Strange Russian Story on Wikipedia - Quackers

[Graham1973]

While searching Wikipedia to see if an over-the-top active sonar system I'd seen in a novel ('Typhoon' by Robin White) had any basis in reality, I stumbled across an article that reminds me of the 'sea stories' Clive Cussler used in 'Pacific Vortex'.

Supposedly Soviet/Russian subs in the North Atlantic/Arctic were tailed by mysterious noise sources called 'quackers' throughout the 60's, 70's & 80's.

The cause was never identified.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quacker_(sound)

 

[Gridlock]

Angry ducks.


Quackers is a good term for that Wikipedia article, which as ever reads like some sort of horrible prose-based battle between 3 under informed editors with their own pet biases ("you can't prove it wasn't aliens!")


My favourite bit is the sentence explaining that the US isn't rich enough to develop technology designed to make a quacking noise in the Barents sea.

 

[Michel Van]

i think if this article is true (see Wikipedia information about manned V2 flight end of WW2 to japan )

it could be the USN or CIA who tested how to confuse the Soviet Submarine fleet
on Hist[eria]ory channel told the story of Operation Ping in 1986/89
were USN hunter subs drive cole behind ALL soviet missile-subs and send Loud sonar
PING
and chuffed as the hysteria soar up in the hierarchy of Sovjet navy...
if Operation Ping is true i don't know

my guess on the Quackers is that the Sovjets sub hunted there own distorted sonar echo/noise.
the polar sea is complex with layers of water with different Temperature or saline solutions
were sonar and noise is reflected

 

[flateric]

there was a number of documentaries on top of UFO (that time UUO) hysteria, and there - in regards to 'quackers' - were a number of interviews with retired Navy intelligence officers who admitted that phenomenon did exist and was a serious headache for Navy commanders. Initially they thought of this as of unusual activity of SOSUS or it's derivatives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPK7j4CSVPY

 

[Gridlock]

You could have a whale (groan) of a time in the GIUK gap with a robotic deep sea grabber, picking up all sorts of lovely cold war era tech I'd imagine. It must be like a damp Fylingdales down there.

 

[Orionblamblam]

A fun way for the US Navy to mess with the Soviet Navy would be to follow their boomers with small, stealthy attack subs that actually and intentionally "quack."

On the other hand...

 

[sublight]

Lets say it was the Navy (which is the least crazy explanation). Why are they sitting on this instead of declassifying? Its kind of infuriating that so many urban legends could be put to rest but I guess the DoD thinks its more fun to let them ride...

 

[Michel Van]

the NOAA the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array, recorded unexplained sounds in last years

The Bloop, one of loudest sound recorded in Pacific by the entire hydrophone array
Julia, also extrem loud sound recorded throughout the Pacific
Slow Down, recorded throughout the Pacific, it could be some kind of friction between Ice an sea-flour
The Train, recorded throughout the Pacific
Upsweep, recorded throughout the Pacific, it came from volcanic seismicity area in pacific
The Whistle, only one hydrophone recorded it.
source
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/specs_mystery.html

by the way NOAA recorded NO Quackers

A fun way for the US Navy to mess with the Soviet Navy would be to follow their boomers with small, stealthy attack subs that actually and intentionally "quack."

don't need that, just lower a underwater loudspeaker from a USN ship, let Daffy Duck on mike and have fun with Soviet Navy, who get frustrated trying to find it origin...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im29S6ZWRDI

 

[Orionblamblam]

Lets say it was the Navy (which is the least crazy explanation). Why are they sitting on this instead of declassifying?

Because, *IF* it's true, it remains a cheap and potentially effective way to screw with the opposition. As the SDI program (and very likely some aspect of the Flying Saucer craze) showed, you can do substantial damage to the enemy by just confusing the hell out of them, and makign them spend time, energy, resources, money, talent and potentially lives in a fruitless search for something that ain't there.

Additionally: some such programs are not big. The "quack," *IF* true, might have involved little more than a handful of techs, a few submariners, and a few higher ups. Hell, it could potentially have been little more than a few techs on a sub screwing around (hopefully with the approval of the sub's captain...). In these cases, it might not be declassified because it was never classified in the first place... there might well be *no* records to classify or declassify. The Cold War had its share of incidents that were little more than a couple soldiers screwing around.

