North-Pacific "Boing" Attributed to Minke Whales

Human singers send their voice into the supporting medium of air. Whales send their songs into ocean water. One particular song, a sort of fluttering echo, or "boing," sound first heard by human listeners in the North Pacific Ocean in the 1950s (and recorded by US Navy submarines) baffled scientists. Where was it coming from? Only now have the sounds been identified as coming from minke whales.

Shannon Rankin and Jay Barlow, scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Jolla, California, have gathered hydrophone data in the body of ocean between Mexico and Hawaii and combined this with visual sightings of the marine mammals. Not only has the source been traced to minke whales, but the songs seem to be somewhat different on either side of a certain longitude.

To the east, the boing sound is issued at a frequency of about 92 Hz and an average duration of 3.6 seconds. The west boing, by contrast, consists of a 135-Hz vocalization with a duration of about 2.6 seconds. The acoustic trace is both frequency modulated (FM) and amplitude modulated (AM).

Rankin and Barlow, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, November 2005
Numerous whale sounds, including the boing, can be accessed on this NOAA Web page