Nasa has sparked excitement and fear with a cryptic tweet posted on its account.
“PSST… Uh, did anyone hear…that?” it wrote, prompting a flurry of speculation and worry among its tens of millions of followers.
Later, it would emerge that the account was simply promoting a new Soundcloud playlist of “sinister sounds of the solar system”.
Before that mystery had been revealed, however, the unusual post led to speculation among followers that the space agency was announcing significant news – and remarks that, in 2020, that was likely to mean something negative.
But it also led to a flurry of other posts from related and official Nasa accounts.
“Hmmm… From here at home we’ve just been hearing a lot of creaks and distant crackling," wrote the Nasa Earth account.
“Did It sound intergalactic, planetary? If it’s loud and pulsating, we blame Jupiter...” Nasa’s Solar System account posted.
“It sounded like something kind of eerie and otherworldly… unlike anything I’ve ever heard…” wrote the account for the Mars Insight lander.
“According to my data and calculations, I am in fact also hearing sounds,” a post from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory read.
Later on, the official Soundcloud account tweeted with a link to the playlist.
“You’ve heard the creaks, cracks, and cackling noises of our universe before. Using data from our spacecraft, our scientists gathered NEW sinister sounds from the depths of space in time for Halloween," a description posted on the page read.
"Listen to our playlist filled with new “moans” and “whistles” from our universe that would scare the most ghoulish of creatures.”
The cryptic tweet followed a similarly mysterious announcement from Nasa last week that it would make an announcement about new discoveries on the Moon. That also prompted a flurry of Twitter speculation among users.
On Monday, the space agency revealed those new findings, detailing observations that showed a breakthrough in the search for water on the Moon.
