As Dziak said, “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.”
According to the NOAA, these icequakes have become more frequent in recent decades as the global effects of climate change become more apparent.
As glaciers experience more ice melting, icebergs are more likely to break off from them and eventually melt into the ocean.
Although NOAA scientists never considered the undiscovered beast or secret military experiment theories plausible, this discovery made them even more unlikely.
Considering how well the icequake sounds matched the “bloop,” there was only a remote possibility that it could have come from any other source.
One revelation that Dziak shared with Wired was that while the PMEL team who uncovered the “bloop’s” origin were eager to do so, the eventual answer didn’t exactly shock them.
Indeed, the best guess at the NOAA for years before that confirmation came was that naturally breaking ice was responsible for the noise.
Although it may have been disappointing for some to learn that the truth was a little less fantastical than their theories, there’s always some real satisfaction in solving a mystery.
