"the bloop"

[pyroninja]

Happened in Punta Gorda. Sorry, but mother nature is amazing. The fish use their swim bladders to create noises to attract mates from miles away.

Ok, but what about everything else i said?

[war_machine]

I just found the creature that made this sound.....

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/239141/jurassic_sea_monster/

[diggs6979]

Alright guys I give up. It was the summer of 97' during spring break. I was swimming and all of the sudden I had to go #2 really really bad, and it just happened. The mystery is solved.

[receivingendofsirens]

war machine... that lipruidon or however you spell it is definatly not it. as it describes in the clip it has to surface for air once and hour.

if this truely was the animal that created the "bloop" we surely would have seen it. Plus it is a very fierce preadtor so it would have attacked something in the sea for sure mistaking it for food, like a ship.

also the ice age more than likely killed this creature off since it lived in shallow waters

[CorporateAmerica]

I too stumbled on this thread while researching the "bloop".

There are many people here writing the sound off as the result of geological/volcanic activity. I would heavily question that stance. The scientists working with the equipment would have easily identified sounds from regular occurrences such as rock slides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc. The fact remains that the sound closely resembles one made by known biological organisms.

Let me summarize all the information I could find about the "bloop"

1.) It comes from something larger than any known living creature, and resembles the sounds made by animals with an inner gas chamber. If it is innorganic in origin, it is unlike any normal occurrence we have previously heard.

2.) It happened multiple times over the course of summer 1997, but has not been heard since.

3.) I'm ignorant when it comes to the sound channel in the deep ocean, but it seems that an object would have to be within a certain depth to be picked up by SOSUS. If the source was biological, we probably caught it communicating as it was passing though the oceanic sound channel before going deep again.

4.) The position it originated from was here. This is important information. They needed multiple hydro phones to triangulate the location of the "bloop". These hydro phones, by the way, are roughly 3000 miles away from each other. The possibility that this thing is some small, noisy animal near one hydro phone does not exist.

5.) The general consensus among scientists, based on the limited information available on the web, seems to be that the origin is almost certainly biological:

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."

Nevertheless he agrees that the sound is most likely to be biological in origin.

So, there you have it. For the back seat biologists among us (myself included) I found a recording of the bloop with other oceanic sounds to compare it with. That version is sped up 16x so use this if you want to compare it with the whale noises. They took the original file and just spread it out, so that techno like background sound is probably just non significant noise.

My personal take is that the sound came from a large whale, and through some unexplained phenomenon the conditions were just right to carry the sound over great distances. Still, there is nothing wrong with lay people like us imagining it as some relict, deep sea species that has gone unnoticed in modern times.

Some resources I used:

Wikipedia article

CNN article. Summer 2002

wiki article on abyssal gigantism

Information about the relatively unexplored abyssal plain.

[Ghost Ship]

Something made it. But what? Whales must be incredibly intelligent in there own way. If theres something bigger then it must have the smarts to know that mankind is bad. Stay away or else i will be captured and killed.

[frogfish]

Or...it's just tectonic activity.

[Ciraxis]

Or its godzilla

[coldethyl]

I vote Gozirra.

[Takeilund]

This is not a new story. In fact, the Japanese sent chum & cameras down in the trench where the "bloop" sound originated. What they saw on the cameras was unbelievable. However, they are not willing to disclose any footage. Why? dunno.

I do know this...we have only discovered a small fraction of our great oceans. We have no idea what is down there. It could be a massive fish that only dwell along the ocean bottom.

To quote Newt from Aliens, "My mommy always told me there were no monsters... no real ones, but there are..."

We have barely scratched the surface of our planet, and have only just taken our first wading steps into the beyond that is space, and how nieve and arrogant of us to think that we are the highest evolutionary life form. "Authors Note: See Astro-NUT in Diaper!" But the Sea as well as Space, holds both many beauties, and vast dangers. But, as it was in 1492, where there is great peril, there is also great wealth. Where avarice fails, paitience gains reward. Though we have been to the challenger deep, the trip was basically the equivilant of landing on the moon. It would not surprise me in the least to find some strange marauding aliens of the deep of considerable size with links to prehistoric creatures. If you do any kind of searching on the internet you will see some real life living fossils, that is, creatures thought long extinct being found alive today. "I.E. Coelacanth; Mega Mouth; Frilled Shark." Some species of Wolly Mammoth only missed surviving the Ice Age by only about 1000 years. Granted much speculation exhists on if we drove the species to extinction, but thats another story. Several species have gone extinct unfortunately due to mans involvement in exploring early on, "I.E. R.I.P. Dodo Birds", but with our understanding of the natural world and our newfound enlightenment, perhaps by learning from our mistakes in the past, we can prevent these kinds of catastrophy's in the future. We are the dominant species on the planet, i think it's time that we accept the honor, and the RESPONSIBILITY that the title grants us, and start acting like it. For we are the caretakers of this world. And for the first time in our planets history, a smart, resourceful, fast thinking lifeform has the potential to become the sheppards of this celestial jewel that we all call home.

