All language subtitles for The.Loneliest.Whale.The.Search.For.52.2021.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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...I have that position.

Uh, we have
a good deployment.

Thirty-four degrees. 11.92.

One-twenty degrees. 35.15.

Okay.
The whale we're tracking down

is to the east of us.

We're gonna move two miles
in that direction

and we'll probably
put in a buoy over there.

In 1992,

a top secret program
of the US Navy

discovered a mysterious
sound in the Pacific

at a frequency
of 52 hertz.

A marine biologist named
Dr. William Watkins

surmised this sound
was coming

from a solitary whale,

broadcasting at a frequency

that no other whale
could understand.

It's been said that
this whale has spent

its entire life swimming
through the oceans,

calling out and never once
receiving a response.

No one has heard
from this whale

since the Navy
stopped listening

over ten years ago.

No one has ever
seen this whale.

No one knows if he's the
first of his kind or the last.

While many have
nicknamed this creature

the Loneliest Whale
in the World...

...there are those
that call him 52.

So it all started
with this article

about 52,
this lonely whale.

This whale with
this mysterious call

that just
couldn't communicate.

It couldn't be heard.

And I remember
having this reaction.

You know,
the hairs on my arm just stood up.

For some reason, this story,
it just spoke to me.

So I went online to search
for more information,

and as it turns out,

it wasn't just me.

A really sad story
from the animal kingdom.

Legend has it
that 52 has been

roaming the ocean
for decades

entirely alone.

52 Hertz
has been nicknamed...

The Loneliest
Whale in the World.

It was on
a different migratory path

from other whales.

How do we
know the whale is a he?

Only the males sing.

Is it a higher
or lower frequency?

Higher.

What is it
about this whale

that has really moved
so many people?

It's artists,
it's filmmakers,

it's scientists.

What do you think it says
about us as people?

His isolation from
the incredibly social world

of his fellow whales
speaks to so many right now.

...the loneliest
creature on Earth.

Absolutely,
how could it not be lonely?

52 had become
this global phenomenon.

This whale who embodied
the fascination

we all have
for these gentle giants.

You never forget your
first time seeing a whale.

For me, I was a kid
working on a sailing ship.

And the moment
I saw this whale

leap out of the water,

I felt like I was
in the presence

of something
greater than myself.

But this
mysterious fascination

has always been there.

We've always sought
the great whale,

whether to slaughter it,
or now to save it.

From Jonah,
who found redemption

in the belly of a whale,

to Captain Ahab, who found
the ultimate adversary

in his hunt for a whale.

These epic stories
are ingrained in our culture,

in our consciousness.

But what about this new
story of the lonely whale?

Why did so many connect
with this one creature?

Was it just this notion
of loneliness?

Hmm... I don't know.

All we know is
what he sounds like

and where he's
possibly going.

And is that
his signature

- over there on the wall?
- That's his signature.

Wow.

When we first detected 52
was back in '89.

He is just like
a regular blue or fin whale,

but the frequency he was,
you know,

vocalizing at was
at the 52 hertz level,

not, you know,
down around 20 hertz.

Now, we'd seen that signal
a couple times

and we dismissed it
as being another source.

So what did
you think it was

before you realized
it was a whale?

That I can't tell you.

So,
something classified?

Something mechanical,
that's it.

It was the beginnings

of the Cold War
in the 1950s.

The American Navy
was doing everything possible

to be one step ahead
of the Russians.

And they decided they wanted
to listen underwater

for what those Russian
submarines were up to.

So we developed
this secret array

of underwater microphones

to listen to all the
sounds in the ocean.

It was called
Sound Surveillance System.

"SOSUS."

This was a 24-hour job,
365 days of the year.

There is always
someone watching.

And they heard
all kinds of sounds.

It turned out most of them
came from whales.

In those early days,

we needed to understand
the difference

between the sound
of a submarine

and the voiceprint
of a whale.

Most of the knowledge we have
about "whale song"

is focused on
humpback whales.

But then we have
blue whales and fin whales.

They're infrasonic,

below the auditory threshold
of human beings.

Blue whales sing
a very soft simple melody,

but all around 100 hertz.

Just a few low phrases, like,
"Mmm. Mmm." That's it.

No more variety
or structure than that.

And here is the sound
of the fin whale.

One sound, "Mmm,"

then several minutes later,
again, "Mmm,"

and exactly the same amount
of time later, "Mmm."

It's an exact,
regular rhythm.

We have no idea how such
a whale could be so regular.

They sound
like a submarine.

So this is where people
like Bill Watkins

were asked by the Navy

to catalogue what it is
we're listening to.

The
Navy would have a question

about what they were hearing,

what they were calling noise.

And I was asked
to look at it.

And I think that it's the same
rationale that I have today,

is that if you're
going to be working

with underwater sound
in the ocean,

well, you oughta know
what's there.

It was Bill Watkins

who looked at
this one signature,

and he says,
"This looks biologic."

That's how we found it.
The 52 Hertz.

So, we were able
to track him for 12 years.

And how did the rest
of the community react to 52?

The rest
of the community, uh...

There's a lot of
skepticism in it.

Some people discredit it
as not being a whale.

You know, why is he vocalizing
at this frequency

and there's not another one
out there?

A lot of skepticism in that
as to what this was.

