[img_assist|nid=303380|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=340|height=223]

Do you know how big the ocean is? Well, it’s pretty darned big; the sea is one single body of water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface and is as deep as seven miles. I have to admit, the vastness of the ocean frightens me a little. Only 5% of it has been explored and more people have set foot on the moon than have seen the bottom of the sea. It seems that we, as humans, know very little about the deep blue and what it may contain; -

To compliment Earth’s massive ocean, it boasts the largest animal ever to exist, at least to our knowledge. The Blue Whale is so colossal that it could dwarf a seven-storey building; its heart is the size of a car; and it would be possible for a small boy to swim through its arteries. Think about that and just try not to say “Whoa”.

Even the dinosaurs, those terrible lizards, were nothing compared to our modern whale; most could only have hoped to be as big, reaching maybe two thirds of the size. On land, gravity enforces limits on how big anything biological can grow and this includes trees. Good old H2O, however, is slightly more relaxed when it comes to gravity and enables animals and fish to grow larger than they would on dry land.

The fact that we’ve seemingly found the biggest animal in the ocean while only exploring 5% of it makes me wonder what the unexplored parts are hiding;-

During The Cold War between the USA and Russia, paranoia ran riot and trust was sparse. Anything and everything was used in an attempt to gain the upper-hand. The USA set up hydrophones under the water along the coasts; these sound recorders were meant to pick up any audio that a Russian submarine may generate when infiltrating American waters and were placed every 3000 miles from America’s north to its west.

And then the war ended.

Rather than let a pretty awesome piece of technology go to waste, science was given war’s hand-me-downs. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) inherited the hydrophones and has since used them to further our understanding of Earth’s various activities previously hidden from us miles under water.

All kinds of information and sounds have been picked up including; the migration paths and calls of whales; the shifting of tectonic plates; gas being vented from the Earth’s crust; as well as ships and subs. Now, these guys have over 30 year’s experience of deciphering these various sounds so they were kinda stumped when it came to deciding just exactly what made this sound, heard several times in the summer of ’97 and picked up by microphones placed 3000 miles apart; – http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/sound01/background/seasounds/media/bloop.html

To me, it’s a lot what I’d imagine a whale fart to sound like; - until, that is, you realise that the NOAA has released the sound file speeded up 16 times, with no sign of the real-time audio. Also, whale farts are – apparently - incapable of travelling 3000 miles.

Despite the Blue Whale being the largest animal ever, there is no chance they are big enough to produce such a massive sound and not one that varies so much in range as the so-called ‘Bloop’. Researchers are, however, convinced that the sound is organic - meaning that it came from a biological organism. Other researchers believe that it is the call of the Giant Squid which we have only found juvenile specimens of, reaching 13 feet. Though this is quickly refuted by saying that squid lack the necessary mechanisms for vocals.

All I can say is that the real-time audio, which lasts for over a minute, is much more interesting; -

http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav

Unless this was some kind of oceanic Howler Monkey, whatever made The Bloop was bigger than we as humans have ever encountered. Ever.