History's Mysteries

[nacho]

"Bloop" and "Slow Down"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Down_(unidentified_sound)

Slow Down was a sound recorded on May 19, 1997, in the Equatorial Pacific ocean by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The source of the sound remains unknown.

UPDATE: from Wired.co.uk:

Has 'The Bloop' Been Solved?

"....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."

That makes it "extremely unlikely" that the sound is animal in origin, but he also pointed out that the hypothesis that the Bloop was caused by an animal wasn't ever really a serious one. He said: "What has led to a lot of the misperception of the animal origin sound of the Bloop is how the sound is played back. Typically, it is played at 16 times normal speed, which makes it sounds like an animal vocalisation of some sort. However, when the sound is played in real-time it has more of a 'quake' sound to it, similar to thunder." You can hear a recording of the Bloop in the video accompanying this story...."

[nacho]

Not really valid for this thread... There's no mystery. But this is where the bulk of our "ghost ship" conversations have ended up and, technically, this is a "ghost ship" that they can't quite pin down...until the horror begins!

A ghost ship filled with cannibal rats is floating somewhere off the coast of Scotland, ready to crash ashore and unleash its disease-ridden cargo of starving rodents. And it's all because Canadian authorities let the Soviet-era nightmare liner loose in the North Atlantic, satisfied that it was no longer a threat to Canada.

The "hundreds" of rats aboard the abandoned cruise ship have surely begun eating each other by now, officials say. It has been nearly a year since the vessel was intentionally lost at sea by Canadian authorities who were happy to let the "biohazard" become another country's problem.

This gruesome gift from Canada is now expected to crash ashore in Ireland or the United Kingdom, dumping the plague ship's living cargo of cannibal rats onto the land.

Named for a popular film actress in Stalin's USSR, the Lyubov Orlova was built by the Soviets in 1976 to treat Russian elites with pleasure cruises to Antarctica and the Arctic Circle.

But it was seized in 2010, by Canadian police acting as debt collectors against the ship's now-private owners, and for years it remained anchored off St. John's, the provincial capital of Newfoundland. Finally sold for scrap in 2012, the massive ship was lost at sea just a day after being towed out. When Canadian authorities finally captured the cruise ship last year, they decided to let it loose in international waters.

In our era of Google satellite maps, GPS and constant government surveillance of the most mundane activities on land, it seems peculiar that a 295-foot-long ocean vessel could disappear in the North Atlantic while still afloat. But maritime officials in Ireland and Scotland say they haven't heard from the Lyubov Orlova since March of last year, when an emergency signal from the ship placed it about 700 miles off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. The ship itself was spotted by radar operators not long after, but search pilots sent to confirm the location couldn't find it.

Ever since, the rat ship has been missing at sea.

It may still be afloat, the Independent reports today, because its lifeboats are equipped with distress signals that only transmit when they hit water—only two of the lifeboats' transmitters have been heard, probably after those rafts were shaken loose as the Lyubov Orlova is continually tossed by North Atlantic storms. It has already traveled two-thirds of the way to the British Isles.

If the ship is spotted before a big storm slams it against the populated coastline, scrap haulers or the closest Coast Guard crews will have to board the awful vessel.

"There will be a lot of rats and they eat each other," a Belgian scrap sailor told The Sun. "If I get aboard I'll have to lace everywhere with poison."

There may be no chance to get aboard, because the 4,251-ton ship full of rats could suddenly be pushed ashore in a winter storm. Once the rats make landfall, they will be very, very hungry for something besides the raw flesh of their comrades at sea.

That's the report from io9. Here's The Weather Channel's take:

According to The National Post, another ship dispatched by Canadian authorities corralled the Lyubov Orlova and towed it further out to sea, away from Canadian oil assets, but once the feat was accomplished the ghost ship was cut-loose, because as Transport Canada put it, the vessel “no longer poses a threat to the safety of [Canadian] offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment."

With no crew on board, the ship was thought to be lost forever, until March 2013, when two lifeboats fell off the ship, sending signals to authorities that the vessel had traveled two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic Ocean and was headed east, straight for the British and Irish coasts, according to The Independent.

Just a week later, radar picked up an object similar in size to the Lyubov Orlova just off the Scottish coast, the Daily Mirror reports, but search efforts returned nothing.

Months have passed with no new signals, and no sign of the ghost ship, leading many to believe the massive ship may be still intact. Adding to the speculation, a series of powerful storms have battered the coast of Ireland and the United Kingdom over the past 10 months, bringing with them powerful winds that may have pushed the abandoned vessel closer toward a collision with the "west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, or the southern tip of England," the Telegraph reports.

As for the rats? The National Post reports that the Lyubov Orlova sat in port for more than two years in Newfoundland, "virtually guaranteeing" the ship acquired a rat infestation. After a nearly year adrift with no food, many British media outlets believe that the rats may have turned on each other in order to survive.

Whether or not the cannibal rats, or an intact ghost ship exist, remains to be seen, but it sure does make for a great Hollywood horror script.

Here's your idea, RC! Rat ship washes up on a desolate island off the coast of Scotland, where only a small village stands between it and apocalypse...

[RottingCorpse]

Missus RC is obsessed with this story.

[nacho]

Missus RC is obsessed with this story.

It's sunk. And, if not, it'll be scuttled long before it hits shore.

Missus RC is obsessed with this story.

I put it on "realtime coverage" in my Google News page. So, every few seconds, an article pops up with a title that scares the hell out of me.

Oh, but, in reality: The cannibal rats, and even the rats themselves, are based on a salvage hunter's off-handed joke to a tabloid reporter, who ran with it.

[Reginald McGraw]

And also, like my problem with zombies, the population of rats with only rats to eat, is not really going to trend upward...

[nacho]

And also, like my problem with zombies, the population of rats with only rats to eat, is not really going to trend upward...

And after 12 months at sea it's impossible there are still rats on there! Unless the ship has been docking somewhere and taking on supplies for the ghosts.

[nacho]

And...the Irish coast guard just reported it sunk.

Next!

[nacho]

Love this...

http://flavorwire.com/435374/10-incredibly-haunting-tales-of-real-life-ghost-ships/

It's the first update on the modern-day search for Baychimo, as well! (The update is: no news yet.)

[RottingCorpse]

Not a super sexy "mystery" per say, but still pretty cool.

Scientists Think They Have Found The Mythical ‘Sunstone’ Vikings Used To Navigate Warships

http://www.utaot.com/2013/03/06/scientists-think-they-have-found-the-mythical-sunstone-vikings-used-to-navigate-warships/

[nacho]

We've all been following the new discoveries circling around the Voynich Manuscript, yes?

For nearly a decade, linguists and cryptologists have obsessed over the medieval Voynich manuscript, vigorously debating whether it represents a long-lost language, or gibberish. Now some of its symbols have been matched to sounds.

big long ugly link to New Scientist

[Reginald McGraw]

I saw that! Crazy.

[nacho]

Today's rabbit hole is perfect for this thread!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact

[monkey!]

Most of those items listed are nothing but tenuous speculation, that don't hold up to actual investigation.

[nacho]

Well, yes... But I still found it fun to journey along the path of insanity. Like the London Hammer, which is now owned by a "Creationist Museum" or some shit. Love it.

[monkey!]

It's like a modern day Pardoner's tale.