That said, We have no idea of what we can expect to find in places not meant for us without special devices and equipment to protect us in those dangerous places. But just because we werent meant to go there doesnt mean that we should not go to those places if we have the means to protect ourselves. But we must also take great pains to be as cautious as we can. Our interferrence in things we dont understand can be disasterous. I'm not saying that we should not go, i'm saying lets be ready and careful. With 8 billion ways to die, pick one. But we are humans. We improvise, adapt and overcome, and you cant make an omlet without breaking a few eggs. Not to put a cold spin on the harsh reality of life and death, but in the grande scheme of things, a few casualties that better the whole overall is the greatest sacrifice anyone could ever make for their fellow man. Those that dare to dream, those that dare to go, those that dare to fight, are the ones we dare to lose the most of. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. I know it's sad, and we feel the losses of those closest to us, but celebrate their lives and their acomplishments, and remember those that had the courage to stand up and dare to ask "why", those who charge in and dare you to stop them, or the ones that dare to say "No. enough." We cant all be mindless lemmings following the herd.

I happen to believe that life exhists elsewhere in this universe. You can call me a crackpot wack job all you like, but one need only look at the Drake Equasion to consider how foolish it is to consider that in all the universe that we are the ONLY Sentient life form in exhistance. And if your religeous, Jesus even said when he arose from his tomb and his apostles asked him to stay with them, and he said that he could not, "For i have other flocks to tend." You know it wasnt too long ago that we all believed that the world was flat. As Socratees once said, the only true wisdom is knowing, that you know nothing.

[Mattshark]

To quote Newt from Aliens, "My mommy always told me there were no monsters... no real ones, but there are..."

We have barely scratched the surface of our planet, and have only just taken our first wading steps into the beyond that is space, and how nieve and arrogant of us to think that we are the highest evolutionary life form. "Authors Note: See Astro-NUT in Diaper!" But the Sea as well as Space, holds both many beauties, and vast dangers. But, as it was in 1492, where there is great peril, there is also great wealth. Where avarice fails, paitience gains reward. Though we have been to the challenger deep, the trip was basically the equivilant of landing on the moon. It would not surprise me in the least to find some strange marauding aliens of the deep of considerable size with links to prehistoric creatures. If you do any kind of searching on the internet you will see some real life living fossils, that is, creatures thought long extinct being found alive today. "I.E. Coelacanth; Mega Mouth; Frilled Shark." Some species of Wolly Mammoth only missed surviving the Ice Age by only about 1000 years. Granted much speculation exhists on if we drove the species to extinction, but thats another story. Several species have gone extinct unfortunately due to mans involvement in exploring early on, "I.E. R.I.P. Dodo Birds", but with our understanding of the natural world and our newfound enlightenment, perhaps by learning from our mistakes in the past, we can prevent these kinds of catastrophy's in the future. We are the dominant species on the planet, i think it's time that we accept the honor, and the RESPONSIBILITY that the title grants us, and start acting like it. For we are the caretakers of this world. And for the first time in our planets history, a smart, resourceful, fast thinking lifeform has the potential to become the sheppards of this celestial jewel that we all call home.

That said, We have no idea of what we can expect to find in places not meant for us without special devices and equipment to protect us in those dangerous places. But just because we werent meant to go there doesnt mean that we should not go to those places if we have the means to protect ourselves. But we must also take great pains to be as cautious as we can. Our interferrence in things we dont understand can be disasterous. I'm not saying that we should not go, i'm saying lets be ready and careful. With 8 billion ways to die, pick one. But we are humans. We improvise, adapt and overcome, and you cant make an omlet without breaking a few eggs. Not to put a cold spin on the harsh reality of life and death, but in the grande scheme of things, a few casualties that better the whole overall is the greatest sacrifice anyone could ever make for their fellow man. Those that dare to dream, those that dare to go, those that dare to fight, are the ones we dare to lose the most of. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. I know it's sad, and we feel the losses of those closest to us, but celebrate their lives and their acomplishments, and remember those that had the courage to stand up and dare to ask "why", those who charge in and dare you to stop them, or the ones that dare to say "No. enough." We cant all be mindless lemmings following the herd.

