A mysterious sound heard in Mariana Trench was a mystery for scientists. A strange metallic sound didn’t have any known source, but recently researchers found out that the sound is actually a new Baleen Whale call, never heard before.
The sound was recorded a couple of times between Autumn 2014 and Spring 2015 in the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument in Pacific; the sound lasted for around 3.5 seconds, with frequencies span between 38 and 8,000 hertz. IN the beginning, scientists were baffled by it, unable to identify any human or geological origin of the sound.
The sound didn’t resemble any sounds from geological sources such as earthquake, rain, or wind, nor did it resemble any man-made source. Sharon Nieukirk, from Oregon State University, and colleagues, proposed that the sound may have biological origins and suggested the sound may be a new baleen whale call, never heard before.
The clue that helped scientists to identify the strange sound were recordings of sounds heard near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia produced by dwarf minke whales, a type of baleen whale. Dwarf minke whales produced a “Star Wars” sound, a mixture of “the beating of an oil drum and a firing laser gun.” Ocean scientist Jason Gedamke discovered back in 2001 that minke whales were the source of the “Star Wars” sound.
The scientists wrote: “Here we have presented the first report of recordings of a novel call we believe to be from a baleen whale, most likely a minke whale,” on a study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. For now, scientists claim that “More data are needed, including genetic, acoustic, and visual identification of the source to confirm the species and gain insight into how this sound is being used.”