Inside the Nail-Biting Quest to Find the 'Loneliest Whale'

It is a tale of sound: the song of a solitary whale that vocalizes at a unique frequency of 52 hertz, which no other whale—as the story goes—can seemingly understand. It is also a tale about science and ocean life, laced with fantasy and mystery and mostly shrouded in darkness. The whale, who is of unknown species and nicknamed “52,” was originally discovered in 1989 and has been intermittently tracked by scientists ever since. Its solitary nature baffled marine researchers. And its very existence captured the attention and hearts of millions of people. But as 52 roams the ocean’s depths, a lot about its nature is still up in the air. No one has ever seen it in the flesh. Scientists have determined that the whale is a large male and possibly a hybrid, and they have speculated that its unique song—too low in frequency for humans and too high for whales—might be a result of a malformation. Scientific American sat down with Josh Zeman, an award-winning filmmaker who created a do...