Giant Beast May Be Hiding Underwater

The sounds of what could be a giant creature hiding in the depths of the ocean have been recorded by British scientists. Its frequency identifies it as some sort of marine animal, but it?s sound is far more powerful than calls made by any known creature on Earth. The researchers have nicknamed the unidentified sound they picked up with undersea microphones “Bloop.”

Bloop was first detected in 1997 by U.S. Navy spy sensors placed 3,000 miles apart that were supposed to detect the movement of Soviet submarines. The frequency of the sound means it?s much louder than any known animal noise, including the sounds produced by the largest whales.

Some researchers think it may be a giant squid, while others vote for a giant octopus. A squid or an octopus bigger than the largest whale known to man would certainly be an amazing sight, although few of us would want to encounter it while scuba diving. Giant squids have occasionally washed up dead on beaches, but none have ever been seen alive in the ocean. Another sign of their existence is the sucker marks they leave on the flanks of the whales they attack.

The largest dead squid on record was about 60 feet long, including the length of its tentacles, but no one knows how big they can grow.

Sailors have always told tales of mermaids and mysterious monsters and scientists used to think these were myths, until they discovered creatures like the giant squid and the manatee. But Phil Lobel, a marine biologist at Boston University, doesn?t think the Bloop sound was made by a giant squid. “Cephalopods have no gas-filled sac, so they have no way to make that type of noise,” he says. “Though you can never rule anything out completely, I doubt it.” However, he agrees that Bloop is biological in origin.

Scientist Christopher Fox of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Acoustic Monitoring Project in Oregon, says the strange sounds picked up on underwater spy microphones can be caused by ocean currents or volcanic activity, as well as by denizens of the deep. He says, “The sound waves are almost like voice prints. You’re able to look at the characteristics of the sound and say: ‘There’s a blue whale, there’s a fin whale, there’s a boat, there’s a humpback whale and here comes and earchquake.” But he still hasn?t identified Bloop.

To learn a cryptozoologist?s view of the curious critters around us, read ?Mothman and Other Curious Encounters? by Loren Coleman, click here.

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