An American submarine desperately needs to get in contact with other ships in the U.S. Navy, but Soviet anti-submarine aircraft and warships are on th

The U.S. Navy Tried to Turn Whale Songs Into Secret Code

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2021-06-30 03:00:12

An American submarine desperately needs to get in contact with other ships in the U.S. Navy, but Soviet anti-submarine aircraft and warships are on the hunt, listening for any clues as to its whereabouts. During the search, the sonar operators hear a pod of whales singing to each other and don’t give it another thought. However, what they just heard was actually the sub using a secret, covert communication system that mimics sea mammal noises.

This wasn’t a scene from a spy novel or blockbuster Cold War submarine thriller—it was how the U.S. Navy once envisioned real life undersea operations. In 1959, the Navy Electronics Laboratory got to work on the concept as part of Project Combo. The work centered on the understanding that, under the right conditions, certain marine mammal sounds and the vibrations they generated might travel over very long distances underwater. More importantly, they'd appear so common as to go unnoticed by the enemy.

“Marine animal sounds are common and prominent components of the natural underwater sonic environment,” engineers at the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC) explained in a report more than two decades later. “Military communications based on natural animal sounds confound detection by even informed enemy surveillance because the messages are but a small portion of the total biological chorus.”