(The world in which it whispers)

The Scripps Institution is seeking permission to transmit acoustic signals across the ocean whose purpose is to measure the ocean temperature and to determine the nature of global warming, climate change and weather modification. An extensive program to determine the effect of these transmissions on marine mammals has been instituted. Passive arrays and other means to observe the marine mammal reactions have been proposed.

Members of the International Institute for the Advancement of Humans as Marine Mammals will be curious as to what the whales are hearing and will desire to learn what they must do so that they too can hear the ATOC signals and participate in the joy or anguish induced by these pressure waves.

As a service to this unique community of humans, Common Heritage Corp. provides the following advice, instruction and training to optimize the ability of humans to hear this signal as the whales hear the signal.

It will, of course, be necessary for the humans to be in the water. Scuba will be most inappropriate because of the noise made in breathing and because of the interference of the apparatus with the received signal. Snorkeling and skin diving while breath holding seems to be the only alternative. This limits the depth that humans can go to about 100 feet (or after extensive training to about 150 feet). Besides competing noises, there exists the problems associated with differences in auditory response between marine mammals and HAMM's (humans as marine mammals). Directionality is a big problem since the velocity of sound in water is about five times that of the velocity in air. Most people (including many scientists) do not realize that directionality comes from the reflection from the ear lobe and not from the difference in arrival time between the ears. The difference in time of arrival must be of the order of the synapse time and this requires a wave length in air of a few centimeters. Also the brain gates the arrival signal such that acoustic reflections from other nearby sources are suppressed, leaving a sharp directional response in the direction of the loudest source. It must be presumed that marine mammals have a similar mechanism adapted for water. HAMM's can compensate as demonstrated by the Navy through the use of artificial pinnas (ear lobes) which are five times as large as the human ear. However a large pinna will probably cause the mammal (human or marine) to focus on high frequency sounds and thus mask the ATOC signal. HAMM's are therefore advised to eschew any attempt to enlarge the pinna that they might better hear the low frequency sounds of ATOC.

To optimize the possibility of hearing the signal the HAMM's ought to snorkel right over the ATOC sound source. This will require a swimmer support vessel as the source is located well offshore and at depth. Unfortunately by the time the acoustic source has reached the surface it will have attenuated to 120 dB barely audible to the HAMM's (see environmental impact statement). In addition the support vessel will probably mask the sounds unless extreme and hazardous (loss of control) attempts are made to quiet the vessel. It is therefore recommended that the HAMM's swim from shore beyond the reef to the maximum safe limit of his endurance. (CHC is extremely reluctant to suggest more than one mile for fear of liability suits).

ALAS WE NOW COME TO THE MAJOR PROBLEM ASSOCIATED WITH SIGNAL DETECTION. HOW THE HELL CAN ANY MAMMAL DETECT IT? The ATOC signal is transmitted for reception by pulse compression. To detect the signal without prior knowledge of the code will require a superhuman intelligence - indeed it is difficult to postulate how this might be done. It has probably been tried without success by the Defense Intelligence Agency (the worlds most intelligent agency), the now defunct KGB ( a very intelligent agency) and by the CIA (an agency with an oxymoronic title). Thus the HAMM's and the whale must have a super intelligence. It is known that both can learn from a single successful trial and we must presume (or else there is no whale interference problem) that the whales will learn how to detect the ATOC signal after many an unsuccessful trial, and one successful trial.

We must therefore find a way to train HAMM's in pulse compression signal detection. Let us start with a simple simulation problem.

Imagine that we find a poem which when read aloud sounds like the sound of the sea. Let us imbed in the poem one or more messages which can only be recovered by a form of pulse compression. Let us assume that the poem when read aloud can be frequency shifted, replicated in the form of Fourier transforms, and then transmitted through the ocean. Let us assume that the receiver can do the inverse transform and then (with an acoustic OCR) replicate a noisy version of the poem. We then ask you, the trainee to attempt to find the message in the poem without access to the code. When you are able to do this you are probably able to detect the ATOC signal in the manner which it is presumed the whales will be able to detect.

