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Examining Strange Sounds in the Ocean

As an area that is difficult to reach, Earth’s oceans contain several frightening things, one of which is strange sounds.

Written by IRIZU
The Stardust Club ⭐

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Illustration of a big monster in the sea named Leviathan.
Illustration of a monster in the deep sea. (ArtStation)

Everyone must be heard about Bermuda Triangle, which is located around the northern Atlantic Ocean. A very popular place due to various events of the loss of sea and air transportation. Besides that, many are also familiar with the mystery of the sinking of Atlantis, an island mentioned by Plato, a great philosopher and mathematician from Greece, who is now often rumored to be in Indonesia.

Following what Izza Namira has mentioned in her article, whether you realize it or not, the ocean is a place that holds the most mysteries. Its surface is very wide and its depths are difficult to reach, limiting human exploration in the oceans. What is more, as quoted from an article published on the official website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), humans are currently only exploring less than five percent of the total oceans in the world.

Science YouTube channel Kok Bisa? through their video which was published in 2017 ago entitled “Misteri Apa yang Ada di Laut Terdalam?” also noted the same thing as what was described by NOAA. Kok Bisa? adding a little explanation that the science of the ocean is inversely proportional to the science of space. Until at least the video was published, only three humans had made it to the deepest point of the sea, 10,994 meters, which is in the Mariana Trench. The number is tiny when compared to the total number of people who have reached the Moon, which is 12 people.

Many people on Earth think that exploring the sea is much easier than conquering space, but the reality is not like that. Obstacles must be overcome when exploring the ocean, especially the deep sea, one of which is the lack of incoming sunlight. The deeper the ocean, the less sunlight can penetrate, which is one of the reasons that come from the process of refraction (change in the direction of light) that occurs when sunlight hits water particles. The same ‘rule’ applies to pressure, the deeper the ocean, the stronger the pressure. In addition, the temperature under the sea can also drop to near freezing.

Before proceeding to the main topic, it should be understood that NOAA is a scientific agency in the United States Department of Commerce that focuses on conditions that exist in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. NOAA was formed on October 3, 1970, by Richard Milhous Nixon, the 36th Vice President of the United States (US) and the 37th President of the US. NOAA is tasked with predicting the weather, monitoring conditions in the oceans and atmosphere, mapping ocean areas as well as exploring the deep sea, and managing fishing and protection of marine mammals (including endangered species) in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The Bloop

If I may share my opinion, then The Bloop is the most well-known underwater mysterious sound in the globe. Continuing from NOAA’s official website, The Bloop is the name assigned to a mysterious underwater sound documented in the 90s. For years, The Bloop was unexplainable.

In 1997, researchers who were listening to underwater volcanic activity in the south Pacific Ocean accidentally recorded a strange, strong, and very loud sound. Using many autonomous hydrophones (underwater microphones) spaced apart more than 3,219 kilometers across the Pacific, they recorded a variety of noises that held no similarity to anything they had heard before. Thanks to its unique characteristics, the sound was later named The Bloop.

Scientists from NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL) are eager to find the origin of The Bloop’s sound, but due to the poor quality of ocean exploration, many theories have been born.

As time goes by, PMEL researchers who are not discouraged continue to deploy hydrophones that are placed closer to the Antarctic Continent to study the sound of volcanoes on the seabed and the process of earthquakes. It was in this area that in 2005, they finally found the origin of The Bloop’s sound.

NOAA explains that The Bloop is the sound of an ice quake as a result of an iceberg cracking and separating from a glacier (a very large and thick chunk of ice above the ground) in Antarctica. “With global warming, more and more ice quakes are happening every year. They are breaking away from the glaciers, cracking, and then melting in the sea,” explained NOAA.

Julia

There is not much known about Julia, but, according to Live Science, Julia is the name that refers to a strange voice that sounds almost like someone is wailing or whimpering. This sound was recorded by NOAA’s equipment on March 1, 1999, due to a network of hydrophones in the eastern equatorial Pacific.

Just like The Bloop, Julia also (most likely) comes from the activity of ice in the ocean. In this case, NOAA researchers reckon that what happened was the process of the collapse of a big Antarctic iceberg to the ocean floor. Its point of origin lies between the Bransfield Strait, Antarctic Peninsula and Cape Adare, East Antarctica.

Train

Shortly, quoting from Live Science, Train is the naming for underwater sounds recorded in 1997 by NOAA. Despite its name, this sound has nothing to do with trains. Train’s sound is a huge hum that is likely coming from the Ross Sea off Cape Adare. Allegedly, Train came from an iceberg that hit the seabed of Antarctica.

Slow Down

Citing from Wikipedia, Slow Down is the name given to sounds in the Pacific Ocean which most assumably originates from large icebergs that fall to the ocean floor. As with the strange noises before it, Slow Down was also recorded by NOAA through an autonomous hydrophone array on March 5, 1997.

