When researchers discovered a whale song on a forgotten, decades-old piece of audio equipment, they didn’t just get an insight into the life of a once beloved marine mammal, they also got a time capsule of the ocean soundscape in the late 1940s. 

The song is from a humpback whale, beloved by whale watchers for its docile nature and spectacular leaps from the water. In March 1949, it was recorded by scientists in Bermuda.

The team, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts, who discovered the old recording said the ocean of the late 1940s was much quieter than the ocean of today, providing a very different backdrop than scientists are used to hearing for whale song.

Despite scientific estimations, these soundscapes are difficult to reconstruct. So, this recording provides a new understanding of life in the ocean for marine animals of the past. 

Importantly, this preserved recording can also help scientists better understand how new human-made sounds, such as increased shipping noise, affect the way whales communicate, Peter Tyack, a marine bioacoustician and emeritus research scholar at Woods Hole said.

For instance, research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that whales change their calling behaviour depending on their acoustic environments.

The recording predates Roger Payne’s discovery of whale song by nearly 20 years. Woods Hole scientists on a research vessel at the time were testing sonar systems and performing acoustic experiments along with the US office of naval research when they captured the sound, said Ashley Jester, director of research data and library services at Woods Hole.

By 1949, the US Navy was deep into a postwar push to refine underwater detection technology having proved its worth against German U-boats during the war, and Bermuda was emerging as a key location for acoustic research. The capture of this whale’s song was, in effect, a happy accident borne out of the tension-fraught Cold War era.

The scientists didn’t know what they were hearing, but they decided to record and save the sounds anyway, Jester added.

Woods Hole scientists discovered the song while digitising old audio recordings last year. The recording was on a well-preserved disc created by a Gray Audograph, a kind of dictation machine used in the 1940s. 

Whales’ ability to make sound – in the form of clicks, whistles and calls – enables them to socialise and communicate. 

Humpback whales are the ocean’s most renowned singers, capable of complex vocalisations that can sound ethereal or even mournful. Studies have shown that these whales develop and tune their song making ability over time, with the most accomplished being the older whales.

This discovery of long-lost whale song from a quieter ocean could be the starting point to better understanding the sounds the animals make today, said Hansen Johnson, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

“And, you know, it’s just beautiful to listen to and has really inspired a lot of people to be curious about the ocean, and care about ocean life in general,” said Johnson, who was not involved in the research.

“It’s pretty special,” he added.

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