NHacker Next
  • new
  • past
  • show
  • ask
  • show
  • jobs
  • submit
The Cold War's Accidental Whale Observatory (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
sm001 2 hours ago [-]
The author included, near the end, a paragraph about me and my best friend the sonar operator who taught me a lot of what I know about cetacean communication in the 1970s. He was hunting soviet subs in 1962 and he saved us from a nuclear war during the October Missile Crisis because he had detected a sub that the Russians were thinking was not detectable. My friend had also conducted experimental acoustic interactions with cetaceans at sea.
dmos62 2 hours ago [-]
Thanks for sharing. So much yet to learn about this topic.
lukan 1 hours ago [-]
"he saved us from a nuclear war during the October Missile Crisis because he had detected a sub that the Russians were thinking was not detectable"

How did this prevent nuclear war? Why would the soviets otherwise have launched a first strike?

conartist6 1 hours ago [-]
I think his friend may have been known as "seaman Beaumont" https://clip.cafe/the-hunt-red-october-1990/seaman-beaumont/
lukan 35 minutes ago [-]
Erm, are we talking about a hollywood movie or reality?

And to my knowledge, the october missile crisis has nothing to do with that movie, except submarines are the topic.

dfc 2 hours ago [-]
If this article is interesting to you I highly recommend War of the Whales. It is an interesting look at Cold war science+politics and the environment. A decent part of the book is about SOSUS.

https://warofthewhales.com/

sm001 2 hours ago [-]
thanks
2OEH8eoCRo0 24 minutes ago [-]
My father was stationed in Keflavik guarding SOSUS and watching for Spetsnaz infiltration.
xg15 3 hours ago [-]
> the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), a complex array of hydrophones fixed on the ocean floor and connected by cables to secret listening stations set up along coasts all over the world.

One for the conspiracy theorists...

lb1lf 42 minutes ago [-]
Secret-ish.

One of the links terminated in a seeming boathouse at Andøya in Norway.

It was a landmark. As in, if you were going fishing with a colleague and asked him which boathouse we'd embark from, he was as likely as not to say 'Three boathouses down from the hush one!'

wbl 1 hours ago [-]
Look up the local names for Tongue of the Ocean and you'll have even more gist for that mill.
hagbard_c 2 hours ago [-]
No conspiracy needed, SOSUS was a known fact, the Soviet Union made attempts to find and disable the hydrophones, Tom Clancy wrote many a novel in which SOSUS was mentioned or played a role, etc. It was the ocean equivalent of the Key Hole satellites, used to monitor the movements of Soviet 'boomers' - nuclear missile subs.
Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact
Rendered at 15:05:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.