All About the Bass - Solving Tampa's Mystery Sound
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South Tampa residents have been plagued by a mysterious deep bass sound that can be heard from Port Tampa to Davis Islands. Everyone seems to have their favorite theory, whether it’s a party boat, a club, a rager on Beer Can Island, a top secret project on MacDill Air Force Base, or even aliens. In late 2022, Dr. James Locascio offered a glimmer of hope for an explanation – black drum fish. The black drum fish produces a sound by striking its sonic muscle against its swim bladder, and with enough fish in a large enough area, Locascio, who did his dissertation on the same topic, believes it could explain the noise. In 2005, Locascio used underwater recorders in Punta Gorda and Cape Coral to find answers to their own mystery noise and offered to do the same in the Tampa Bay area. We need your help to make that happen!
The vibrations continue to become more and more disruptive, so now is the time to act! According to Dr. Locascio, January is the beginning of peak season for black drum fish to engage in courtship and spawning, so it is paramount to get recorders in the water as soon as possible. In order to do that, we need to raise $2,500 to cover the cost of equipment and set up. Once we reach that goal, the project can move forward. Can you help us solve this mystery and put our community’s mind at ease? Just $10 would be more than enough to get the ball rolling!
Project timeline:
ASAP - Phase 1:
Place 2-3 recorders to begin collecting underwater data. Recorders will be hosted by residents who will keep journals noting their experiences with the mystery noise.
Phase 1 fundraising goal: $2,500
Once recorders are in place, we will initiate Phase 2:
Evaluate other potential sources of the noise – clubs, party boats, industry, community events like concerts, parades, or rallies, and more. Annotate their operating hours, times/dates, and record decibel levels when possible. Collect and plot reports of residents’ experiences regarding the mystery noise, when they experience it, what they experience, and where they are located. We will provide a contact for this when we are ready to collect the data.
Phase 2 fundraising goal: $3,000
After recorders have been in place for at least 2 weeks, but possibly as many as 8 weeks, we will move to Phase 3:
Retrieve recorders and analyze the data.
Phase 3 fundraising goal: $2,000
Phase 4:
Delivery of the results of the investigation and conclusions TBD.
Phase 4 fundraising goal: TBD
We will make regular updates to this page or you can follow @doneVperfect on Tiktok or Instagram for updates.
Read more about the mystery noise:
Cover photo credit: unknown
Organizer
Sara Healy
Organizer
Tampa, FL
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