The Bloop is a supposed cryptid “sighted” off the southern tip of South America.
Description[]
The Bloop has never actually been seen, and it’s existence has only been discussed in certain academic circles.
Detected on several occasions in 1997 by a hydrophone array deployed by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the noise which came to be known as the Bloop bears a striking similarity to that made by the generation of a iceberg. However, some scientists and cryptozoologists have speculated that it is in fact the call of a previously-undiscovered marine animal of gargantuan proportions, citing several commonalities between the Bloop and the vocalisations of other marine creatures as evidence. The fact that this noise is orders of magnitude louder than that made by any known creature has led some to hypothesise that it actually comes from a smaller - though still large - creature with a more efficient mechanism of sound-generation; for example, the Pistol Shrimp, a crustacean of no more than two inches in length, is capable of creating soundwaves on par with that of a modern-day jet engine through use of its pincers.
A spectrogram of the "Bloop" recording.
Notes[]
- The recordings of the Bloop can be found on YouTube for those interested in listening and deciding for themselves whether this is a cryptid, or simply a natural noise produced by an icequake as NOAA has designated it.