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Submarine crews heard a mysterious quacking in Antarctic waters for 50 years before anyone figured out what it was

Ellsworth Toohey
Jun 29, 2026
∙ Paid

bio-duck Antarctic minke whale mystery sound solved — Mdf / CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikipedia)

Since at least 1960, submarine personnel in Antarctic waters had been hearing a mechanical, repetitive quacking — pulses between 60 and 100 Hz arriving every 1.6 to 3.1 seconds. They named it the bio-duck. Acoustic researchers called it “one of the largest still unre…

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