Uhaf was first heard in 1989 with hidden sensors placed on the floor of the Puget Strait by the US navy. Although these devices, called hydrophones, were originally intended to capture the noise of Soviet submarines, when some of the devices were declassified, researchers began using them to listen to the noise of the ocean, which was not a quiet place at all. On December 7, 1992, a technician determined there was a noise that looked like a whale song. But this sound, interestingly, comes in at a frequency of 52 hertz. Leslia Jamisan writes in Atavist magazine:
A frequency of 52 hertz for a blue whale (which apparently is one of them), an unusual level. Blue whales are usually in the range of 15-20; It’s an almost imperceptible noise on the edge that the human ear can hear. But in front of the researchers stands the sound signature of a creature that passes through Pacific waters with a very treble song.
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This interesting pitch of sound has caught the attention of researchers, the media and the public. They were all curious about the story of 52 hertz whales, or 52 blue whales. Kate Stafford, a researcher at the U.S. National Marine Mammal Laboratory who listens to the whale’s voice, tells Andrew Revkin of the New York Times: “The fact that this individual has been able to live in that harsh environment for at least 12 years shows that there is nothing wrong.” But he also admits there’s something sad about the finding, Stafford. “The whale says, “I’m here,” but no one answers his call.”
Here’s the accelerated sound of the 52 for better hearing:
To many, this whale is the loneliest whale in the world. Money has even been raised to find lone whale. (Although there are a lot of audio recordings, no one has found the animal yet. Sound travels very long distances in the ocean.)
Bill Watkins, a marine mammal researcher at the Woods Hole Institute of Ocean science who has spent more than 12 years recording the sound, believed the whale was absolutely unique. But some researchers question the narrative that the whale is alone.
Chris Baranuik writes on BBC Nature:
“One of the dissenting is Christopher Willes Clark of Ithaca – Cornell University. Clark, who recorded the 52Hz whale in 1993, says the animal is not as abnormal as it seems. So far, many individual whale calls have been detected, and some studies have suggested that whale groups living in certain regions have dialects. When you think about it, he says the 52Hz whale is “not that unique.”
What’s more, Clark and other researchers disagree with the view that some people say the 52Hz whale can’t be heard or understood by “normal” blue whales that call at a lower frequency. “The song of the animal has many characteristics in common with the song of a typical blue whale,” he says. “Blue whales, corrugated whales and humpback whales; All these whales hear him, they’re not deaf. It’s just that he’s a little weird.”
Although many think the whale is male, the sex and even species of the whale are not yet known. The mysterious whale could also be a hybrid of two different species. But his patterns of behavior seem to indicate that he’s a blue whale. “It has exactly the same seasonality as blue whales,” Kate Stafford told the BBC. “If you look at the immigration patterns that Bill and his colleagues found, it’s the same thing. Therefore, I am very confident that at least some of this animal is a blue whale.”
And more than one whale could be singing the song. Baranuik says a sensor off the coast of California, USA, in 2010 recorded calls that appeared to follow the pattern Wilkins discovered, but the calls were seen on very different sensors. According to John Hildebrand of the Scripps Institute of Ocean Science, this means that more than one animal may be singing.
Who sang the 52 hertz song; whether it was a lone individual or a group of hybrids that could only be revealed by intensive research. In the meantime, the rest of us will wait and listen.
Author: Extract from Marissa Fessenden/Smithsonian Magazine.
