Capital One Bank Guy (5:36)

Banking with capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks. Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC Adobe.

Capital One Advertiser (6:06)

Acrobat Studio so brand new. Show me all the things PDFs can do. Do your work with ease and speed. PDF Spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant with key insights from an AI assistant to contemplate with. Click now. Your prezo looks super slick. Close that deal. Yeah, you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done. Now you can do that do that with Acrobat. Now you can do that do that with the all new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the allnew Adobe Acrobat Studio.

Erin Menke (6:43)

It's 1989, and the US and the Soviet Union are in the midst of the Cold War. As the war escalates and both sides start deploying more and more nuclear submarines to keep tabs on one another, the United States looks for any advantage it can get in the deep seas. The nation uses a variety of listening devices throughout the Atlantic and Pacific to monitor for Russian submarines. There are listening posts and ships that tow their own listening devices and hydrophones deep at the bottom of the ocean. Through a combination of these technologies, US Forces detect a strange signal off the Pacific coast. It's at 52 hertz, the low end of human hearing. It almost sounds like whining, a low, continuous cry for help, like a giant puppy crying. It doesn't sound like any submarine they have ever heard before. A few years later, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the sound is finally declassified and taken to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutes in Massachusetts. Marine scientist Bill Watkins studies the sound and comes to one conclusion. It's a whale. At the time, this didn't make sense to scientists because whales communicate at frequencies even lower than 52 hertz, which meant that this whale, whatever it was, was talking to itself in a unique language. This was even sadder when considering that its call was only detected during whale mating season from December to March. So it was a whale speaking its own language, trying to find a mate and getting no response. And scientists continue to detect it year after year. They were never able to actually lay eyes on it. And this isn't surprising, as its potential territory is massive, covering hundreds of miles of ocean and significant depths, military submarines can go about 1500 meters down, while some whales have been recorded at 3,000 meters. But all that to say the ocean is big and actually finding this whale would be like finding a needle in a haystack. But its legend has only grown over the years as news stories about the whale permeated the media. It came to be known as 52 Blue. It inspired several popular songs with people relating to its loneliness and its persistence in looking for a mate. And while a few of those songs have been mildly popular, the most recent is the 2015 BTS song Waylian 52. In it, the Korean boy band sings about how being mega celebrities isolates them like the whale, leaving them all alone in the dark, where they can't truly connect with anyone. Ultimately, though, I think I feel more sorry for the whale. But recent scientific developments suggest that we might all be projecting way too much onto 52 blue. Researchers have pointed out that just because other whales don't speak the same language doesn't mean they aren't hearing it. They hear everything in their territory. And it's possible that the other whales are able to communicate back to Blu in other ways. It's even possible he has a mate who just doesn't answer back at 52 hertz. And yes, scientists do know that Blue is a he, based on his vocal register. And further analysis of his call has revealed something else his potential species. It seems likely that Blue is actually what's called a finblue hybrid, or a mix between a blue whale and a fin whale. Blue whales are the longest whales, and fin whales are the fastest and second longest. So 52 blue might be quite large and quite dynamic in the water. This also might explain his unique call. These hybrids are becoming better documented, and it's possible that Blue was just ahead of his time. In fact, there was a shocking development in 2010 that gave all 52 Blue fans hope. Scientists detected the 52 Hz signal at 2 very different places in the Pacific Ocean at roughly the same time. This means that there is potentially more than one 52 Hz whale. We just haven't heard them at the same time as often as we have thought. But sadly, there haven't been any double recordings ever since. Overall, it doesn't hurt to be curious about this unique creature and where it comes from. But ascribing human emotions and conditions to it isn't a great idea. We have no clue what a whale's internal life is like or what 52 Blue's actual family situation is deep beneath the ocean. Curious fans of the whale might claim to be worried about his loneliness, but often in their search for him, they reveal that they are a little bit lonely as well. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting curiositiespodcast.com the show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series and television show and you can learn all about it over@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious.

Capital One Bank Guy (11:45)

Foreign banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC this is an iHeart podcast.

Capital One Advertiser (12:21)

Guaranteed Human.