Strange Oceanic Sounds

Story By: Cow Flipper

With a little over two-thirds of our world covered in water it can be said that we truly live on a water world. The oceans harbor more secrets and discoveries than our own moon, which it seems actually we know more about than we do our own oceans. Oceanic hydro-vents, brine lakes, abyssal trenches, undersea cave strata, and many more unexplored areas of our oceans hide their secrets from us. The ocean floor itself is a constant changing landscape with its own hydro-hurricanes, earthquakes, and debris rain deluges. It seems we are constantly learning more about the life that seems to thrive in this alien world right in our own backyard.

In the 1990's NOAA (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) along with other agencies including the U.S. NAVY began a hydrophonic monitoring system consisting of moored autonomous hydrophones floating from foam floats anchored by a chain to the ocean floor. These hydrophones are suspended 3 quarters of the way to the ocean surface, would monitor any low frequency sounds coming from the ocean floor or surrounding environment as to detect earthquakes and other anomalies. Over the next ten years the hydrophones picked up a handful of unexplainable sounds that could be heard for thousands of miles or even in some cases world wide. Since water is so dense it carries sound much further than air and is a great conductor of sound. It is this dense hydro-dynamic which allows sonar to work. These strange sounds were recorded using the autonomous hydrophone array and you can listen to them at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov. I've also added videos found on youtube.com that also have these strange sounds as well as a visual representation with sound titles for you to see.

So what is it that is creating these sounds? Well scientists believe that it could be whales or perhaps hydro-venting from the ocean floors yet there are some anomalous characteristics from some of the sounds, like the upsweep sound where it happens at certain times of the year. Could it be related to the oceanic currents? If so then why would there be a sound? The sample sounds are sped up so we can hear them since they are at very low frequencies outside the hearing spectrum of the human ear. Is it possible that at least some of the sounds are the creatures of old sea tales? Monsters of the deep that top the food chain? Monsters left over from the time of the dinosaurs that have adapted to their deep environments? It is possible that there are large even gigantic creatures yet to be discovered in the world's oceans and we are just now getting a glimpse of what they sound like.