In 1997 US Navy officers were being paid to listen to whales on their super secret spy equipment left over from the Cold War. I presume it was a sunny day and perfect for listening to the usual mediocre sounds from the deep blue sea. How big must their surprise have been then when they quite suddenly recorded a sound which sounded unlike anything they had ever heard before? It sounded like this:
The sound was nicknamed ‘Bloop’ for obvious reasons and for the next couple of years scientists and military experts alike tried to figure out what could’ve given origin to such a strange sound. Many theories came up, from giant squid, to mating whales to shifting ice. In 2002 CNN wrote the first news report on the sound, giving the reins to amateur scientists and authors alike (as we all know all answers lie on the internet) to speculate on its origins. No plausible theories arose and one author even speculated that it came from a giant eel.
This sound will remain one of the things that will most probably never be solved, unless another one is recorded and analysed (or the whale caught mid breath). It might not be a super mysterious mystery, but it’s certainly an interesting one. I’m amused by two things that firstly, there are people paid to listen to the ocean at all times (Soviet sub, I know, I know) but also that just sometimes, Mother Nature decides to throw something non destructive at us that we didn’t see coming and can’t explain.
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