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Huge Unidentified Organic Blob Floating Around Alaska 424

Z80xxc! writes "The Anchorage Daily News reports that a 15 mile-long blob of unknown, 'gooey,' probably organic material is floating past communities on Alaska's North Slope. The US Coast Guard sent pollution experts to investigate, who determined that it was not an oil spill or other type of pollution, but were unable to determine what it is. A sample is currently being analyzed by experts in Anchorage, while the blob is following the current northwards."

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Huge Unidentified Organic Blob Floating Around Alaska

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  • Re:Well Shit... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wisty ( 1335733 ) on Thursday July 16, 2009 @10:53AM (#28716885)

    It could be the 1997 bloop that the Navy picked up on their sonar equipment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop). It looked like a biological entity, but was far to big to be any known creature.

    Which wouldn't rule out it being a shoggoth.

  • by stickrnan ( 1290752 ) on Thursday July 16, 2009 @11:12AM (#28717193)

    My completely scientifically unfounded guess would be that it's what's left of some sort of bio-matter that was trapped long ago and was pushed up by warming waters or released from receding ice.

  • The Raft (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lymond01 ( 314120 ) on Thursday July 16, 2009 @11:33AM (#28717481)

    Short story/short film in Stephen King's Creepshow 2. These campers swim out to a fixed raft in the middle of a lake and some goop, not unlike the goop in the article, follows them. One person touches it, and it leeches up her arm and pulls her in. This sort of continues for the next 10 minutes or so until there hero and heroine make out. It's Stephen King so it doesn't end well.

    My point? Don't touch it. And don't let it touch you.

  • The real question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by petgiraffe ( 539721 ) on Thursday July 16, 2009 @11:46AM (#28717703)
    Sure, but the the real question is how long has it been killing people, and why doesn't it eat their feet? [npr.org]
  • by sonnejw0 ( 1114901 ) on Thursday July 16, 2009 @01:23PM (#28719305)
    I recall reading about a recent algae fertilization attempt to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases but that failed because the algae that the experimenters thought would sink to the ocean floor actually remained bouyant. Could this blob be the result of that experiment?

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