The humpbacks have been talking...

November 6, 2016 1:26 AM

David Neiwert on Facebook tonight points to the Lime Kiln hydrophone, "...for an hour and a half and seem as though they'll be there for awhile. It's unbelievably beautiful." Three hours are posted on Soundcloud.

• Insane Humpback calls from Lime Kiln Lighthouse 11/5/16 10:30pm
• Insane Humpback Vocals on Lime Kiln, Part 2

posted by maggieb (13 comments total)

I don't forgive how so many smart people convinced themselves a pool was a feasible environment to study how dolphins evolved to communicate through spans of water unknown leagues long and fathoms deep. Is a pool not the equivalent of an echo chamber?

These are people from my generation. They had played Roger Payne's flexi-disc soundsheet of Humpback whale songs from a 1979 National Geographic! How is that possible?

Or maybe I'm wrong. Thanks for the link.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 1:53 AM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

As it happens, a friend of mine, maybe TBH more of an acquiantance, has been working with a certain monolithic internet company on their translation programming and they've made some startling advances in de-coding certain vocalizations of certain cephalopod species. So, with that in mind, I sent him this link to see what he would say. A short time later I got a very curt reply:
"Dude, same old shit, they're complaining about the presidential election and wondering when will this nightmare end?"
Who knew wales could be so cynical?
posted by From Bklyn at 3:49 AM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

As it happens, a friend of mine, maybe TBH more of an acquiantance, has been working with a certain monolithic internet company...

The NSA? Word is the ONI runs the armed dolphin junta.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 4:10 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wow, these are wonderful, thanks for posting them!

From Bklyn - Watch what you say about Wales, boyo.
posted by carter at 4:23 AM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you've ever wondered why there are so many lime kilns about, our friends Ruth, Alex and Peter made quicklime in a kiln during their year on the Edwardian Farm to show you.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:36 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

The songs have been fed into the Watson AI and initial results are not surprising, the reoccurring message: "now just where is that damned Captain Kirk and his tractor beam to save us, late late late".
posted by sammyo at 4:45 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

So the USN have called back their subs for the impending crisis, and everyone's like "Man, haven't spoken for so long...."
posted by pompomtom at 5:05 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

"now just where is that damned Captain Kirk and his tractor beam to save us, late late late"

( )_______)
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    O

Thanks for posting, Maggie. Awesome stuff
posted by orange ball at 6:29 AM on November 6, 2016

Oh, this is so good.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:40 AM on November 6, 2016

"now just where is that damned Captain Kirk and his tractor beam to save us, late late late".

Apparently there's also at least one whale who still excitedly shouts "THERE BE WHALES HERE" even though all the other whales have heard that joke a million times already.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:40 PM on November 6, 2016

Two whales walk into a bar. First one says "Aaawoooooo.... oooaoAAAAeeerrrrr... Roooooowwwahhhh" [etc.]
Second one says "Go home Frank, yer drunk."
posted by quinndexter at 4:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Amazing, thank you. I was about to post an Askme the other night looking for feeds like this.
posted by lakersfan1222 at 7:17 AM on November 7, 2016

Knowing that sound can travel really really far underwater, especially lower frequencies (and assuming some of the vocalizations are in fact sub-audible (to humans)) where are all these whales hanging out? Are they, like, all off the sand bar over there? Or are some of them, like, making long distance calls? Some of the vocalizations were kind of faint... It's a fascinating thing, being able to hear this from way the hell over here, on the other side of the world.
posted by From Bklyn at 7:43 AM on November 7, 2016