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:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems.”
—Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970)
“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)
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)