Earth Changes

What the heck are these weird tracks on the bottom of the ocean?

Greg Newkirk
WhoForted?
Sat, 18 May 2013 00:59 UTC

When it comes to mysteries, there's no better place for hiding them than the bottom of the ocean. In fact, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as much as 95% of the world's oceans remain unexplored.

And yet some people don't believe in sea monsters.

Well, thanks to the advent of the internet, we can do some of that exploring from the comfort of our computer chairs, and you never know what sorts of strange stuff will turn up. Our pal Samuel Burgan (AKA IceBurg) was doing just that, and found a bunch of bizarre markings on the ocean floor, so he sent a few snapshots our way.

Read the rest of the story at WhoForted?

Reader Comments

Snowalker · 2013-05-18T19:26:27Z

Next Gen Habitats?

I came across this outline for various technical levels of underwater crawlers

[Link]
Notice the section titled "Mobil Underwater Habitat - Tech Level 13". In the first paragraph of this section they mention an existing fixed habitat run as a joint project between NOAA and the University of North Carolina. They then go on to speculate about fitting those habitats with treads. Given the location of the observed treads marks could there be a connection with that facility?

skepticle · 2013-05-19T08:23:07Z

I looked into this a bit.

Turns out the whole seafloor map that is available on Google Earth is littered with the same treads patterns, in all sorts of directions. Most of them are in straight lines. The treads are almost invariably higher resolution than the surrounding seafloor. Possibilities:

1. Oh my god! Dinosaurs never went extinct. They invented underwater tanks to avoid any further extinction threats from space and we are just one of their experiments. And they have Google Street View cameras on their tanks to help us map the seafloor more clearly, which is how they convinced Google not to publish any actual super-space-aged-dinosaurs-underwater-tank pictures. Hey dinosaurs! I guessed it! Accept me into your underwater utopian paradise!

2. Since all the "tread" patterns that are all over the world fall in a range of shape and size that is pretty consistent, we assume that the one that goes all over the place is actually the exception rather than the rule, but don't assume that it is somehow made by a different process than the thousands of other patterns that it shares size, shape, and a seafloor with. Thus, yes, duh, they left their seafloor scanner turned on while the ship was doing some funky maneuvers. Maybe the ship was scanning a particular area, looking for something like a wreck? Trying to scan some of the undersea mounts? Who knows? It's still perfectly good image data to share and eventually add to Google's map. Heck, you can tell that the track is using different image data that has been overlaid together with a lower resolution (probably satellite) image because of the difference in sharpness between the track and the surrounding image backdrop. The assumption in the article that states that "ships usually travel in straight lines" is actually quite correct, they *usually* do. A quick google got me a web page with some sea researchers which has an image of the "ship track" that their ship took while maneuvering around ice. This actually looks surprisingly similar to the track in the image: [Link]scroll most of the way down. And that was the very first image of a ship's track that I found! Remember that ships can make pretty wacky directional maneuvers, its not like driving a car. More like driving a tank, in the sorts of turns you can make (depending on the ship of course)

3. The final possibility is that the ship tracks explanation was always a coverup. It's actually the Technodrome. [Link]The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have forced Krang and his minions to hide deep on the ocean floor, but he'll be back....

Flippancy aside, you know which possibility I'm rooting for. (Call me, dinosaurs!)

gdpetti · 2013-05-19T11:41:21Z

Thought I saw them for sale on Ebay, but too expensive what with the insurance for large reptiles within city areas, feeding costs, vet expenses and not to mention the hassle of dealing with the media coverage as people are always complaining about large dogs bothering their kids etc.... imagine the headache of having some dinos coexisting within the confines of prey territory. They always get upset so easily, those damn neighbors, some of which I'm sure wouldn't mind losing a kid or two.

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What the heck are these weird tracks on the bottom of the ocean?

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