Not every HAMM's trainee will have the same success probability. HAMM's who know that whales are superior creatures and regard humans as beyond redemption must be presumed to have a super intelligence. HAMM's who regard whales as creatures needing protection and who regard global warming as a problem which must be resolved, can be presumed to have normal intelligence. HAMM's who care naught about marine mammals and whose only concern for the environment is global warming are tautologically oxymoronic creatures. Thus three separate messages will be imbedded in the onomatopoeic sea poem.

D O V q R B E A C H T h e s e w i s c a l m t o n e g h t T h e t i r e i s f u l l t h e m o t n l i e s f a i r y p o n t h e s t r y i t s o n t h u F r e n c h c o a s t t i e l i g h t i l e a m s a n d i s g o o e t h e c l i f f s o f E n p l a n d s t a n d a l i m m e r s n g a n d v a s t o u t i n t d e t r a n q u i f b a y C o m g t o t h h w i n d o w s w e e j i s t h e n i g h t a i k O n l y f r o m l h e l o n l l i n e o f s p r a y W h e r z t h e s e a m e e t x t h e m o o n b l a n c h e d l a n d L i s t e v y o u h e a r t b e g r a t i n n r o a r O f m e b b l e s n h i c h t b e w a v v s d r a w b c c k a n x f l i n g A t t h z i r r e t u r n u a t h e h i g h s s r a n d B e g i n d n d c e a s e f n d t h e n a g g i n b e g i h W i t h t j e m u l o k s c a d e n l e s l o w a p d b r i n g T h o e t e r n a l i o t e o f s u d n e s s i n S y p h o c l e t l o n g a g o H e r r d i t o e t h e w e g e a n a q d i t a r o u g h t I n t s h i s m i n d t h e t u r b f d e b b a n g f l o w O h h u m a n m i j e r y w e F i n k a l s o i n l h e s o u n d a m h o u n h t H e a r i n b i t b y t h i s d i s v a n t n o r c t h e r x s e a T h e S e a z f F a i t h W a s o n c e t o o a e t h e f u l l f n d r o u n d e a b t h s s h o r j L a y l i o e t h e f o l y s o f a b r j g h t g i r d l e e u r l e d B u t n o w I f n l y h e a r I t s m g l a n c h o l s l o n g w i t h d r b w i n g r o a r R q t r e a t i n g m o t h e b r e a w h O f t h e n i g c t w i n d d o s n t h e v a s t e n g e s d r w a r A n d n v k e d s h i n g b e s o f t h e w o y l d A h l o v e l n t u s b e t r u e d o o n e a n o t h e g f o r t h e w o r l d w c i c h s e e m s T g l i e b e f o r e u s l i k e a l a n d h f d r e a m s S o v a r c o u s s o b e a u t i r u l s o n e w H a d h r e a l l y n e i t h n r j o y n o r l o v e w o r l i g h t N o r c e r t m t u d e n o r p e a c e e o r h e l p f o r p a f n A n d w e a r e h e r j a s o n a d a r k l l n g p l a i n S w q p t w i t h c o n f h s e d a l a r m s d f s t r u g g l f a n d f l i g h t W j e r e i g n o r a n t a e m i e s c l a s h d y n i g h t

If after many trials you are frustrated in the decoding of the imbedded message, whale loving HAMM's may receive instructions as to how to find their message through electronic mail from craven@aloha.com . Whale loving global environmentalistic HAMM's can receive instructions through electronic mail from craven@uhunix.hawaii.edu . Oxymoronic HAMM's can be furnished by an electronic message to jcraven@ .mci . But CHC now tells them that their message is Auwe. This is a Hawaiian term for disgust. It will appear in the decoded pulse compression form as aaauuuwwweee except as modified by noise.