6 ms·
52-hertz whale
- Havoc 8y ago>moves out of range of the hydrophones in January–February I would have thought the entire ocean is covered by now?
- AlphaWeaver 8y agoThe ocean is so big that some people call it "the last great frontier." There is so much of the ocean we have not explored.
- singularity2001 8y agoyet I read that every meter of ocean floor was physically 'plowed' multiple times over by fishers, on average.
- cbr 8y agoWhere did you read that? It can't possibly be right: the Pacific alone is 160M km^2.
- zaptheimpaler 8y agoMaybe they mean the area of ocean floor plowed > area of ocean, but the same parts of the ocean are being plowed over and over again by fishers. Most of the ocean is not being used for fishing.
- djsumdog 8y agoSeaQuest DSV
- Something1234 8y agoI really enjoyed it on Netflix, although it never found it's voice.
- tscs37 8y agoNot even close. Coastal regions, yes. But go out of costal regions or below a kilometer of depth and it gets awfully spotty.
- sandworm101 8y agoMilitary networks have been substanially cut back in recent decades. The far north, and most all the southern oceans, are no longer a focus. No risk of russian subs, no listening.
- dfsegoat 8y agoGenuinely curious if you know: Has there been any effort to revisit this in recent years? I'm curious given the rise of China + Russia in the Arctic and China's demonstrated belligerence in the Indo-Pacific. [1,2] 1 - https://breakingdefense.com/2018/07/china-russia-in-the-arctic-axis-of-ambivalence/ https://breakingdefense.com/2018/07/china-russia-in-the-arct... 2 - https://www.newsmax.com/philipguthrie/china-pacific-taiwan-united-states/2017/07/25/id/803739/ https://www.newsmax.com/philipguthrie/china-pacific-taiwan-u...
- ethbro 8y agoLarge ballistic missile submarine fleets and a military posture that makes an attempted first strike likely are the main reasons to maintain such a net. China has 7 active ballistic missile submarines. The US has 35 active nuclear attack submarines. It's probably cheaper to run a less thorough net and then task subs to shadow any contacts made.
- sandworm101 8y ago>> Large ballistic missile submarine fleets and a military posture that makes an attempted first strike likely It was in the past. Today such things can be used for all sorts of intel tasks. Sosus is real time info about positions/speeds of all ships, surface or not. Satellites cannot do that. I imagine that the US is also using sound to monitor Chinese building activities in the south china sea. There is also, probably, some economic intel to be gained by monitoring shipping/fishing fleets, again, in a way not easily replicated from space.
- emptyspa_e 8y agoPer Wikipedia, 68 active US subs. All are nuclear powered, 18 carry nuclear weapons.
- trombonechamp 8y agoEvidence that it is a whale and that there is only one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967063704001682 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096706370...
- userbinator 8y agoI read all 13 pages of that article and didn't find any discussions refuting the possibility that it could be something else, like some piece of equipment on a submarine. The fact that it's very close to 50Hz mains frequency and is otherwise very "un-whale-like" in behaviour suggests to me that it's man-made. This is probably getting into the realm of conspiracy theory now, but what better than to disguise a submarine to make it sound like a whale, and moreover convince everyone else that it is? Of course if it is actually some highly classified stealth submarine, we may never know... It somewhat reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_(astronomy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_(astronomy)
- tzs 8y ago> I read all 13 pages of that article and didn't find any discussions refuting the possibility that it could be something else, like some piece of equipment on a submarine. Given the range over which it operates and how long it has been doing so and the fact that no one has admitted it is one of theirs suggests if it is a submarine, it is one from a major military. Those put considerable resources into making it hard to hear their submarines. This thing is way too easy to hear, which probably rules out submarines.
- tbabb 8y agoIf someone were trying to disguise a submarine as a whale, why wouldn't they give it a normal whale voice?
- userbinator 8y agoBecause 52Hz might be easier and have some other advantages (like perhaps masking some other more identifiable sounds)?
- xbryanx 8y agoJust read Fluke by Christopher Moore if you want to know what this is REALLY about.
- sincerely 8y agoCould you give us a quick summary of the relevant ideas?
- B1FF_PSUVM 8y agoThe 10x sped-up recording reminded me of the dial-up handshake tones (this example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial-up_Internet_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial-up_Internet_access is not a very good match)
- caio1982 8y agoThat's sad, yet beautiful in some way. My first thought was "wow, this whale managed to survive the japanese whalers for that long" but perhaps the japanese don't hunt that far north in the pacific and the fact it's a lone whale doesn't attract much attention. Since they are social animals and the individual is not malformed I would guess the deafness theory makes a lot of sense, but so does being a hybrid (thus a rejected individual). That is quite a story, thanks for sharing.
- aaron695 8y ago> perhaps the japanese don't hunt that far north in the pacific Given Iceland, for instance, hunts whales, and whale types this could be, any reason you decided to pick the Japanese for this idea (Which is still lacking in reason) other than casual racism? There's also zero reasoning to think it's lonely. Blah, blah, blah why can't people see nature for what it is, it's amazing enough already rather than adding stories to it. A somewhat better attempt to what this sound might be - http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150415-the-loneliest-whale-in-the-world http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150415-the-loneliest-whale-...
- yosito 8y agoFail whale!
- bluenose69 8y agoIf anyone is interested to learn more about the history of recordings, see the following, the first of which has some .wav files holding discussion and recordings, and the second of which is an obituary that reveals much of how such work got started. Schevill, William E., and William A. Watkins. “Whale and Porpoise Voices: A Phonograph Record.” WHOI unnumbered reports. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (contribution 1320), 1962. https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7431 https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7431. “William A. Watkins.” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Accessed July 7, 2018. https://www.whoi.edu/mr/obit/viewArticle.do?id=1579&pid=1579 https://www.whoi.edu/mr/obit/viewArticle.do?id=1579&pid=1579.
- iso-8859-1 8y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11185764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11185764
- emmelaich 8y agoMore comments on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531563
- webkike 8y agoI would fund an expedition to put a device on this whale that emits a normal range frequency whenever it hears a a call of ~52 hz
- curlypaul924 8y agoThis sounds like a violation of the prime directive.
- jabgrabdthrow 8y agoIs that bad?
- ASalazarMX 8y agoAfter abducting a humpback whale from the past and delivering it to an unknown spaceship, I say the prime directive is moot regarding whales.
- Jaruzel 8y agoIs there a non sped up version somewhere? (Yes, I know how low the frequency is, but a good sub-woofer speaker should be able to play it audibly)
- B1FF_PSUVM 8y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=slow+down+sound+online https://www.google.com/search?q=slow+down+sound+online -> maybe https://www.conversion-tool.com/pitch?lang=en https://www.conversion-tool.com/pitch?lang=en if you feel like DIY
- laaph 8y ago3