A lonely whale of unknown species has been swimming the Earth’s seas for years, ostracized from its own kind thanks to an inability to communicate. Not that it doesn’t try. It does. But the whale sings in a sound frequency that is so high, no other whales will respond. In the language of whales, it’s like speaking Klingon anywhere on Earth outside a Star Trek convention.
The loneliest whale, a filter feeder like the whale in Finding Nemo, has roamed the oceans possibly looking for friends but instead caught the attention of the U.S. Navy in 1989 when their instruments picked up its odd frequency. Calling away at 52 Hertz (the unit of frequency), the unknown whale stood out because other filter feeders call between 15 and 25 Hertz. Its filter-feeding brethren, like the blue whale, use frequencies like those of the lowest notes on a piano, while this whale uses a frequency that’s about eight notes higher. As you can hear at the linked recordings, the 52-Hertz whale also calls in a distinctly more rapid rhythm compared to the deeper and more languid blue whale song.
Listen to a blue whale.
Listen to the 52-Hertz whale.
These recordings of whale song are sped up, so they sound much higher than the real-life sounds. For an idea of what 52 Hertz frequency really sounds like, watch this video:
Not only is the 52-Hertz whale off frequency, it’s off track. Scientists, easily able to follow its movements for years thanks to its unique call, can’t match the whale’s migration path to that of any known filter-feeding whales.
No one knows why the loneliest whale in the world has this communication and navigational disability. It could be a hybrid of two different filter-feeding species, forging a unique song and path that no whale has used before. A cryptozoologist has suggested that the 52-Hertz whale could even be lonelier than we realize, the last survivor of an unidentified species, plying the oceans in a doomed search for another of its kind, singing its broken song.
How can this be an ‘unknown species’ of Whale? Is it that the individual whale making this sound been not identified as a particular species, or it is a recently discovered individual of no classification.
Hi, Maureen. Researchers think they’ve got a pretty complete catalogue of typical whale vocalizations for known species, and this whale’s call matches none of them. Indeed, it’s because the call didn’t match anything in the record that drew attention to the whale. It must be that in all their years of tracking, they’ve not been able to sight the actual whale, so all they have to go by is the call, which is like no other.
Is it possible that the other whales cannot hear him? Can whales hear that frequency?
Hi, Marie–From what I’ve read, 52Hz is in the range of other baleen whales, but the call is different in not expanding to the lower end of the baleen range and also in its rhythm.
A slightly sad story but why on earth did the whale songs have to be speeded up? I would much prefer to have heard them as naturally-sounding as possible. As it stands, I still do not have any real idea of what a whale song sounds like. But thankyou for drawing my attention to it anyway. All the best.
You probably need some unique speakers that would be able to reproduce near-sub-sonic sounds to even reproduce the calls, then the question is whether your ears would even recognize the sound. 25 Hz is something you feel as a vibration on your chest more than a sound. Must be awesome to “hear” this underwater, though.
If they have not seen the whale making this sound how do they know it is a whale at all? Maybe it is something else…?
I can sing @ 52Hz…I’LL talk to him!!!
This has been driving me nuts for the past 40 minutes (when I first stumbled across the story online). Why has no one tried to FIND the lonely whale? Clearly it’s interesting, it’s all over the internet and they have know about this whale since 1992 at least! You would think that someone could get some funding (maybe from the Discovery Chanel or something) to go out and actually find the “lonely whale!” Has anyone tried? I really want to know more about this whale! I’m sure I’m not the only one!
Its probably better for the whale that it isn’t found, the Japs will only stick a harpoon in it!
[...] 52-Hertz song of world's lonliest whale | Biodiversity | EarthSky __________________ [...]
