During the summer of 1997, an array of passive sonars intended to monitor Soviet submarines but repurposed for scientific research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration detected a low-frequency sound emanating from latitude 50 degrees south and longitude 100 degrees west, in near-Antarctic waters off the coast of Chile. The loudest sound ever recorded, it was cheerfully dubbed “The Bloop” by scientists, who proceeded to venture assorted hypotheses as to what it was. Today, many conjecture that it was the result of glacial shifting or ice collapse, but uncertainty remains. David Wolman, writing at New Scientist in 2002, noted that The Bloop’s “signature is a rapid variation in frequency similar to that of sounds known to be made by marine beasts.” Yet this subterranean, aquatic scream was so loud that whatever creature may have produced it would be far “bigger than any whale…lurking in the ocean depths.”
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