What is the Bloop?
“Bloop” is the name given to a loud, low-frequency sound picked up several times by US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hydrophones during the summer of 1997. Its source is unknown. The Bloop sound has a varying frequency considered the hallmark of marine animals, but its volume was much louder than calls given by even the largest whales. The location of the sound was calculated to be about a thousand miles off the coast of Chile, near the oceanic point of inaccessibility, known as Point Nemo. The Bloop was picked up by hydrophones in the Deep Sound Channel, a special layer of the ocean where sounds can travel for hundreds of miles. The hydrophone system used to pick up the Bloop is a relic of the Cold War, formerly used to detect Soviet submarines, but today is used for oceanographic research. The name of the network is SOSUS, short for Sound Surveillance System. Oceanographers are divided on whether the Bloop is of biological origin or from some other source. Other unu
