How many things are we able to perceive yet not able to understand? Several times during the summer of 1997, an ultra-low frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound known as the "Bloop" was detected in the south Pacific Ocean by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Having ruled out several possible origins, including man-made sounds such as submarines or bombs, and geological sounds such as volcanoes and earthquakes, the source of the sound remains unknown. Since it was several times louder than the loudest known biological sound (that of the blue whale), it is also unlikely to have been made by a living creature.
A similar sound, known as "Slow Down" was also recorded in 1997 in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean, and has been picked up several times each year since then. It is so named because it decreases in frequency over about seven minutes. One hypothesis of the sound is that of ice moving over land in Antarctica, but again the source of the sound is unknown for certain.
"The Hum" is a generic term for the phenomena involving low-frequency humming noises that occur in various geographic locations and are not audible to all people. Low-frequency sounds of this nature are difficult to detect with microphones which is most likely why they are so hard to study and identify. Tinnitus, spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (sounds created by our own ears), and colliding ocean waves have been offered as explanations of hums, but as of yet nothing has been proven conclusively to determine the sources.
The sea is probably one of the most mysterious and unknown areas on the planet...too bad that area accounts for 71% of the earth, huh?
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