Cryptozoology: Leviathan
 

I was scanning through Reddit today when I came across the Bloop, which was something I remember reading about back when I was in maybe Middle School or High School.

The Bloop: In 1997, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration detected ultra-low frequency underwater sounds coming from about 50° S 100° W. These sounds were heard from well over 5,000 km away. It's normal for there to be odd oceanic sounds, commonly cause by natural phenomena such as earthquakes, but when reviewed carefully, it was determined that the sound was likely made by a living organism. For context, even the loudest whale-songs can only be heard at a maximum of 3,000 km away, and that's generally multiple whales singing simultaneously. No known animal can make a sound nearly as loud as the one detected, and it remains a mystery.
Bloop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Damn Interesting The Call of the Bloop

Here is a recording: .wav

I remember authoring a report on a hypothetical organism that could have made such a noise, but I can't for the life of me find it so I'll have to remember what I can.

I'm going to make a few assumptions right off the bat:
1) This is a living organism which evolved on Earth
2) This is an organism which is native to the Ocean, near where the sound was pinpointed
3) This is not Godzilla or Cthulu

Here are the facts:
1) Organism
2) Larger than a blue whale
3) Has a/multiple gas filled sac(s) necessary to create sound,
4) Was heard only over a short period in 1997, and not since

Considering that the organism is so large and has gas filled organs, it's not unreasonable to guess it is a whale, or is at least an aquatic mammal of some sort. Considering also how closely the sound resembles that of a whale song, it may be safe to guess that the mechanism for producing the sound is similar to that of larger whales such as the humpback or blue whale. It may, then be safe to assume that this is a very large and undiscovered species of whale; a leviathan. If other large whales are any indication the diet of the leviathan is likely plankton or krill, however it's also possible that this species does not live in the same environment as other similar whales. Considering that only once have we recorded a sound from them and we've never seen one, they may live in a deeper area of the ocean than other whales, which could mean that they have a larger or even more efficient method of recycling air (as aquatic mammals do).

Thoughts?

it could also be an aberrant form of an existing species of whale. After all, humans have a normal vocal volume range, but few of us can get as loud as Ethel Merman ;)

That's a good point. It may be a known species that was simply born or developed in a different way. If humans can be born with gigantism, it's possible other mammals like whales can as well.

I'm really not sure if there's a Yao Ming whale joke in there, but I promise to look into it. Maybe I'll work sushi into it.

Dear Blue Lobster: Bloop: A Crustacean Phenomenon?

Or perhaps the ground "burped" as a large volume of gas was released from the ocean floor after some sort of breakthrough.

Um... Cloverfield?

http://brian.carnell.com/wp-content/...ion_figure.jpg

You're on Reddit, too?

I saw this and pondered it, as well.

A whale with gigantism, now there's an interesting thought.

It certainly sounds like something with a gaseous sack made the noise, but gas isn't required to make noise underwater. So that assumption is incorrect.

That's true, many non gas-sack aquatic animals can make noise, but I believe one of the articles quoted scientists saying it sounded similar to a whale.

Why don't animals get gigantism like humans do?

They probably do, they just don't survive in the wild because of the ill effects that come with it.

Agreed, being big comes with baggage:
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/americ...s/kingkong.jpg