But, I think, to Bill Watkins,

it was something unknown,
something to explore.

He passed away in 2004.

So, we went forth
and published a paper on it.

We have never seen another
signature like that.

And, you know,

going through it,
I've looked all the time

just seeing if there's
another one, at all.

To see if, uh, you know...

Just to see
if he's not the only one.

And never seen
another one like it.

Did you guys ever
think about going out

to actually try
and visually locate him?

We'll say,
I thought about it,

but I know Bill didn't,

because he knew that, uh,

it was a needle
in a haystack.

For me, it was kind of,
like, a dream

to go out there
and search for him,

but also,
reality hitting in,

knowing that the odds
of that are very slim.

We haven't
looked for him since 2003.

And what if somebody
went and looked for him now?

Oh, my God,
that would be...

Wow, I mean,
couldn't even explain it,

how great that would be.

We have no idea what it is,
because we haven't seen it.

And once you do that,

you could solve
the mystery of the 52.

Bill Watkins
helped solve

some of the ocean's
greatest mysteries.

He was a man who knew
that what we can hear

is sometimes more powerful
than what we can see.

Yet, tragically, he left
this one work unfinished.

That of 52.

This whale that we knew
so little about.

And now 11 years later,
the myth has taken over.

You know, we call him "the
loneliest whale in the world,"

but was it really true?

We invented this legend,

because we didn't
have the truth.

But what if we could
set the record straight?

What if we can discover
whether this whale

was really an anomaly,
or even a new species?

No one has ever seen 52,
but what if we could?

What if this was a mystery
we could solve?

It's curiosity.
It's adventure.

And it's a crazy idea.

But this was a chance
to do something epic.

To find one whale
in an entire ocean.

To find 52.

Hey, Bruce,
my name is Josh Zeman.

I'm a filmmaker
and I wanted to talk to you

about mounting an expedition
to find the 52 Hertz Whale.

There's 3,600 square miles
in this square.

Three thousand miles
within one of these squares?

Yeah.
And the animals are moving

maybe 125 miles a day.

Yeah. I mean,
they're going somewhere.

I mean, Daniel and I
are used to looking

at the things
that are stereotypical.

We expected
a typical baleen whale

to be going south
for the winter,

and instead, if we look at all
the Joe George information,

it went up into
the Gulf of Alaska.

What does an expedition
like this look like,

in terms of details?

We need to justify
the science, time, and money

being spent on
this kind of a mission.

That's why we need
to have more assurance

that 52 Hertz is not only
still on schedule...

Mm-hmm.

...but just that
it even lives.

If we don't have that,
we're sort of shooting in the dark.

And I wouldn't say
we have much of a chance.

Maybe even as recently
as this year,

the animal's passed away.

While these large whales

live on average
60 to 70 years,

the only way to prove
52 is still alive

is to hear him calling out,

which means gaining access to
the classified SOSUS system.

Yet, after a year of
back and forth with the Navy,

they refused to participate...

...leading us
to Bob Dziak,

a government scientist
who uses the SOSUS

to study underwater volcanoes.

Bob and his team
have agreed to help.

It's like you're
in the mouth of the whale.

Yes.

Doesn't really sound like

we would think
a whale calls, right?

Whale calls
oftentimes are sped up

because they're below
our threshold of hearing.

Do you want to hear

this one sped up
ten times?

- Yeah.
- Okay.

- That's ten times.
- Wow.

If that isn't
a call for mama,

I don't know what is.

This is from 1993.

- That is 52 right there?
- Yeah.

It's so difficult
to actually figure that out.

That's the challenge.

- Yeah.
- Right there.

There's sort of an art
to listening to sound

in the sea and being able
to pick it apart.

Mechanical noise seems
to be just really consistent

and very, uh,
what we call stereotypical.

And so, biological sound,
sort of,

has an unevenness
to it, in a way.

But if there is a lot
of noise going around,

it can be hard to pull out.

- Mm-hmm.
- Yes.

So, one of the
issues is that this part here

looks to us like what a
52 hertz whale call could be,

but we're not
getting clean data.

There's other whale calls
going on,

and so, it's hard to find
the 52 Hertz Whale

in data that has lots of
other things going on in it.

It will give me a time when it
thinks it's actually found...

- False positives? Yeah.
- False positives.

And then
I actually have to go

and look at
each false positive.

How many
false positives?

Uh, on one phone,
I got 67,000 hits.

I'll be honest,
I was not going to go

trying to do the film until
I could prove 100 percent

- that 52 is still alive.
- Right.

- 'Cause it's been ten years...
- Right.

...since you last
listened to him.

Who knows what
can happen in ten years.

So what's your gut tell you?

Uh...

I don't think
we're gonna find it

in contemporary data,
to be honest.

What does that mean?

I'm not sure that that means
that it's not there.

I think it's...

I think you need to go
out and look for it.

If that's what
you really wanna do.

It's just one of those
things that's too hard to figure out.

Till now, no one's bothered
to delve deeper

into the mystery
of the 52 Hertz Whale.

The mere fact that a mystery
like this can still be around

just shows how wild and crazy
mysterious nature still is.

We're still coming up
with things we can't explain.

The ocean is the last
great universe of exploration.

It is the origin of life.

How do we explore the ocean?
How do we understand it?

There's that thrill.

The thrill of discovery.

