What Is the Source of a Mysterious ‘Ping’ Coming From Deep Under the Arctic?

November 28, 2016 5:00 am
Arctic Sea
(Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Arctic Sea
(Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)

 

All the way back in 1993 during the first season of acclaimed Fox sci-fi series The X-Files, there was an episode entitled “Ice.” In it, a group of scientists working on an Arctic Ice Core project one-by-one get infected by an alien virus that they accidentally excavate from deep beneath the frozen tundra. The series was filmed in Canada. Now, 23 years later, it’s seems as though real life is mimicking fiction.

 

 

Case in point: Local Inuit communities reported hearing a “hum” or “beep” coming from the sea floor this past summer. So Canada’s Department of National Defense dispatched a plane to investigate. They heard nothing out of the ordinary. (If you’re a conspiracy theorist a la The X-Files, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Of course they didn’t.)

Weird Canadian Ping on Arctic Sea Floor
A Canadian CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane like this one was dispatched to investigate the ‘ping’ (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Murray Brewster)

 

The area where the sound, also referred to as a “ping,” has been occurring is the Fury and Hecla Strait, some 75 miles northwest of Igloolik, an Inuit hamlet. According to CBC News, locals from Igloolik noted that “there was less marine wildlife in the area than usual.” That’s putting it lightly. Paul Quassa, a member of the area’s legislative assembly, was quoted as saying, “That’s one of the major hunting areas in the summer and winter because it’s a polynya,” or an area where open waters are surrounded by ice abundant with sea mammals. This past summer, however, “there were hardly any. And this became a suspicious thing.”

If you’re thinking what we’re thinking, we’re on the same page: Mulder and Scully need to get on this immediately. (Spoiler alert: In their case it involved an alien worm.)

To get more on the mystery ping and its potential meaning from CBC News, click here.

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