The US National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) has dazzled netizens with pictures of weird track-like marks found by one of its teams studying the seabed around the mid-Atlantic Ridge. The pictures were captured with an underwater drone.
The "tracks" look like a fairly straight dash line of small cavities in the seabed. NOAA confessed they are still not sure what their origin is, and asked netizens to provide ideas. The oceanic agency noted that while the tracks look artificial, not everything they found there fits with such a theory.
"While they look almost human-made, the little piles of sediment around the holes make them seem like they were excavated by... something,” NOAA said on its social media page dedicated to ocean studies.
The agency similarly said that it had already received reports of these holes from the mid-Atlantic Ridge region, but they were actually spotted on July 23 when drones were studying a submerged mountain range in this area known for frequent earthquakes. The area is also located near an underwater volcano to the north of the Azores archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Some netizens alleged that the holes might be related to local seismic activity in their comments, with others suggesting that the volcano "vents", or that they were simply spots where pockets of gas were released by a quake. Others were inclined to offer more obscure theory-like explanations, alleging that the mysterious tracks could be traces of Atlantis or alien activity.