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.

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dfc 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I never heard anyone say "October Missile Crisis." Did you grow up in Cuba or a Cuban American community?

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dmos62 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks for sharing. So much yet to learn about this topic.

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lukan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"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?

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conartist6 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I think his friend may have been known as "seaman Beaumont" https://clip.cafe/the-hunt-red-october-1990/seaman-beaumont/

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lukan 2 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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conartist6 an hour ago | parent [-]

I have no idea. The more I hear the more I think the movie was referencing more real happenings than I had understood. Very early in the movie Seaman Jones (the golden ear) and rookie Beaumont are at the sonar station and Jones pulls a little training stunt. He chides the Beaumont: "like Beethoven on the computer, you have labored to produce... a biologic. ... ... A whale, Beaumont, a whale, a marine mammal that knows a hell of a lot more about sonar than you do."

	▲	lukan an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I read the book. And there were certainly real references to submarine hunting. But the reference to preventing WW3 by finding a enemy sub is still lost on me.