Early Confusion Between Fin Whales and Military Sonar
Before extensive research on whale vocalizations was completed, the low-frequency pulses emitted by some species of whales were often not correctly attributed to them. Dr Payne wrote: "Before it was shown that fin whales were the cause, no one could take seriously the idea that such regular, loud, low, and relatively pure frequency tones were coming from within the ocean, let alone from whales." This unknown sound was popularly known by navy acousticians as the Jezebel Monster. (Jezebel was narrow-band passive long-range sonar.) Some researchers believed that these sounds could be attributed to geophysical vibrations or an unknown Russian military program, and it wasn't until biologists William Schevill and William A. Watkins proved that whales possessed the biological capacity to emit sounds that the unknown sounds were correctly attributed.
Read more about this topic: Marine Mammals And Sonar
Famous quotes containing the words early, confusion, fin, whales and/or military:
“Women who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion; and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else, poetry in terms of psychology.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
“Since the fin has come a little early this siecle and anomie is all the rage, wry, dry tenderness is a suspect commodity.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Though once there were more whales cast up here, I think that it was never more wild than now.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)