steve Alten as the call of an undiscovered species of giant eel,[4] as well as in Frank Schätzing's novel The Swarm as the speech of the intelligent species, the Yrr.[5]. The title track from Dntel's 2001 album Life Is Full of Possibilities repeats a sample of the Bloop sound set to music. According to Cthulu mytho's Lovecraft said that R'lyeh is located at 47°9′S, 126°43′W in the southern Pacific Ocean. August Derleth, however, placed R'lyeh at 49°51′S, 128°34′W in his own writings. Both locations are close to the Pacific pole of inaccessibility, the point in the ocean farthest from any land. Derleth's coordinates place the city approximately 5100 nautical miles (5900 statute miles or 9500 kilometers), or about ten days journey for a fast ship, from the real island of Pohnpei (Ponape). Ponape also plays a part in the Cthulhu Mythos as the place where the "Ponape Scripture", a text describing Cthulhu, was found. Oooooo spooky no?
Tuning in to a deep sea monster June 13, 2002 Posted: 6:28 AM EDT (1028 GMT) U.S. Navy tracker The "monster" sound was heard on a U.S. Navy system to track Soviet subs Save a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.comSave a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.com Printer-friendly version of this articlePrinter-friendly version of this article Email a link to this articleEmail a link to this article View a list of the most popular articles on our siteView a list of the most popular articles on our site LONDON, England -- Scientists have revealed a mysterious recording that they say could be the sound of a giant beast lurking in the depths of the ocean. Researchers have nicknamed the strange unidentified sound picked up by undersea microphones "Bloop." While it bears the varying frequency hallmark of marine animals, it is far more powerful than the calls made by any creature known on Earth, Britain's New Scientist reported on Thursday. It is too big for a whale and one theory is that it is a deep sea monster, possibly a many-tentacled giant squid. In 1997, Bloop was detected by U.S. Navy "spy" sensors 3,000 miles apart that had been put there to detect the movement of Soviet submarines, the magazine reports. RESOURCES • AUDIO The mystery deep-sea "Bloop" CNN.com Europe More news from our European edition The frequency of the sound meant it had to be much louder than any recognised animal noise, including that produced by the largest whales. So is it a huge octopus? Although dead giant squid have been washed up on beaches, and tell-tale sucker marks have been seen on whales, there has never been a confirmed sighting of one of the elusive cephalopods in the wild. The largest dead squid on record measured about 60ft including the length of its tentacles, but no one knows how big the creatures might grow. For years sailors have told tales of monsters of the deep including the huge, many-tentacled kraken that could reach as high as a ship's mainmast and sink the biggest ships. However Phil Lobel, a marine biologist at Boston University, Massachusetts, doubts that giant squid are the source of Bloop. "Cephalopods have no gas-filled sac, so they have no way to make that type of noise," he said. "Though you can never rule anything out completely, I doubt it." NOAA vessel Scientists from the U.S.'s NOAA have been baffled by the "Bloop" sound Nevertheless he agrees that the sound is most likely to be biological in origin. The system picking up Bloop and other strange noises from the deep is a military relic of the Cold War. In the 1960s the U.S. Navy set up an array of underwater microphones, or hydrophones, around the globe to track Soviet submarines. The network was known as SOSUS, short for Sound Surveillance System. More... http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/06/13/bloop/