The thrill of
the exploration itself.

The thrill of the journey.

To be a true explorer,

you have to be willing
to put yourself at risk.

And that has to be thrilling,

or you're not going
to succeed with that.

Almost every
project involving whales

has a little bit of
this aspect of Moby Dick.

This, kind of,
relentless obsession

that's going to go nowhere,
towards disaster.

Even contemplating whales
is to dare to,

you know, to reach
toward greatness.

To think about something
far more vast

than humans could ever be.

We should be going after
all great mysteries like this.

We're all chasing
something.

We all have
our own white whale.

And mine was 52.

This whale who refused
to stop calling,

who refused to stop
trying to connect.

I guess that's why
I couldn't let it go.

Not when there was still some
chance that he was out there.

So I would keep listening,

for however long it took.

Hello?

Hey, John,
this is Josh Zeman.

You left me
a message about

the 52 Hertz Whale
documentary.

Yeah,
thanks for calling me back.

So, we have a series
of recording sites

that are off
the West Coast.

Pretty coastal in close
to Southern California.

And so, you know,
having heard

about the 52 Hertz Whale
for a long time,

I was kind of interested
in going through

some of our recordings

and seeing
if we could locate

- the 52 Hertz Whale.
- Mm-hmm.

Well, so I just
wanted to let you know

that we found it.

Wait, wait, wait,
wait, when was this?

This is all recent.

The last
couple years or so.

In the Gulf of Alaska?

No, we found it

along the coast
here in California.

So, it's...
So, it's still alive?

Yup.
It's out there.

After more
than four years

of planning and preparation,

we launched our expedition in
search of the 52 Hertz Whale.

While we only
had enough support

for a seven-day mission,

we still had some of the best
scientists in the world

to help us.

My name is John Hildebrand.

I'm a professor at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography

at University of California,
San Diego.

I'm gonna be leading
the acoustics effort

on our search
for the 52 Hertz Whale.

What's in the box?

- Sonobuoys.
- Wow, they're heavy.

Yeah, the box
is about 1,000 pounds.

So, these will
basically listen

for the 52 hertz signal

and kind of tell you where

the direction of that...
where that is?

- Well, if you have two of 'em.
- Yeah.

From this one,
it has this direction

and this one
has this direction,

you can cross the bearings
and you know where it is.

- Triangulate instantly.
- Right.

And they used to use
these to look for submarines,

and now we're using it
to find a whale.

Yes. They've been retired
from the Navy,

and now we're using them
for working on whales.

So it's kind of a nice gift.

We want to find it,

one whale,
but it's a big ocean,

so if we're gonna find it,
we need help.

- Hello.
- Hello.

- Hey, Ana.
- Hi.

I'm John Calambokidis.
I'm a research biologist

and I've been
studying blue whales

for about 35 years.

Here we are.

I kind of recognized

it was a huge challenge
to do this.

I mean, I go out and try
to find blue whales

and there are 2,000 of 'em
on the West Coast,

and sometimes
that's a challenge.

Now we're talking about
finding maybe one.

But any scientist
would be captivated

by the opportunity
to solve that mystery.

So, John Hildebrand called me
six months ago and he said,

"I can't think of anyone
better than you

"that could do this.

"I could do the acoustics,

"you got all
the boat experience.

"We could do this together
and maybe learn a few things."

- ...around this area.
- Yeah.

And that's when I said,
"I'm in."

It's more
than just curiosity.

People assume that we know
more than we actually do.

There's the bit we can see,

whatever's happening
on the surface.

But then there's the 95
percent that we can't see.

There's just so much
we don't know.

In 2004, we came right
out here, off San Miguel,

and we encountered a big
group of blue and fin whales,

and in amongst them,
paired with a blue whale,

was this whale that looked
in between the two.

So we got a skin sample,

we had that
genetically analyzed.

Fifty-fifty hybrid between
blue and fin whales.

Could that have been
the 52 Hertz Whale?

It could have been.
It could have been that whale.

Wow. That's...

And at that time,
we weren't linking

any of that in any way.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

So,
talk to me about the back.

If it looks good,
I'll keep going.

- You're good, yeah.
- All right, here we go.

All right, guys, coming down.

That crane's
coin operated?

It is coin operated.

It has begun.

So we had,
just purely out of curiosity,

we assigned an intern

to look for what we're going
to refer to as Watkins' whale.

And there are four sites

where she can pick out
this unusual call.

At Hoke Seamount,
which is far offshore,

which is where Watkins
described it before.

- Mm-hmm.
- But she found it

at Point Conception,

she found it at Palos Verdes,

and she found it
off of La Jolla.

So, these are
relatively coastal.

But how come
we wouldn't

have known this before?

Well, it's just that
there's a new dimension,

beyond what Bill knew,

that the whale actually does
come in coastally. Right?

And here we are
in the Santa Barbara Channel,

and the whale is there.

We find, pretty consistently,

both at site C and site B,

that there are these calls
in October.

So, if we
have any chance

of finding this animal,
it's right now?

Yep, we're in the right time
and the right place.

Right.

So, where is it?

While 52 may be alone,
according to our scientists,

he wasn't as isolated
as the legend suggested.

Chances are he was following
other whales

migrating up and down
the West Coast.

And stopping
along Point Conception

to forage for food.

