minstrel: Sirens' songs

[Edwin Hewitt]

WHAT SONGS THE SIRENS SANG
from "Science News," 1979 by Science Service, Inc.

"Eerie melodies lured mythic mariners to shipwreck on the rocks.  
The whale song is the fact behind that legend, Roger Payne and 
Sylvia Earle believe, accepting evidence that whales formerly 
inhabited the Mediterranean.  The researchers explain that the 
wooden hull of a boat, as the Greeks must have used, broadcasts 
underwater sounds.  To a person in the boat, the song can't be 
localized; it seems to come from all around.  Even being familiar 
with whale songs, the researchers admit being frightened and awed 
by hearing them within a boat.  'You actually feel the song, it 
is so intense,' Payne says."

I found this intriguing, so I thought I'd pass it on.

Edwin.
Full-time idealist, part-time realist.


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