Is There A Giant Monster in the Pacific Ocean?

In the 1960s, the US Navy set up a system of underwater microphones around the globe to keep track of Russian submarines. But over the last 15 years, a great deal of eery sounds have been recorded in the Pacific Ocean by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Some of them are easily explained as volcanic activity or icebergs shifting. But two distinct sounds have yet to be solved. And they're too loud to be coming from any animal known to man.

The first sound, recorded in the summer of 1997 and which lasted just over a minute, was named “The Bloop.” After an intense investigation, the NOAA ruled out any human activity causing this sound. Scientists analyzed the sound by slowing it down and speeding it up and determined that it wasn’t caused by volcanic activity or vibrations of ocean currents (which can cause large sounds underwater.) As of now, this sound is unexplained.

Listen to the sped up sound below:

Then, two years later on March 1, 1999, another sound was heard. It lasted only 15 seconds and was dubbed “Julia” because if you listen very closely, it sounds like a watery voice saying that name. This sound was picked up by every sensor in the Pacific Ocean.

It’s origin was 1,500 miles west of Peru (about 1,000 miles north of "The Bloop"), but scientists have no idea what made that eery noise. The one thing they all agree on, is that it was made by an animal and not a man-made device or seismic activity.

Listen to "The Julia" below:

In addition to "The Bloop" and "The Julia," three other mysterious noises have been recorded in the same vicinity (off the southern coast of South America) and have been given names of "The Upsweep," "The Train," "The Whistle," and "The Slow Down."

Scientists believe the last four to be caused by either ocean currents or ice rubbing over land from Antarctica--but these are only hypotheses. And "The Bloop" and "The Julia" are still complete mysteries.

So what are some possible explanations for "The Bloop" and "The Julia"? While “ice calving” has been considered a possibility for causing the sound, the profile of the sound suggests that it comes from an animal.

The largest recorded animal on earth is the blue whale, but it would be physically impossible for a blue whale to emit a sound as large as "The Bloop." Whatever made this sound had to be several times larger than any creature known to man.

Some have also considered a giant squid (there have been fisherman tales of 60-foot squid), but that is easily ruled out as cephalopods have no gas-filled sac and are unable to make that type of noise.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest unexplored frontier in the world. It’s very possible that there are whales larger than any we’ve ever seen, or any other animal that has yet to be discovered. But the eeriest explanation for these sounds lie in the pages of famed horror and science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.

In Lovecraft’s 1928 short story “The Call of Cthulhu,” H.P. wrote of an underwater monster named Cthulhu (pronounced kuh-thoo-loo) who slept in the walled city of R’lyeh located in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. A being whose looks combined “an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature.... A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings.”

As you can see on this map, the origin of "The Bloop" is only 1,000 miles away from Lovecraft’s fictional city of R’lyeh (and "The Julia" wasn't too far north), which has given to fantastical speculation that the sounds we are hearing are actually Chthulhu asleep and snoring in his watery city, waiting to awake one day and return above the waters.

To add another eery element to this theory, according to the story, a cult of Cthulhu followers were devoted to their “old God” who was asleep and dreaming in R’lyeh until he “should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.”