Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have identified a 1949 humpback whale recording as the oldest known example of whale song following the discovery of preserved plastic discs.The audio was captured during sonar tests near Bermuda and predates the famous 1970 recordings by Roger Payne that sparked the global movement against commercial whaling.This rare acoustic snapshot allows scientists to study whale communication in a pre-industrial ocean environment before human noise pollution increased tenfold.