The name Slow Down is used because the sound that is heard, gradually decreases in frequency for about seven minutes. More, since its first appearance, the sound of Slow Down has been recorded several times every year.

One of the hypotheses (temporary allegations) about the origin of the emergence of Slow Down is the assumption that Slow Down originates from ices activity in Antarctica. The sound spectrogram of the vibrations caused by the friction of Antarctic ice is very similar to what is produced by Slow Down. “So, the Slow Down sound may come from the friction of a large layer of ice moving on land,” said the Wikipedia contributor.

The spectrogram itself is a graph that displays changes in the frequency and intensity of sound waves according to the time axis. Spectrograms are used in music, linguistics, sonar, radar, speech processing, seismology, and similar specializations. Spectrograms can be used to identify speech phonetically, or through sound science, and to analyze animal speech.

In the last two decades, there have been numerous sound recordings of iceberg activities identical to Slow Down, Julia, and likewise. At the time these recordings occurred, the understanding of deep-sea sound was not as good as it is today.

Whistle

This mysterious sound, dubbed the Whistle, was caught by one of NOAA’s hydrophones in 1997. The exact location of the source of the Whistle sound is unknown, but it is presumably located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. According to NOAA, as quoted from Wikipedia, Whistle is similar to the sound of an underwater volcanic eruption that was recorded sometime before in the Mariana Volcano chain, the Pacific Ocean, which forms on a subducted plate, the process by which oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth’s mantle at a convergent boundary (an area where two or more lithospheric plates collide).

Because it was only recorded on one hydrophone out of a supposed three to ‘pinpoint’ the location of the sound source, Whistle was later deemed unidentifiable.

52 Hertz Whale

Based on Wikipedia, 52 Hertz Whale, colloquially called The Blue 52, is the name given to a whale in the northern Pacific Ocean that makes an unusual sound. As the name implies, The Blue 52 is a whale that makes sounds at an unusual frequency, namely 52 hertz. Because until now only his voice can be found, while his figure has never been seen, much information about The Blue 52 is unknown. But what is certain is, The Blue 52 may be small and have the same migration pattern as the blue whale that communicates at 10 to 39 hertz and the fin whale at 20 hertz.

The researchers can find the migration pattern of The Blue 52 most likely comes from the sound of The Blue 52 which has been detected regularly in many locations since the late 1980s. The movement of The Blue 52 is slightly similar to a blue whale, but the timing of the movement is more similar to a fin whale. This detection also indicates that The Blue 52 is the only whale that creates sounds at a frequency of 52 hertz.

The existence of The Blue 52 was discovered by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. His voice was first noticed in 1989, then again detected in 1990, and one year after. In 1992, after the end of the Cold War, the US Navy made changes to their Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) anti-submarine hydrophone system, thereby making SOSUS available for oceanographic examination. Since 2014, The Blue 52 are detected every year.

The Blue 52 is defined as the loneliest whale in the world because his different sound frequency makes other whales unable to hear his contact calls. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute were unable to identify the species of The Blue 52. They assume that The Blue 52 is a deformed whale or a hybrid blue whale, which is the offspring of sexual reproduction obtained by combining the qualities of two organisms of different types. Interestingly, the research team was frequently contacted by deaf people who wondered whether The Blue 52 might also be deaf.

Whatever the biological cause underlying the high-frequency sound, it does not seem to interfere with the survival of The Blue 52. The fact that the whale has survived and matured in the free ocean raises the assumption that he may be healthy.

Citing from the Sepulang Sekolah’s YouTube channel, during the breeding season, The Blue 52 makes his loudest noise to find a spouse, but what it expects is of course quite impossible to happen. That said, the sound potentially coming from a second 52-hertz whale has been spotted sporadically (uncertain) since 2010, somewhere.

Because of his popularity which is even comparable to Hollywood celebrities, The Blue 52 is often the topic of various works of art. As an example in the music category, the South Korean music group, BTS, in 2015 produced a song called “Whalien 52” which raised The Blue 52 as the inspiration for the song. Meanwhile, director and screenwriter from Taiwan, Wei Te-sheng, also used The Blue 52 as inspiration in making a film titled 52Hz, I Love You which was released in 2017.

Upsweep

Citing from Jaborejob, Upsweep is the name for the seasonal sound recorded by an autonomous hydrophone system in the Pacific Ocean. Upsweep was first recognized by the Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory in 1991 and since then its sound has been heard every year. Sound levels peak in fall as well as spring and are powerful enough to be detected across the Pacific.

Although it has continued to be detected every year since its first appearance, Upsweep’s voice quality has decreased compared to its first arrival, but fortunately, it can still be detected via NOAA’s equatorial autonomous hydrophone array. The source of Upsweep’s sound may be located near a location projected of ongoing volcanic activity, specifically between New Zealand and South America, but that is clearly not sure. Until this moment, the source of Upsweep’s sound could not be explained.

Bibliography

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Written by IRIZU
The Stardust Club ⭐

Written by Written by IRIZU

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