APOD: The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from... (2010 Apr 27)

[Fred Lasher]

The second line is an echo of the first.
How deep into the earth would such a sound travel?

[Chappy]

We also have to remember that these sounds were sped up x16 in the recordings that were posted, so oceanic Asteroid strikes would be kinda unlikely (but not improbable). Plus they would produce a very different type of rumble and probably produce a detectable air pressure wave along with it. I would go along with a large release of gas from a pocket of magma or along those lines, but wow..it does sound allot like it's biological of some kind.
Mother Natures' indigestion...Kracken farts...
We really know so little about what's down there, it's fun to think about what that could be.
The imagination runs wild!

Fred, they could travel for 1000's of Km's depending on the frequency level, the lower the frequency the further they'll travel. Also the makeup of the material the sound waves travel thru will also either dampen or magnify the sound, so it could go very deep...and they could actually Come from very deep inside the Earth...that's the really interesting part. Are these sounds possibly coming from really deep inside the crust, maybe even from the mantle, and being transmitted thru the deep ocean to be picked up by these listening posts? Interesting

[RedTussock]

Japan has always been active in whale research primary for the purpose of fishing them out to extinction.

I think that this was "moose call experiment" to see
if they attract whales by playing back their own sounds in prime whaling territory.

They had the means, motive, and opportunity
just so long a Greenpeace didn't catch up with them.

Either it didn't work out as planned or, more likely,
the Japanese simply got cold feet when they discovered that their activities were being monitored.


Squid Fishing boats use lights to attract squid.

A slight correction there ...
Japan has long been killing whales under the guise of research.

[wonderboy]

Paul, there's a link to the sound on the APOD page; go listen!

Just listened to it and I'm disapointed. It sounds like a woosh more than a bloop. to me its as if something was realeased into the sea from the earths crust. It could have been an underwater land slide which was of such a depth as to not trigger a tsunami which caused a huge rock to bounce twice in the sea.

.

[dadman]

Many years ago I was flying in a commercial jet from Seattle to Anchorage when I saw out the port window a large mushroom-shaped plume of vapor rising high above the solid cloud deck. It looked exactly like one created by an atomic blast. I was stunned, and expected the pilots to announce to everyone what I thought was obvious, that we we seeing the plume of steam created by the impact of a meteor in the ocean. I knew that there was no land there, and that we were flying much too far away from the volcanic Aleutians. The pilots chose to say nothing, and I could not even get the passenger next to me to take a second look. I agree with those who say that meteor impacts in the ocean are relatively common, yet go almost unnoticed. Perhaps the Bloop is rare evidence of one.

[Chris Peterson]

I agree with those who say that meteor impacts in the ocean are relatively common, yet go almost unnoticed. Perhaps the Bloop is rare evidence of one.

Meteorite impacts in the ocean are common- about four times more common than they are on land. Meteor impacts are very uncommon anywhere on Earth, with minor ones happening on the order of once or twice a century, and ones capable of raising a plume of vapor to cloud level happening every few thousand years or more. What you saw was absolutely not caused by a meteor impact, and it seems likely that the Bloop represents too much energy to have been caused by a meteor or meteorite impact as well. A meteor that could produce this much acoustic energy would have shown up in infrasound and seismic records.

[wonderboy]

I agree with those who say that meteor impacts in the ocean are relatively common, yet go almost unnoticed. Perhaps the Bloop is rare evidence of one.

Meteorite impacts in the ocean are common- about four times more common than they are on land. Meteor impacts are very uncommon anywhere on Earth, with minor ones happening on the order of once or twice a century, and ones capable of raising a plume of vapor to cloud level happening every few thousand years or more. What you saw was absolutely not caused by a meteor impact, and it seems likely that the Bloop represents too much energy to have been caused by a meteor or meteorite impact as well. A meteor that could produce this much acoustic energy would have shown up in infrasound and seismic records.

How can you be so sure it wasn't? I know you might have heard of it, or maybe someone else would have seen it. Basically the evidence points more to it NOT being a meteor impact, however, that shouldnt automatically rule out the plume seen by dadman!

What caused this plume, if not a meteor?

Paul.

[Chris Peterson]

How can you be so sure it wasn't? I know you might have heard of it, or maybe someone else would have seen it. Basically the evidence points more to it NOT being a meteor impact, however, that shouldnt automatically rule out the plume seen by dadman!

What caused this plume, if not a meteor?

I have no idea- since I didn't see it, I don't know what it actually looked like. If I had to guess, I'd say it was some sort of weather effect pushing out a plume of the cloud itself.

A meteoroid large enough to impact the ocean at hypervelocity and produce a water plume thousands of meters high would have destroyed ships for hundreds of kilometers around, would have produced a fireball brighter than the Sun and a smoke trail in the air that would last hours and be seen on satellite images, would probably have produced tsunamis, and would have been recorded on dozens of infrasound and seismic monitors all around the world. None of this happened.

Whatever caused the effect he saw, I am 100% certain it was not a meteoroid impact.

[Ann]

Oh my god!!!! The Kraken! Markus Maximus, I love it!!!!!

Ann

[wonderboy]

How can you be so sure it wasn't? I know you might have heard of it, or maybe someone else would have seen it. Basically the evidence points more to it NOT being a meteor impact, however, that shouldnt automatically rule out the plume seen by dadman!

What caused this plume, if not a meteor?

I have no idea- since I didn't see it, I don't know what it actually looked like. If I had to guess, I'd say it was some sort of weather effect pushing out a plume of the cloud itself.

A meteoroid large enough to impact the ocean at hypervelocity and produce a water plume thousands of meters high would have destroyed ships for hundreds of kilometers around, would have produced a fireball brighter than the Sun and a smoke trail in the air that would last hours and be seen on satellite images, would probably have produced tsunamis, and would have been recorded on dozens of infrasound and seismic monitors all around the world. None of this happened.

Whatever caused the effect he saw, I am 100% certain it was not a meteoroid impact.

Well I was thinking about it, would a water spout not produce a similar effect if its life had just ended? after all, what goes up must come down, and it would have spread out like a mushroom most probably.

I do agree with the whole tsunami thing though. We would have heard about it had it been a meteor impact, and the devastation would have been quite widespread.

As for the bloop, I don't really think it sounds like a bloop from what I've heard, I don't know what to make of it.


Paul.

[kman935]

I like the idea that it may have been Godzilla!! Who knows what lurks under the sea when we have only explored less that 10%. But you might have to give it up to Mother Earth groaning about what we are doing to the planet.