What Happens if You’re Hit by Sonar?

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Think sonar is harmless? Think again!

"Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or under the surface of the water, such as other vessels.
"Sonar" can refer to one of two types of technology: passive sonar means listening for the sound made by vessels; active sonar means emitting pulses of sounds and listening for echoes. Sonar may be used as a means of acoustic location and of measurement of the echo characteristics of "targets" in the water. Acoustic location in air was used before the introduction of radar. Sonar may also be used for robot navigation, and SODAR (an upward-looking in-air sonar) is used for atmospheric investigations. The term sonar is also used for the equipment used to generate and receive the sound. The acoustic frequencies used in sonar systems vary from very low (infrasonic) to extremely high (ultrasonic). The study of underwater sound is known as underwater acoustics or hydroacoustics.
The first recorded use of the technique was in 1490 by Leonardo da Vinci, who used a tube inserted into the water to detect vessels by ear. It was developed during World War I to counter the growing threat of submarine warfare, with an operational passive sonar system in use by 1918. Modern active sonar systems use an acoustic transducer to generate a sound wave which is reflected from target objects."

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I worked with a guy who was a submarine officer. He said that when the sub was in port they had safety precautions to disable the sonar because if a ping was accidentally emitted it could kill the divers working on the sub.

NoahSpurrier
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That clip of the submarine passing over the diver was absolutely terrifying.

Edit: I just wanted to say, this is the most liked comment I have left in over 10 years. Cheers.

alicorngummy
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I used to serve on a warship with sonar, and I’ll let you know that when sonar goes active you can hear and feel it in the ship. It’s just as annoying and frightening in real life 😂

shoey
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Imagine a giant alien spaceship entering Earth's atmosphere and trying to get a better look at the surface by flash banging an entire hemisphere with some sort of high-intensity radar/camera

a_literal_brick
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Remember, it's not only submarines that use sonar. The youtube channel SubBrief (who is an ex submarine sonar officer)has a breakdown of that exact sonar video. He says it most likely comes from a destroyer during training.

trevorgoebel
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It's far from quiet underwater in some places. There are some small crustacians that swim in a layer up to about 50 meters thick and they make a right racket. At night diving you can hear them the second you get in the water as they might be as shallow as 5meters in exceptional circumstances and 20m is normal for the top of the layer. You can even hear the noisy sods through the hull of some types of boat.

gordonlawrence
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I was a USN surface sonar tech (STG) for 20 years, mostly stationed in Hawaii. My first NEC was as an AN/SQS-26CX tech. Nowadays I imagine they can fit everything that system did inside of a PC, all the signal processing and such; but back then it consisted of about 42 cabinets filled with printed circuit boards spread out in different compartments throughout the ship. Our transmitter power supply consisted of a distribution cabinet in the front with 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick copper distribution bars and two 400 Hz motor generator sets, and a lube oil system. We generated 3000 amps at 80 volts for 240, 000 watts of ear splitting bone shattering power. The only time we ever transmitted in port was when we were conducting source level measurements, which I believe back then was a quarterly check and consisted of setting up this monstrosity of a kingpost and boom so you could dangle a little hydrophone 1 yard away from the face of the transducer. Whenever there were divers over the side, we tagged out the transmitter power supply and the inport watch on the quarterdeck would pass the word that there are divers over the side, do not rotate screws, cycle rudders, take suction from or discharge to the sea, or operate active sonar while divers are over the side. The fathometer would get tagged out also.

BruceMusto
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I found you around 2019ish 2020 when I was in a dark place and watching your videos helped me kinda pause the other stuff and escape for a few mins. I just want to thank you.

djmcneil
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In 1996 I was with some friends a few miles off the coast of Texas in the gulf of Mexico. We were doing some salvage reconnaissance for some old Spanish ships that were supposedly still down there somewhere. We sent down a probe, basically a little camera, to see if there was anything down there. It wasn't a live feed, just a picture every 5 seconds, and about 3/4 the way down, it stopped sending any pictures. We pulled it back up and the probe was completely caved in! Which didn't make sense considering it was rated for pressures twice as much as it was in. Well the probe had its own sonar abilities and we saw when it caved in there was a massive ping reading, like right on top of it. We figured it must've been a military sub testing it's sonar equipment, and we dropped right on them! As soon as we figured that out we headed to shore ASAP since we didn't have any permits 😅

Ofigz
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In my AP environmental science class we learned about the types of ocean pollution and one of them was sound pollution, which I always thought was a bit weird. I didn’t know that sonar was this life-ending pressure wave underwater. It makes a lot more sense now 😂

qfdnsze
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Back in the late `90's the diving community in the US was advised that they were testing new sonar technology and if you encountered it on a dive, there was even a number to call to report any adverse effects.