And it wasn't that
other whales couldn't hear 52,

they just couldn't understand
what he was saying,

leaving this whale
the perennial outsider.

Yet, it was also
the uniqueness of 52's call

that just may lead us
right to him.

So, if you want
to find the 52 Hertz Whale,

there are two parts to this.

First, we have
a bioacoustic team,

real-time listening
using the sonobuoys.

So when we hear
the 52 hertz sound,

we can say, "This is the spot
where that sound came from.

"Let's go over
and investigate."

Then we're going to have
to have a small boat

that approaches the animal.
That's John C.

He'll take their picture,

get a skin sample,
attach a tag.

So, that's the plan.

Bridge, do we have
a go-ahead to deploy?

Kind of, uh,
northeasterly course.

Okay,
I'm going to go deep.

Roger that.

You ready for this?

They say, uh, you know
you're doing oceanography

when what you have
is too heavy to lift,

and too expensive to lose,

and then you throw it
in the ocean anyways.

I first heard
about the 52 Hertz Whale

in an article
in The New York Times.

The idea that
there's a species of whale

making a sound that no one
has ever heard before.

It's an amazing tale
of craziness.

I've traveled around the world
making music,

trying to jam together
with whales.

'Cause I really believe
you can use music

to get in touch
with other species,

to communicate in a way
where language fails.

There he really
seems to respond to me,

and now he almost
matches my note.

Right there.

To play along with whale song,

the sense that humans
really can touch

upon something very mysterious
that we barely understand.

We're in awe
of what happens in the sea.

The idea that there's
a mystery noise underwater.

52 hertz. It's a sound

that's not like anything else
we know.

It's amazing and fascinating

to think that
even in this day,

we're listening
all over the ocean,

we're still hearing things
that we cannot explain.

When you look at the sea,

you're looking
at a vast mystery.

What we have to learn to do
is to listen.

Sound in the ocean
travels huge distances.

It is propagated much better

through water
than through air.

The sounds
of fin and blue whales

could travel
about 13,000 miles.

In fact,
if you were listening,

and you had a proper ear,
as whales do,

you would be able
to hear things

that are completely
across oceans.

Water is dense,

so sound travels
almost five times faster.

And the lower
the pitch of your voice,

the more efficiently
it travels.

Think of this,

the song of a whale,
the wavelength of that song,

stretches one football field.

A note, by the time
it's finished,

has traveled 30 miles,

so everything is expanded.

You have to take your mind
and just stretch it.

The whole ocean
is illuminated

by the sounds of the whale,

shining its flashlight around,

figuring out
what's all around it.

It just happens to be sound,
not light, that it's using.

This is
a long-range social network.

Humpback whales, for example,

they have notes,
they have phrases,

they have themes,
they have songs,

like a musical composition.

They're beautiful,

but it turns out
that these whales,

after about 10 minutes,

start repeating themselves.

The first thought
you have, of course, is,

"Oh, my gosh,
what do they mean?"

That's what
you want to know.

They have dialects.

A social mechanism
for identifying who they are.

When you watch and you listen
to these animals

communicating
or moving as a herd

over hundreds of...
thousands of square miles.

They move often
in a very coordinated fashion.

All mediated
through their voices.

These animals are in sync

with huge areas
of time and space.

We are just scratching
the surface

in terms of the complexity of
their communications system.

So you can imagine.

Here's this whale,
it makes a very strange sound

and if there's nothing
out there...

I mean, blue whales
are not going to respond

to this 52 hertz sound,

and fin whales
aren't going to respond,

so who does respond?

- ...first deployment.
- Roger that.

We'll give you
some feedback in a second.

So, we're looking

for an animal
that's really rare.

And we think
that the 52 Hertz,

it's a lot like a blue whale.

It's probably
not a blue whale,

but it's a lot like
a blue whale,

so if we go out and find
concentrations of blue whales,

that's a pretty good place
to start.

It's been
kind of a question

kicking around
among whale researchers

ever since first described
by Bill Watkins.

Was this some
new type of whale?

We didn't really know.

But I've been very interested
in the question of hybrids

between blue and fin whales.

So, the interesting question
has been,

"Could the 52 Hertz Whale

"be some hybrid
of the two species?"

I heard about 52 Hertz
from Watkins.

But he wasn't willing
to speculate much

on what the whale was.

I remember when I reviewed
the paper, I said,

"Well, you know,
you should describe,

"how is it similar
to blue whales,

"how is it similar
to fin whales,

"maybe it's some combination."

I was trying to get him
to push a little bit

on the theory
of "What is this?"

But he wouldn't go there.

I think
if we can tag this whale,

and photograph,
collect samples,

maybe we can
figure out an answer

to identify
the 52 Hertz Whale.

This is step one.

Outside of hearing 52,
our best chance of finding him

was to look
for concentrations of whales,

all feeding together.

Which meant tagging as many
fin whales, blue whales,

and even humpbacks
as possible,

in hopes one will lead us
to these large groups,

all feasting in these
nutrient-rich waters

where we might hear,
or even see 52 among them.

- You wanna tag five again?
- Uh, yeah.

Some of the tags
that we're talking about

have never been
deployed before.

We are miniaturizing
the cameras

that go on these
small instruments,

adding these high sampling
rate accelerometers

that can detect
if the call is coming

from the animal
it's attached to.