In which case, once these fellers are all dead... if they left no hard records, it'll *never* be solved.

 

[sublight]

Lets say it was the Navy (which is the least crazy explanation). Why are they sitting on this instead of declassifying?

Because, *IF* it's true, it remains a cheap and potentially effective way to screw with the opposition. As the SDI program (and very likely some aspect of the Flying Saucer craze) showed, you can do substantial damage to the enemy by just confusing the hell out of them, and makign them spend time, energy, resources, money, talent and potentially lives in a fruitless search for something that ain't there.

Additionally: some such programs are not big. The "quack," *IF* true, might have involved little more than a handful of techs, a few submariners, and a few higher ups. Hell, it could potentially have been little more than a few techs on a sub screwing around (hopefully with the approval of the sub's captain...). In these cases, it might not be declassified because it was never classified in the first place... there might well be *no* records to classify or declassify. The Cold War had its share of incidents that were little more than a couple soldiers screwing around.

In which case, once these fellers are all dead... if they left no hard records, it'll *never* be solved.

But what about all the guys in the SOSUS food chain? They may not know the details of the responsible parties, but I'm sure they would be able to confirm the existence of the anomaly and whether or not their superiors indicated we were implicated as its source.

 

[Orionblamblam]

But what about all the guys in the SOSUS food chain? They may not know the details of the responsible parties, but I'm sure they would be able to confirm the existence of the anomaly and whether or not their superiors indicated we were implicated as its source.

Again, purely hypothetically: if the crew of a US attack sub decided to make their sub go "quack," I'm sure the US Navy would have heard it. But that may well be *all* that the US Navy knows of it. Let's say that the sonar techs on the San Angeles class attack sub USS Montana got likkered up one night and modified their sub to go "quack" instead of "ping"... and *didn't* clue the Captain in. Tehre would ahv ebeen some substantial unpleasantness onboard, but depending on the individuals involved it need not have made it into the official reports.

Purely hypothetical. If the quacking went on for more than a day or two, it would not likely have been just some techs screwing around, but instead would have been a larger operation.

Even so, there'd be no good reason to declassify the operation (oter than some people might want to satisfy their curiosity), and good reasons to not acknowledge it (because it might be used in the future). There may be Chinese subs and surface vessels in the future that hear Cthulhu threatening to eat them. Or their ancestors bitchin' at 'em. Or something.

 

[sublight]

But it wasn't a one off. It went on for decades.

 

[Graham1973]

But what about all the guys in the SOSUS food chain? They may not know the details of the responsible parties, but I'm sure they would be able to confirm the existence of the anomaly and whether or not their superiors indicated we were implicated as its source.

Again, purely hypothetically: if the crew of a US attack sub decided to make their sub go "quack," I'm sure the US Navy would have heard it. But that may well be *all* that the US Navy knows of it. Let's say that the sonar techs on the San Angeles class attack sub USS Montana got likkered up one night and modified their sub to go "quack" instead of "ping"... and *didn't* clue the Captain in. Tehre would ahv ebeen some substantial unpleasantness onboard, but depending on the individuals involved it need not have made it into the official reports.

Actually if Wikipedia is to be believed it was more like "ni-deep" than "quack"...

And if it was US Subs doing it, would SOSUS need to report it.

 

[Nik]

Pranks aside, there's some weird beasties out there: Remember the mega-mouth shark that got snarled on a Navy sea-anchor off Hawaii back in the mid-70s ? 'Unknown to Science' !! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megamouth_shark

 

[Graham1973]

Apologies for the necro-post, but the wikipedia article in the OP was deleted as being 'not note-able enough' for inclusion. A conspiracy based wiki has retained the original article which I'm linking to below

http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Quacker

Here is another article also on what I think is another conspiracy related blog

https://northatlanticblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/the-elusive-quackers-3/

Both are clearly based on the same obscure Russian sources.

And also this page which links the story to the Bloop...

http://hauntingeurope.com/2011/03/the-quackers-and-the-bloop/