New Delhi:
A mysterious 'pinging' sound emanating from the Arctic has prompted the Canadian armed forces to send a team to investigate the matter.
A report published in The Guardian says, the strange noise is apparently coming from the sea floor and has rung alarm bells in a remote community in the Canadian Arctic's Fury and Hecla Strait region, a channel of water in the north-west of the Inuit hamlet Igloolik.
Local politicians say that the sound is scaring fish and wildlife which is a serious problem for hunters in an area of open water surrounded by ice that is usually abundant with sea mammals.
The information in this regard has been sent to the Canadian military which has sent a CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft to investigate the matter.
In a statement, Department of National Defence spokesperson Ashley Lemire said: “The Canadian armed forces are aware of allegations of unusual sounds emanating from the seabed in the Fury and Hecla Strait in Nunavut. The air crew performed various multi-sensor searches in the area, including an acoustic search for 1.5 hours, without detecting any acoustic anomalies. The crew did not detect any surface or subsurface contacts. “The crew did observe two pods of whales and six walruses in the area of interest. “At this time the Department of National Defence does not intend to do any further investigations.”
But the outcome of the probe hasn’t stopped locals from theorising about the source of the sounds, which have been variously attributed to the sonar surveys of local mining operations or to Greenpeace activists.