These are brand-new
pieces of technology

we're bringing to bear.

Yep, sounds good.

We're hearing them.

There you go.
That's a nice one.

It's a blue whale call.

Truth boat
preparing to launch drone.

Drone is in the air.

Okay, let's go.

There they are.

Not really totally sure
what this animal's doing.

It's been alternating,
seemingly holding

a little bit of a westerly
traveling course.

Uh, starting to get
just a little nervous.

Maybe we've lost this whale.

Maybe we should spread our
boats out a little bit more

to guard against
a change of direction.

We got a visual.

Downwind.

What's our range?

150 meters.

- Damn, that was so close.
- Yeah, that was really close.

Yeah.

Good ship's on its way.

What I'm able to do
is pull data

from the copter
while it's flying,

and it will tell you
the GPS location

as that
down to the second.

Timestamp...

Timewise, which is synced
with your GPS.

It is. Okay.

And can you
keep playing it ahead?

Because my recollection, too,
is he did a series of breaths.

Here we go.

I think this is the first time
that you guys have caught,

on a drone from the air,
a blue whale

in the act of calling
and known it.

You're usually not combining
these two mediums.

And we know they call
not right at the surface,

but slightly submerged.

So, this is
totally consistent

with the behavior
of them calling.

If 52 was with
other large groups of whales,

our drones could now help us
single him out from the crowd.

Yet, despite having
all this new technology,

we still hadn't heard
52's mysterious call.

A call that could be echoing
through the ocean depths

right at this very moment.

Just waiting to be heard.

So imagine
yourself in the 16th century

on a big sailing boat
crossing the ocean.

And you're in a bunk
below the water line

and your head
is on a wooden board

connected to the hull
of that ship.

You would hear
the voices of whales.

You would hear
singing humpbacks.

You would hear
the "click, click" clicking

of sperm whales.

And it was probably
a little terrifying,

because you had no idea

what it was
that you were listening to.

Those stories exist.

The siren song
of the ocean exists

from the earliest historical
musings of mankind.

And then suddenly,
we are immersed in a world

where we decided
to kill whales.

You know, whales were
important to human beings

in the 19th century,

when whale oil was lighting up

all of
the industrial revolution.

And whales used to be
the main source of oil.

For all lamps.
For all lubrication.

It was big business
killing whales.

And even as petroleum
was discovered,

we didn't really need
all of this whale oil,

but we kept on killing them.

The momentum was there.

We kept on killing,
kept on killing.

We're not
talking about the heroic guy

in the front of a boat
with a spear, no.

We're talking about

the floating factory vessels
with that stern slipway

that could draw
an entire whale up

into the body of the ship.

And not only are they using

explosive ordnance
in those harpoon darts...

Before it can sink,
they pierce the animal

with a hypodermic tube

that's attached
to an air compressor,

inflate the animal
so it's turned

into a kind of corpse buoy.

And it's not an assembly line,
it's a disassembly line

for the rendering
of corpse after corpse.

Those ships could process

dozens of animals
in a matter of hours.

By the 1960s,
almost all the large whales,

the blue whales,
the fin whales, the humpbacks,

almost all of them were gone.

And this all began to change

after a young biologist
named Roger Payne

started listening to the song
of the humpback whale.

The public knew nothing
about whales at the time.

I mean, scientists knew
that they made sounds.

...20 seconds time...

We'd heard, you know,
a few sounds from a few whales

and they were interesting
and, sort of, groovy.

But I was in Bermuda
listening for whales

and what we heard
was completely different.

It was an extremely
emotional experience.

I thought, "My God,
if that won't get the world

"interested in whales,
nothing will."

So, I had a close friend
who was making records.

And I said,
"How would you like to make

"a record of
humpback whales singing?"

And he said, "Sure!"

And it just
became amazingly popular.

Everyone had to have a copy.

It was
a multi-platinum record.

Bestselling nature
recording of all time.

And then
National Geographic said,

"We want
10 and a half million copies."

Which is the largest single
print order

in the history of
the recording industry.

The world realized...

...they sing,

and when you found out
that they sing,

everything changed.

The world changed
around them.

Whale song reads as
the presence of intelligence.

We'd met our inhuman others

that were nevertheless
a kind of mirror for us.

Everyone was touched by it.

It really had that effect.

Even the Partridge Family

had a whole episode
on saving the whales.

♪ Sing me a song
of times that you knew

♪ Through a sky that was clear
from the sea to the land

♪ Free from the fear
and destruction of man ♪

The peace
movement lives in America.

Of course, the time
we're talking about here

is the time of protests
and getting some interest

in trying to change some of
the problems in the world.

I mean, it was a perfect storm
of circumstances,

that's what you can say
about it.

I think the way to start
any movement

is you gotta fall in love
first with the species.

We were killing,
at the time I started,

about 33,000 whales a year.

And then a lot of other groups
took off, like Greenpeace.

Please
stop killing the whales.

Without them,
the oceans begin to die

and if the oceans
begin to die,

we all begin to die.

And we got it,
eventually,

down to 330 whales a year.

That's 1%.

You know, we probably
never would've saved whales

unless we heard them sing.

It made people care.

And when people care...

they can change the world.

Peace and love
was a very different age.

You listen
to what was the dialogue

that was going on then.

And it was much more
about all of us.