[...] Just heard about this 2004 story in the NY Times about a solitary whale, species unknown, who has been calling out to other whales for 12 years, but has never received a response. Its call is unlike any other species of whale, much higher at 52 Hertz, and scientists don’t know why. They first heard the sound in 1989, and have tracked it since 1992 — discovering that it has no family, no social group, no time spent at all with other whales. It’s been called “the loneliest whale.” [...]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1277841/Lost-Med-loneliest-whale-world.html
I’ve been reading up on the lonely whale story and it’s breaking my heart.
But I found a little article about a grey whale found off track in Israel… it would be great if that was the 52Hertz whale, but almost certainly isn’t.
I venture that
I do believe
There is another one of his kind
Out there
That hears the call
Of the 52 Hertz Whale
That hears his longing
Year after year
That hears his plaintive cries
Moon after full moon
And she cannot help but be moved
And she does want to sing back
But she just cannot
She just cannot
For she lays wounded in the waters
Lays deep and quiet
In a dark place on the ocean floor
And every time she is moved
By his lonely call
And feels those stirrings
Well up within her
When La Sirena comes
Calling onto her island
When his songs engulf
And surround her like the tide
When the tides tighten
And the waves of melody
Crash onto her island
When his skies enter her eyes
And the gulls cry out
When the sky is a blood orange
And the sun goes down hard
When the moon is kissing the water
And the water is kissing back
When Andromeda appears
Chained to the rocks
And the stars come out to play
It is then that she stirs,
For a moment,
And she wants to believe
She wants to believe
‘The Stars in the Sky
They Never Lie’
But she just cannot anymore
For she remembers a time
When she had sang out to him
When her heart had been strong
And she, too, was full of song
When they were breath to breath
And heat to heat
And she had picked up his heartbeat
Recognized him
And he had picked up her scent
And was amazed
Amazed
But thunderbolts came down
From Heaven
The judgment of the moon and stars
Ripped open the skies
And took out her heart…
And the earth faltered…
The seas turned red…
Tsunamis rose up…
And the ocean floor split in two
Hurling them apart
Forever
Apart
Forever
Into separate seas
And though they had been there
On that holy ground
On that stairway to heaven
When the world around them muted
And they were a country of just two
For a brief moment in time
It is only a killing field now
A scarred landscape
Full of minefields and loss
And since that day
When the planets stopped spinning
For a moment
And the stars lost their place
When the axis of the earth shifted
And the hard rains came
Fish swim through the hole
Where her heart once was
And the birds in her
Have stopped singing
That is why,
My lost friend,
That whale will never hear her songs for him
Never hear the rhythm of her heart
Never watch her sleep in peace
Never know that mystery
He has become a legend now
The 52 Hertz Whale
And people hear his sorrow
And want to help
But who can help really
For his salvation lays alone
And she no longer has a heart
So,
At least in this life,
His lot is to wander
From Paradise to Paradise
Lost,
Navigating the seas,
Scanning the horizon,
Calling and calling
As steady as the seasons
Watching the endless skies,
Measuring the many moons,
And marking the stars
As they cross themselves
Over and over
Until time immemorial
And her lot is to surrender
To a fate not of her own making
Laying ever so still
On the bottom of the sea
Coming up from time to time,
As whales do,
To see those same skies
That same moon
And those same stars,
Orion in love,
Chasing his lover,
Reflected in her skyward eyes
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
[...] feel like this sometimes? This entry was posted in Cool stuff. Bookmark the permalink. ← TRMRS- [...]
The poem was lovely. The story is touching. One gets used to accepting there is someone for someone. The image of a specie alone, one of a kind, is unsettling. We are dealing with twenty years, and more, for this critter. The water certainly is wide.
[...] http://earthsky.org/biodiversity/52-hertz-song-of-worlds-loneliest-whale I relation till vardagsproblemen, som någon sa. 0 Kommentarer Jan 09.12 / Allt och lite till [...]
[...] for another of its kind, singing its broken song.This article with more samples and links is from EarthSky.Share:FacebookTwitterRedditEmail This was written by The Janitor. Posted on Wednesday, January 11, [...]