In the 1950s, US Navy submarines heard a strange underwater noise near Hawaii and southern California. A coiled chirping sound that sprang to a rapid crescendo, and then fell just as quickly. No one knew what it was. The sound became known as a “boing.” Scientists later guessed it was a whale, but it wasn’t until nearly half a century later, in the winter of 2002, when a boatload of researchers in the Hawaiian Islands finally heard a boing and spotted a whale at the same time. The boing remained a mystery for so long in part because its source is one of the smallest of the whales, one that doesn’t make a big spout and doesn’t surface for long: a minke whale.