And now we're in a situation

where we've,
through one way or another,

consciously
isolated ourselves.

So if the promise
of the early '60s

was communication
with ourselves

in new ways
and with animals...

The lonely whale
may be saying, uh,

the... the...

the wire's been cut.

97, 8 hours, D3, DIFAR.

- Awesome.
- Yeah?

Let's do it.

Permission to
launch sonobuoy.

Yeah. Permission granted.

All right.

We're on
a mission of discovery.

We want to learn something,

an answer to a question

no one else knows
the answer to,

and this is an opportunity
to do that.

There you go. See it?

Boom.

It's like you can see
the glow coming up right now!

Yeah, you...

It's just kinda
sitting there,

they're kind of watching it.

They're basically
getting ready to push this.

If he were a singer,

there should be another one
showing up.

I mean,
he's not letting us down yet.

John, up right.

Boom.

That's some back!

My preference
would be to trail in a pair.

This may be
a really easy on!

Yeah,
he's not moving very fast.

Okay, getting ready.

Coming up!

Too far behind.

I thought
they were right in position.

Like, right up swell from him,
ready to go down.

I didn't
quite have a good read.

When you said, "Coming up,"
I thought, "Go,"

but I shouldn't have gone.

Another one up right here.

There's another one
just behind it, John.

There's another whale.
This is our pair.

Okay, we want trail.

Trail.

Looks like they're
gonna try and go for it?

Right there.
There he is.

They're going for it.
This is it.

John,
we're closing on him.

We're closing.

Coming up.

Boom.

Now we'll track the animal
for as long as we can

so that even if we
can't see the animal,

we can actually
get a good idea

of where it's at
and track it down.

Yeah, baby!

♪ Love will find... ♪

Music for 52.
52, lost love music.

♪ There was a whale
so sad and lonely

♪ Was out at sea
all on her only

♪ Because she sang
so baratonely

♪ Too low for other whales
to hear it

♪ So no other whales
came near it

♪ Still they sang out
full of spirit

♪ She sang

♪ "I'm
Doreen, the baleen whale

♪ "Who wouldn't mind
meeting a male

♪ "Who likes krill and swimmin'

♪ "And low-voiced whale women

♪ "My heart will find no love" ♪

It kinda hurts a little bit.

You feel for the whale.

I feel like
people can relate to it

in a way that you just hear
about this one whale

who's never
made any friends,

and I think that really,
really resonates with people.

They understand it.

Everybody feels
like an outsider

at some point
in their life.

I think that's why so
many people care about it.

About him.
Or Doreen, her, as in the song.

But really,
what's his name?

I guess
it's the 52 Hertz Whale?

Does he have a name?

The scientists
have called him "52."

52.

Huh, he doesn't even have
a real name, he has a number.

While many
had been inspired

by the notion
of a lonely whale,

where does the myth of
this story meet the science?

In other words,
could 52 even feel

that so-called human emotion?

Is this whale really lonely?

Whales, at least
from a biological perspective,

as much as we can tell,
have complex behaviors,

they have
a lot of parental care,

they have large brains.

So I think
this loneliness idea

is interesting
in that context.

On the other hand,

I really wouldn't want
to hazard a guess

of whether this creature's

actually emotionally lonely
or not.

Whales are social beings.

Period.

The fact that
nobody is responding to him

absolutely, without a doubt,
this whale is lonely,

and that's not being
anthropomorphic.

Yeah, remarkably, if you say
things often enough,

it turns into fact.

But we don't have
very much information

to make these
broad, general statements.

Any feeling that we have

that we call
"feeling lonely"

must be shared
with other animals.

The chances that we
invented these emotions

are basically somewhere
between zero and minus one.

We have a
good idea of what sentient is.

The sense of awareness,
the sense of self.

A sense of how yourself
can relate to others.

In human beings,

we discovered
this particular cell type

known as spindle cells.

These are cells
that have to do

with self-awareness
and emotions.

We found that these cells

did not exist
only in the human.

We found plenty of these
neurons in the large whales.

So whether another species
is sentient...

it is possible.

While we may
never know for sure

whether 52
has ever felt alone,

he was still a symbol
of connection for so many.

As he was for me.

Growing up,
I found my connections

in stories about the sea.

In quest to explore
these underwater worlds

and the mysterious creatures
that lived deep within it.

But now,
on this real-life expedition,

on this quest to find 52,

can I see the truth
behind this legend?

Only out here
on the open ocean,

have I come to realize

we're not just looking
for a lonely whale,

but for the most elusive
creature of them all.

Usually,
I'll do a lot of singing.

I talk to the whales
a little more

than if anyone is around.

I really enjoy
being out on the ocean,

I really enjoy the adventure,

but the excitement is over

trying to learn,
or see something

that no one's been able
to describe before.

It's kind of, like,
your claim to meaningfulness

and the sea of humanity
we have.

Looking for clues
as to where

whales may be congregating
in the area,

our scientists
attempt to locate a tag...

...that's dislodged

from one of the animals.

CALAMBOKIDIS I don't think
it can be terribly far,

because I got beeps
online on the whale.

Okay, if you've
got a good read on it,

Copy all. I just entered
those numbers,

so we're
7.6 off of those.

I think we're gonna have
a fair stab at it.

Yeah!