I happen to believe that life exhists elsewhere in this universe. You can call me a crackpot wack job all you like, but one need only look at the Drake Equasion to consider how foolish it is to consider that in all the universe that we are the ONLY Sentient life form in exhistance. And if your religeous, Jesus even said when he arose from his tomb and his apostles asked him to stay with them, and he said that he could not, "For i have other flocks to tend." You know it wasnt too long ago that we all believed that the world was flat. As Socratees once said, the only true wisdom is knowing, that you know nothing.

Frilled shark was never thought to be extinct, the megamouth was discovered recently and not known about prior to its recent finding, only the coelocanth was thought to be extinct out of thos 3. The mamoth was a cold adapted animal, it is more likely the loss of habitat due to the ending of the last ice age was responsible for its extinxtion.

However when it comes to deep sea, the only serious danger is pressure as large animals can not survive after a certain depth and all life gets much smaller.

[Azalin]

With pressurization, everything gets condensed. The only large creatures that could survive would have to have there internal organs on the outside of the body instead of the inside, so they are not crushed.

[BigDaddy_GFS]

With pressurization, everything gets condensed.

True.

The only large creatures that could survive would have to have there internal organs on the outside of the body instead of the inside, so they are not crushed.

Not quite. Deep-sea creatures lack gas- or air-filled cavities in their bodies. Filled with fluids instead of compressible gas, they can withstand pressures better than creatures WITH those cavities. Look at how many soft-bodied animals are found in the extreme depths...

mollusks, worms, jellyfish...and specialized fish and crustaceans without gas cavities.

[Mattshark]

True.

Not quite. Deep-sea creatures lack gas- or air-filled cavities in their bodies. Filled with fluids instead of compressible gas, they can withstand pressures better than creatures WITH those cavities. Look at how many soft-bodied animals are found in the extreme depths...

mollusks, worms, jellyfish...and specialized fish and crustaceans without gas cavities.

But these in general are very small. The molluscs gets the biggest, but that is because the don't have skeletons. Extreme depth animals are still generally very small

[horrification]

A whale would have to go up for air. If it was that huge, we would see it. Something like a squid, i heard some reason its not possible. I think its a fish. Oh well.

maybe it did go up for air but no one was around to see it... not saying that it is some huge animal or anything but if it is..then..ya know...

[Azalin]

But these in general are very small. The molluscs gets the biggest, but that is because the don't have skeletons. Extreme depth animals are still generally very small

Right. I don't mean to undermine you Big Daddy, I bet you know a lot more about aqua life then myself. I just assume in order for anything to make a large enough audible sound, it would have to some more of a physical form, with a bone structure with cartilage then that of a gas form. Once again I assume Mattshark, or you Big Daddy know more, Im just re-calling from what I remember in College biology :-).

[BigDaddy_GFS]

But these in general are very small. The molluscs gets the biggest, but that is because the don't have skeletons. Extreme depth animals are still generally very small

It's my understanding that small size is more indicative of the available food, rather than the depth or temperature of the water.

[Mattshark]

It's my understanding that small size is more indicative of the available food, rather than the depth or temperature of the water.

Pressure and skeletons tend not to mix very well either, small size is food related to, but for a vertebrate their is nedd to reduce the skeleton du to its rigidity causing issue with pressure.

[BigDaddy_GFS]

Pressure and skeletons tend not to mix very well either, small size is food related to, but for a vertebrate their is nedd to reduce the skeleton du to its rigidity causing issue with pressure.

That makes sense. Sharks are mostly cartilage instead of bone. There have been sizable sharks recorded at great depth.

[Mattshark]

That makes sense. Sharks are mostly cartilage instead of bone. There have been sizable sharks recorded at great depth.

But even the ones at depth still do not generally dwell below 3km. When you get below there thing get long (like worms), but mass decreases greatly.

[snuffypuffer]

What if a blue whale farted? Would it make bubbles and smell like krill? I bet nobody's thought of that little scenario.

[~Onyx~]

What if a blue whale farted? Would it make bubbles and smell like krill? I bet nobody's thought of that little scenario.

Probably more like Giant Squid and Megalodon........but you make an interesting point.

[makaya325]

as of now, their is no explination for bloop that we know of, except of biological origin. it does sound loud, so it possible could be sound being emitted by a group of animals, rather than 1.

[foxgirl]

Awesome, to think that there is actually a creature bigger then a blue whale out there. It's not impossible since most of the ocean is unexplored still. So many creatures have been found recently, if this creature is found, it is definatly going to be the best find ever!

[Luka the Rentboy]

Probably more like Giant Squid and Megalodon........but you make an interesting point.

How would Megalodon fart, or utter any sounds at all? A 45 foot shark isn't that big a deal, you know. Whale sharks almost reaches that size.