Case file · Unidentified submerged object
The Bloop
An ultra-low-frequency underwater sound picked up by NOAA hydrophones in 1997 from a remote part of the South Pacific, once rumoured to be a giant animal.
1997 CE · -50.00, -100.00 · status: explained
The account
The sound was loud enough to be heard on sensors thousands of kilometres apart. It became an internet legend linked to sea monsters and fiction.
The sceptical view
By 2012 NOAA described it as consistent with icequakes from glaciers calving or from ice scraping the seabed.
Connections in the atlas
- R'lyeh, Lovecraft's sunken city
- Upsweep
- 'Slow Down', the falling tone
- The 'ping' in Fury and Hecla Strait
- 'Julia', the sound from the ice
- Puerto Rico Trench USOs