Let’s take an everyday example.

We are riding in a car, speeding down the highway at 70mph. If we toss something (a ball?) softly up in the air, does it land right back in our hand? Or does it go spat against the back windshield, because when it lost contact with our hand it is supposed to fly backward at 70mph relative to the car?

So how does it work?

When the car is driving. Everything in the car, you, me, the ball, the air inside the car, are all going forward at the same speed. When we toss the ball upwards, we give it an upward force , but we didn’t change its forward speed. So the ball still kept going in the forward direction at the same speed as before, which is at the same speed as your hand. That’s why it can fall right back into your hand, as if the car was still.

So the answer is “yes”. Enter the Bloop. Note here we are talking about ultra low frequency, high amplitude sound that is traveling in the deep ocean.

Similarly, earthquake detection also rely on detecting “sound”. The waves generated by earthquakes are also low frequency and high amplitude. In this case, the sound is traveling through Earth’s mantle, and can be detected by sensors around the world.

But when it comes to the kind of sound that we humans can hear, that travels through the air — the Earth is just too noisy of a place for weak sound signals to be detectable over noise at thousands of miles away.