However, the NOAA is pretty sure that it wasn't an animal, but the sound of a relatively common event -- the cracking of an ice shelf as it breaks up from Antarctica.
Several people have linked to the
NOAA's website over the past week excitedly claiming that the mystery of the Bloop has been "solved", but as the information on the NOAA website was undated and without a source, Wired.co.uk spoke to NOAA and Oregon State University seismologist
Robert Dziak by email to check it out. He confirmed that the Bloop really was just an icequake -- and it turns out that's kind of what they always thought it was. The theory of a giant animal making noises loud enough to be heard across the Pacific was more fantasy than science.
Dziak explained to us the NOAA's findings, and confirmed that "the frequency and time-duration characteristics of the Bloop signal are consistent, and essentially identical, to icequake signals we have recorded off Antarctica". He explained: "We began an acoustic survey of the Bransfield Strait and Drake Passage in 2005 which lasted until 2010. It was in analysis of this recent acoustic data that it became clear that the sounds of ice breaking up and cracking is a dominant source of natural sound in the southern ocean. Each year there are tens of thousands of what we call 'icequakes' created by the cracking and melting of sea ice and ice calving off glaciers into the ocean, and these signals are very similar in character to the Bloop."