Still recording,
good stuff.

Tag number three
is back in possession.

Okay,
we're going to move again.

Okay, John.

So here's our position

indicated by
that blue boat.

And we're about to cross
the shipping lane

almost at a right angle.

And these green marks
are other vessels,

so he's getting
in pretty close company.

What kind of container
ship do you think that is?

That's
a car carrier going to LA,

filled with cars, likely
Taiwan, China, or Japan.

And unfortunate,
through chance,

this shipping lane
goes right along

one of the most common
areas for blue whales.

We've had
numerous ship strikes

of these animals
in Southern California

because there's so much
shipping traffic

that comes into that area.

We know from
some of our tags

that these whales
do very little response

to ships in terms of knowing
how to avoid them.

They'll make very little
lateral movement

away from
the track of a ship.

So, these huge ships
sometimes,

traveling at 25
or more knots,

it's clear they're not adapted
to deal with that threat.

The Santa Barbara
shipping lane

leads directly to the ports of
Los Angeles and Long Beach,

the busiest shipping hub
in the United States.

It accounts for close
to half of all goods

coming into this country.

90% of everything we consume,
everything we eat,

everything we wear,
everything we live in,

comes to us
from someplace else.

And it comes by sea.

This is chronic.

Always present,
there's noise.

That's what the ships do.

So, the container ship
will come along,

and it will absolutely
wipe us out.

'Cause it'll be
so much noise,

and you just...
There's nothing you can do.

You just wait
for the ship to go by.

You get mad,

you get grumpy.

There are other noises from
explosions to look for oil.

We set up sonar
to hunt for submarines.

But the most ubiquitous
are the ships.

The acoustic footprint
from a ship going 30 knots...

There are rings of energy
radiating out from that ship

that go for 200, 300 miles.

Sixty years ago,
ship noise didn't exist.

Today, when we think
of all the shipping traffic,

fifty thousand ships moving
over the surface of the ocean,

and we think
of a really big place,

such as the environment
off Southern California,

Seattle, Philadelphia,
Vancouver,

New York,
on and on and on.

The noise levels
are a thousand times,

ten thousand times greater

than they would be
under natural conditions.

So, imagine you're a whale.

Your eyes can only see
your tail, maybe 30 feet away.

Your ears are what you're
going to pay attention to.

You can hear the waves
of the shore to your left,

which indicate the coastline.

You can hear the voices
of other whales...

...from hundreds
of miles away.

And in the distance,

the noise
of ships approaching.

You can actually hear
the propellers churning.

And the noise rises
and rises and rises and rises.

This massive acoustic smog.

And then,
out of the distance...

...the sounds of
a seismic air gun array,

prospecting for oil and gas
beneath the seafloor.

It drowns out everything

you could possibly
be listening to.

Humans, naturally,
we are social beings.

We are intensely social beings,

and we do all kinds of things
in order to be social beings.

The greatest
joys one can feel

is actually in
the connectivity with life.

You know perfectly well
the difference between

being in a room
with your friends

and laughing and singing
and conversing

and knowing that you are
connected with each other.

As opposed to going to
dinner in a restaurant

and it's so noisy,
you can't hear anything.

We're depriving these animals
of their abilities

to maintain
their social systems.

What would it feel like

to have your whole world
drowned out,

unable to communicate?

By suffocating
these creatures with noise,

we were creating a whole ocean
of lonely whales.

It was a scourge we witnessed
every day on this expedition,

as it jeopardized our chances
of finding 52

and we were
running out of time.

We had only
one day left

and our best option
for locating

large groups of whales,

and possibly 52,

was the evidence retrieved
from one of our tags.

So here's our deployment
from yesterday.

Really good stuff.

You know, we were lucky
to even recover this tag,

because this animal
traveled to the west.

Basically, I think we made
assumptions that were wrong.

My main strategy
was to proceed to the east.

Now we know that 12,
13 miles to the west

are a bunch of whales.

There's actually
a beer in there.

One lonely beer.

Okay, plan for the day.

Uh, we can already see
white caps out here,

but we're still gonna go out
and try to head west.

So if we get
to this concentration,

obviously it's gonna be good
to have a sonobuoy out

and listen for 52.

Yeah, baby!

This is the spot.

Probably one of
the windiest stretches

in Southern California,

really hard to get to,

uh, and totally exposed
to the prevailing conditions.

Here we go.

Copy that. Go ahead.

34 degrees,

11.92, 120 degrees,

35.15.

Let's see. I don't see
anything just yet.

Stop boat! Stop boat,
stop boat, stop boat!

Whale up!

Okay, we're gonna
hang out around these guys

until we get
a couple good IDs.

Oh, my God.

These guys until
we get a couple good IDs.

Okay, we're here.

I've never seen
anything like this.

We've both been down in
this area for two years now

and we've had a hard time
finding blue whales at all.

And when we have, it's been

single individuals
or pairs usually.

We've never seen
an aggregation

- this big in this area.
- This one, this one. That one

Yeah, there's a lot
of animals out there,

I don't know if you guys
have looked outside.

Yeah, everywhere.

We're surrounded.

Yeah, it's a good day.

Whoa,
what was that?

What was that?
What was on its dorsal fin?

If you look out
the front...

- Oh, my God!
- ...it's just in front of us.

You see the footprint?

