Somewhere deep within the waters of the North Pacific , a whale wanders alone . No one has ever seen him , but they ’ve certainly discover him : this mystery heavyweight ’s song has haunt marine researchers since oceanographer Bill Watkins first heard his unknown spokesperson calling in 1989 . The heavyweight ’s call was pitched higher than other whales’—52 hertz , to be accurate , and so that ’s what they named the mysterious creature .
Watkins , accredit with inventing the first underwater transcription equipment , was routinely cataloguing manlike hulk mating call option when 52 Hertz ’s unique strait caught his ear . The whale ’s calls show like harmonic intervals to a baleen giant ’s , but at 52 cycle per second , they were mellow than they should have been — unusually , just gamey enough for a human being to hear . He was an outlier , but because Watkins ’s team could n’t think what to do about it , they provide him alone .
In 1992 , the U.S. Navy released records pile up by its system of hydrophones , unremarkably used to give chase the activity of potentially hostile submarine sandwich , which allowed Watkins and a squad at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to embark on log 52 Hertz ’s solitary swimming patterns . After 12 years of notice , the maritime scientist were able to conclude that the idiosyncratic whale song was indeed coming from a unmarried rootage ; 52 Hertz was the one and only . In the 2004 paper the investigator published inDeep Sea Research , they noted that not only was his call trenchant , but his migration pattern appeared to be “ unrelated to the bearing or movements of other giant species”—a lonely beingness for the much - studied hulk .
There ’s still no definitive word on what eccentric of whale he is , on the button . Not quite a blue hulk , but not just a quintuplet whale , hypothesis have advise that he might be a loan-blend of the two , or an undiscovered species altogether . While some have suggest that 52 Hertz might stand from some kind of misshapenness , mayhap deafness , marine life scientist Mary Ann Daher of the Woods Hole team level out that a whale hardy enough to survive the harsh North Pacific weewee is in all probability doing just fine , wellness - wise to .
52 Hertz ’s classifiable call has mellow over the class , farm just the slightest bite deeper , but his frequence continue about the same as that of the depleted billet produced by a tuba . If you ’re interested , head over to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site andhave a listen for yourself .