As to diving being serene 99.999% of the time, that is mostly accurate. It can be so quiet, actually, that you can here your muscles firing and occasionally here the muscles slide against one another. I have hear joints popping hundreds of times. Never been pinged by sonar though. The weirdest thing I ever heard was a 747 landing while I was 35 meters down. Turns out, it was only a train passing and I was pretty heavily narc'd. (We were diving in a quarry and it was the first time to be kissed by nitrogen narcosis)

harlech
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The concept of deadly sound is pretty terrifying since there's absolutely nothing to protect you once the noise starts, and sonar just adds to it because you'd only hear it in the terrifying open ocean.

Good thing that means it's totally avoidable for me!

blackosprey
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The AN/SQS-26 world be terrifying. That was a horrendous noise. Especially in the ocean. Being surrounded by that much water gives me the creeps.

gk
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5:59 It's not just possible, it is considered an active form of defence by subs towards anyone to approaches the sub within tampering distance, a single loud pulse to knock them out and let them drown. Thankfully no one has had to experience this (that we know of anyway).

BuxtonsWater
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As a scuba diver I was actually enlightened by this revelation! thanks. BTW - I remember when you were so thankful for 2K subscribers! now you’re almost to one million!!! 😮WOW Congrats!🎉 A testament to how fun and interesting your stories/ storytelling is. keep up the intriguing topics!

johnclark
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Can't believe you didn't bring up the humpback whale in the context of impossibly loud sonar. They have the super power of being able to click a human inside out. Though they seem to recognize this, and while interactions with divers is fairly uncommon, there's plenty of examples of humans getting a full body ultrasound, and appendages that were reaching out toward the whale were fully incapacitated for hours following the interaction.

tehmtbz
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It's almost impossible to produce a sound over 194db in air, but a submarine's sonar, at it's upper range, can easily be the equivalent of 270db which is EXPONENTIALLY higher (that's roughly 10 million times as loud as any explosion in air). Water is much denser than air, so sound is amplified underwater, and goes further. My old diver instructor claimed sound moves through water 7x as well, the actual number is closer to 4.4x. Sonar can be absolutely deadly at close range, but thankfully that power also spreads much quicker through water, being a denser medium. At more than 10, 000 meters away it might be unpleasant but likely not fatal.

lovesoni
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When I was stationed in Hawaii? I became Dive certified, even though the ocean terrifies me. Once went down right outside Pearl Habors water, sat on a rock, and watched a submarine head out to sea with some Navy friends I made. It sent out a sonar the moment it got out of the small bay and the rock I was sitting on? I felt it vibrate a bit. I could even feel the sounds hit my back as they bounced off all of us and back into us off each other and the surroundings. My bones fucking vibrated.

I haven't been back in the ocean since and I'm okay with that. Won't ever be recerting for diving either.

EDIT because the internet judges are on full stupid. I was stationed in Hawaii at Schofield Barrack, I was a soldier, not a Marine or Sailor. I had lived there for two years by the point this story happened. I made friends in other branches, hence why I said I had Navy friends. Those friends were all dive certified and talked me into it. I went with them on a lot of outings. One of those outings was seeing a submarine under water. They all knew when it would leave and sometimes dive down to a rock culture, I was invited so I went. We sat 200ft away and were BARELY able to see the vessel. But were 1000% able to hear it.

natesturm
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While I was in the navy, we would hear SONAR pinging around the ship quite often when a sub was nearby. Was still incredibly loud even in a ship above the surface.

GoWILDization
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A point about the loudness, the dB scale in water is not the same as it is in air. It's about ~63ish dB less. So sonar at 230 dB can be comparable something like 170 dB in air, and for reference some whales can click at 230 dB. Its loud enough that you don't want to be near it because you might lose your hearing, but its not like going to make you explode or anything.

Vexas