A mysterious sound at 35,000 feet has researchers questioning everything they know about deep-sea life. Equipment lowered into the Mariana Trench, the ocean’s deepest point, suddenly detected an unknown living organism far below any recorded habitat.
In July 2011, a research team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, working with engineers from National Geographic, deployed several free-falling camera systems into the Sirena Deep section of the Mariana Trench. The cameras recorded video at a depth of 10,641 meters, about 34,911 feet, confirming the presence of giant single-celled organisms called xenophyophores on the s…