- See where the water is kind of smooth?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- That's right there.
- That's where they surface.

He's headed
to the left there.

That's amazing.

What'd he say, Dave?

He said,
"Yeah, hang tight."

If we have one
that's a potential hybrid,

like, hang tight,
let's go check that out.

- Is he gonna come over?
- He's coming over.

The second one...
The sensor isn't as deep.

- Channel...
- Right.

How come
there's nothing here?

We're just waiting
for the whales to speak to us.

There's nobody at the surface
right now.

This is really bad.

Really bad, bad, bad.

It's a
ship coming down the channel.

I mean,
if there is any opportunity

to come back here,

looking for the 52 Hertz Whale,

I would say this is our
highest priority area to work.

Between what we've observed
before and what we saw today,

makes it very intriguing
to work here.

We all fear risk.

The risk of believing
in something

that just may
not come true.

I truly believed
I was going to find 52...

And I won't say
it didn't matter,

because it did.

I was gonna be the one
to solve this mystery,

to find that answer.

But I was wrong.

Hey, Scott.
Is Bruce on as well?

- I am.
- Yes.

- In 2004,
- Mm-hm.

- we came right out here off San Miguel...
- Mm-hmm.

...and we encountered a big
group of blue and fin whales,

and in amongst them,
paired with a blue whale,

was this whale that looked
in between the two.

Hey, Bruce.
Remember we were saying

how hard it would be
to find this whale

and here we are,
like, four years later,

and we've, kind of, almost,

extremely close
to finding this whale.

Well, if you put together
Bruce's data that tells us

where the whale is
at a particular time,

with the underwater
sound data

from the site
that we've maintained,

you could make
some sort of correspondence

to say when the whale
was near the sensor,

what sort of song
did we hear?

When do you think
you'll be able to look

at the data
from this HARP?

It usually takes
a couple of weeks.

Before Thanksgiving
we should know.

It's an amazing
set of events.

Yeah. We couldn't have
planned it this way.

What are
the chances of this happening?

We now had
one last opportunity

to prove our expedition
hadn't been in vain.

To finish the work
Watkins had started.

And to prove
all these years of searching

have been worth it.

Every story
has an ending,

even if it wasn't the one
you expected.

So you're saying

that you know when the whale
went over this HARP?

That whale
that they tagged?

So we have a station

off of Point Conception,

and it's that station

where the tagged whale
from Bruce

passed right over the top
of our sensor.

He only had it tagged
for a few weeks

and we looked at those
time periods really carefully.

The times that Bruce's whale
swam over our instrument,

it was not singing.

Okay. You're sure?

The absence of
those calls doesn't mean that,

you know,
the whale wasn't there.

It just wasn't calling.

We had an opportunity.

But, you know,
all the stars did not align.

So, this was the bad news.

What do you mean?

We do have some good news.

We were looking at
the data from the other sites

and we saw
the 52 Hertz Whale calling.

This is off of Los Angeles.

Now, at the same time,
off of San Diego,

we have here,
similar image,

again, several minutes
of data,

and you see these
same little marks.

And this is within ten
minutes of each other

that we hear
the Watkins Whale

in two locations that
are about 90 miles apart.

These are completely
different sequences

- at the same time.
- At the same time.

It's a culture.

You could say whale
sounds are a language,

but they also have to listen
to each other and synchronize.

And so, who is the 52 Hertz
Whale synchronizing with?

It's not just one.

There's at least two.

Two 52 Hertz Whales.

There are two.

Probably more.

We might
never have known

there was more than
one 52 Hertz Whale

had we not heard
this one call out.

With a voice
that cut through the noise,

that demanded
to be heard.

A voice that reminded us

the ocean
is not a lonely place.

Our discovery
only proves

that Watkins was right
all along.

In the ocean,
what we can hear

is truly far more powerful
than what we can see.

And it resonates
with a mysterious beauty

that we are only just
beginning to understand.

The 52 Hertz
still is a mystery,

but I think it's important
to do things

where you don't know
what the answer's going to be,

because that's where
you really learn something.

You have billions of people

on this planet.

Where can you
carve out a unique,

meaningful role
for yourself

where you can kind of find
this thing out and share it.

It may take
a long time,

but we're going to find
this animal.

After years
of endless searching,

after years of calling out,

52 finally had his answer

and I had mine.

That's the... That's the
ultimate question, isn't it?

It's not about biology
and it's not about science.

It's about ourselves.

It's about our own ability
to communicate

and our own isolation.

It's a human experience,

a reflection
of who we are.

This whale
isn't lonely.

This story is about
all of us.

To some,
this whale was a hybrid.

To others,
he was an outsider,

or even a legend.

Yet, in our search,
we found a new story,

not just one of connection,
but more so interconnection.

We used
to call this creature

"the loneliest whale
in the world,"

but after today,

he's better
known as 52.

And if you ever want
to find him,

all you have to do
is listen.

I have
at least 20 blue whales

feeding in this area.

Animals present
in all directions around us.

Mother and calf
blue whale.

Can't tell if that's
him yet or not.

Yeah,
I don't know.

Pretty light colored,

I don't think
that's him.

Oh, maybe.

Any visual underwater?

- Definitely him.
- That's him.

That's our hybrid
surfacing right there.

That's our blue-fin hybrid
in the foreground.

That's him.

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