It’s pitch dark and a mile deep in the waters in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A remotely operated vehicle diving there shines a light onto the ocean floor and discovers a mystery scientists cannot shine a light on – strange evenly spaced holes on the ocean floor that form a line.
On July 23, north of the Azores, sea explorers saw more than twelve tracks of lines on the ocean floor. At a depth of 1.6 miles, these holes are what scientists call “lebensspuren,” which is German for life traces. A week later, explorers discovered similar lines 300 miles away.
The first sighting of these holes 20 years ago puzzled scientists. But the two decades that have since passed have not provided any clear answers. The NOAA said that “the origin of the holes has scientists stumped,” noting that “the holes look human-made, but the little piles of sediment around them suggest they were excavated by … something.”
While scientists still lack an explanation, the public has already posted many conspiracy theories. Maybe they were made by a secret organization? They might be a sign from extraterrestrials! Is it possible that they are breathing holes of a monster that buries itself under the sand”?
Perhaps the latter isn’t that much of a conspiracy theory. The two main scientific hypotheses for why the holes exist state that the holes could have been made by creatures walking or swimming above the sediment and poking holes down or by creatures burrowing within the sand and jabbing holes up, but this proposal still leaves many questions unsolved. The puzzled experts are trying to get un-puzzled by funding three expeditions to explore the surrounding areas and gather clues and information about the holes.
Michael Vecchione, a NOAA deep-sea biologist, says that “there is something important going on there and we don’t know what it is … it reinforces the idea that there is a mystery that someday we will figure out.”
On July 23, north of the Azores, sea explorers saw more than twelve tracks of lines on the ocean floor. At a depth of 1.6 miles, these holes are what scientists call “lebensspuren,” which is German for life traces. A week later, explorers discovered similar lines 300 miles away.
The first sighting of these holes 20 years ago puzzled scientists. But the two decades that have since passed have not provided any clear answers. The NOAA said that “the origin of the holes has scientists stumped,” noting that “the holes look human-made, but the little piles of sediment around them suggest they were excavated by … something.”
While scientists still lack an explanation, the public has already posted many conspiracy theories. Maybe they were made by a secret organization? They might be a sign from extraterrestrials! Is it possible that they are breathing holes of a monster that buries itself under the sand”?
Perhaps the latter isn’t that much of a conspiracy theory. The two main scientific hypotheses for why the holes exist state that the holes could have been made by creatures walking or swimming above the sediment and poking holes down or by creatures burrowing within the sand and jabbing holes up, but this proposal still leaves many questions unsolved. The puzzled experts are trying to get un-puzzled by funding three expeditions to explore the surrounding areas and gather clues and information about the holes.
Michael Vecchione, a NOAA deep-sea biologist, says that “there is something important going on there and we don’t know what it is … it reinforces the idea that there is a mystery that someday we will figure out.”
