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Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

The news that are more recent:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/igloolik-ping-military-i...

"Military plane investigates mystery 'ping' near Igloolik Search turns up nothing"

What that article doesn't point out for laymen is that the CP-140 is essentially a P-3 Orion: A specialized anti-submarine warfare aircraft equipped with a MAD[1] and sonobuoys[2]. It's a pretty capable maritime surveillance aircraft.

The fact that the signal went dormant/was not able to be detected by something as sophisicated as an Aurora speaks volumes.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_anomaly_detector) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonobuoy

> The fact that the signal went dormant/was not able to be detected by something as sophisicated as an Aurora speaks volumes.

I didn't have the impression that the sound was continuously present or that anybody claimed that it was possible to hear it exactly during the "acoustic search for 1.5 hours."

Well, from the background articles it seems that people aren't so much as hearing it as they are noticing a lack of wildlife and associating the two.

Given the CP-140 is expressly designed for hunting things under the ocean that wish to stay hidden, I'm sure we'll learn the source soon enough. While the Air Force is saying it only searched for an hour and a half, the Aurora can search areas for upwards of 8 hours at a time, so I highly doubt that's all they are planning on doing up there.

what is the effectiveness of a MAD around the poles? There should be a lot of strange magnetic activity around there due to ionizing cosmic rays being redirected there (aurorae) and also you can't drop a sonobuoy under the ice, can you?

To be honest, I'm not sure. That's a little above my pay grade. :-)

I'd imagine you are correct, but I'd assume this has been somehow handled given that we've been using the CP-140 for 30 some years and one of three primary search areas would be north of 60. As I understand it though MAD is pretty much at its peak from a technological perspective. The P-8 doesn't even carry it, afaik.

This thing is "pinging", so I suppose sonar would be the number one choice in terms of tool to use. Again though this is all way over my knowledge level.

> He said the noise apparently stopped after the military investigated.

So, man-made.

Or coincidence.

Maybe, I guess. But for it to go on so long and stop right as it gets seriously investigated is highly suspicious.

Another explanation is that the people reporting it were lying and stopped their false reports when the investigation was happening to protect their lie.

The bank robbers fled after the cops arrived, so obviously it was an inside job.

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