The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from the Deep Ocean
Credit: NOAA, SOSUS
"What created this strange sound in Earth's Pacific Ocean? Pictured above is a visual representation of a loud and unusual sound, dubbed a Bloop, captured by deep sea microphones in 1997. In the above graph, time is shown on the horizontal axis, deep pitch is shown on the vertical axis, and brightness designates loudness. Although Bloops are some of the loudest sounds of any type ever recorded in Earth's oceans, their origin remains unknown. The Bloop sound was placed as occurring several times off the southern coast of South America and was audible 5,000 kilometers away. Although the sound has similarities to those vocalized by living organisms, not even a blue whale is large enough to croon this loud. The sounds point to the intriguing hypothesis that even larger life forms lurk in the unexplored darkness of Earth's deep oceans. A less imagination-inspiring possibility, however, is that the sounds resulted from some sort of iceberg calving. No further Bloops have been heard since 1997, although other loud and unexplained sounds have been recorded. . . ." More: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100427.html
And see also Bloop Watch and Damn Interesting • The Call of the Bloop
One thing that struck me about the sounds -- there's more than one -- is that they comprise either neutral musical intervals or minor-key intervals. The first central nervous system in any animal probably appeared somewhere between 550 and 500 million years ago, and every central nervous system of every species of animal life on Earth today is built on the same basic ground-plan as the original, meaning that it employs information-processing operations that ultimately depend on a binomial type of processing and storage of information: 1/0, on/off/, positive/negative. That we human beings tend to hear minor-key music as negative in import -- sad, ominous, cruel, gloating, tragic, etc. -- is almost certainly not an accidental, random by-product of evolutionary history and our own cultural conditioning: it is likely that all advanced animal life on Earth responds to minor-key intervals and tones in a very similar way, and to major-key intervals and tones much as we do, as to signals of hope, joy, kindness, and other things of positive import. If so, then assuming the origin of the Bloop is some form of animal life, it is either very unhappy, or warning something away, or otherise expressing anger, sorrow, or fear via audible signals.
"What created this strange sound in Earth's Pacific Ocean? Pictured above is a visual representation of a loud and unusual sound, dubbed a Bloop, captured by deep sea microphones in 1997. In the above graph, time is shown on the horizontal axis, deep pitch is shown on the vertical axis, and brightness designates loudness. Although Bloops are some of the loudest sounds of any type ever recorded in Earth's oceans, their origin remains unknown. The Bloop sound was placed as occurring several times off the southern coast of South America and was audible 5,000 kilometers away. Although the sound has similarities to those vocalized by living organisms, not even a blue whale is large enough to croon this loud. The sounds point to the intriguing hypothesis that even larger life forms lurk in the unexplored darkness of Earth's deep oceans. A less imagination-inspiring possibility, however, is that the sounds resulted from some sort of iceberg calving. No further Bloops have been heard since 1997, although other loud and unexplained sounds have been recorded. . . ." More: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100427.html
And see also Bloop Watch and Damn Interesting • The Call of the Bloop
One thing that struck me about the sounds -- there's more than one -- is that they comprise either neutral musical intervals or minor-key intervals. The first central nervous system in any animal probably appeared somewhere between 550 and 500 million years ago, and every central nervous system of every species of animal life on Earth today is built on the same basic ground-plan as the original, meaning that it employs information-processing operations that ultimately depend on a binomial type of processing and storage of information: 1/0, on/off/, positive/negative. That we human beings tend to hear minor-key music as negative in import -- sad, ominous, cruel, gloating, tragic, etc. -- is almost certainly not an accidental, random by-product of evolutionary history and our own cultural conditioning: it is likely that all advanced animal life on Earth responds to minor-key intervals and tones in a very similar way, and to major-key intervals and tones much as we do, as to signals of hope, joy, kindness, and other things of positive import. If so, then assuming the origin of the Bloop is some form of animal life, it is either very unhappy, or warning something away, or otherise expressing anger, sorrow, or fear via audible signals.