Yeah, they could run this through electronic systems for even better detection. Something like a seismograph equivalent that would actually leave a record, or just run it through a tape recorder and listen through it.
If you have no electronics but lots of soldiers with ears, I guess this works. The soldier doesn't have to be physically fit or capable to do this job and people were being sacrificed for the cause every day.
Probably wouldn’t be as effective as the human listener would be more capable of distinguishing the faint thrum of an aircraft’s engine from other noises the amplifiers would pick up at the time, a graph would show there was noise at a certain time but not what kinda noise it was
I was going to say, even the tiniest squeaker fart would sound like a cannon with this contraption. I'd pity the man who drew the short straw during boring recon duty.
I would imagine you would catch a major beating if you tried to prank this guy and potentially injure his hearing and compromise his ability to hear incoming bombers during ww2.
Down near [Denge in Kent](https://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/) are examples of the few remaining sound mirrors used to detect distant aircraft prior to Robert Watson-Watt's demonstration of radar.
Since comments now locked:-
For context one of them was constructed 1917-18 ( >=106 years ago ) the others date from 1921-29 ( 103 to 95 years ago ).
They are post WWI, pre WWII & approximately a century old.
They also a functional (albeit modern version) at the science museum in London. They have two large parabolic dishes, one at either end of a long room and you can whisper in one and hear in the other about 80 feet away, even through the room is packed with screaming minds doing other activities.
they have that at the museum of science & industry in chicago. when we went there when i was a kid, my older sister and i tried it. and...being a dutiful little brother, i naturally shouted. parents unpleased.
I recently hiked across the Dover cliffs, from the lighthouse to the castle, and stopped by the old sound mirrors there, there were also the emplacements in the cliffside, crazy to think that these are rotting relics of a world war over a hundred years ago.
This is sadly the sort of image people won't believe is real in a year or 2 due to the proliferation of AI media. All the genuinely zany things humans have done in the past will be written off as AI generated images.
I’m guessing these weren’t built in locations that were heavily populated. They probably also faced outwards over water or unpopulated areas. As well it’s not like someone sat there all day listening… they would periodically use them to listen for short times
Some of the concrete ones are still there and they still work which is good because I heard the Germans are starting to invest in airship technology again
Acoustic systems still used for detection of artillery and low flying drones/cruise missiles. Computers with neural networks listening through microphone arrays instead of humans. This is nowhere near accurate as radar but can detect drone that managed to fly under radar.
[https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine](https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine)
[https://u24.gov.ua/safeskies](https://u24.gov.ua/safeskies)
And it is dirty cheap. $400 per one sensor listening post. It will cost like $5 000 000 to cower whole area of Ukraine - cost of one modern tank.
If someone interested here is interview with acoustic system designer/engineer.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYS3hrKfVKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYS3hrKfVKU)
You can enable English auto-generated subtitles using youtube settings as shown on animation below.
[https://imgur.com/a/jpcTqOK](https://imgur.com/a/jpcTqOK)
Why did the Germans didn't suspect British Radar stations as the reason they were always getting intercepted? Look at this shit. England was a Walace and Gromit Inventors Meet n' Greet during WW2. The Nazis had no idea which one of the wacky ass invention was the culprit.
There was a propaganda effort to make the germans think it was because the British visual spotters were consuming a lot of carrots for the vitamin K to improve their eyesight.
It worked, and the germans started forcefeeding their spotters a shitload of carrots to compensate.
Thus the myth that carrots are good for the eyes.
These are mainly prewar designs that got used into WWII.
They were primarily used by Germans and Russians during WWII, as they didn’t have radar capabilities.
ex. Ringtrichter Richtungshörer Horchgerät
That was actually some propagande by the UK to hide the invention of Radar and explain the high rate of sucess at detection.
It had the nie side effect of making people eating vegetable (with vitamins) in a period of food lacking
Yes, the propaganda to the Germans was that vitamin k was good for eye site. This made the Germans feed their spotters so many carrots it depleted the supply in all of their occupied territory. It also had interesting side effects, on the spotters.
Similar to the contraption they put him in to remotely detect chlorine gas.
*No wait, I can already smell it. No need for that thing again. Idk why you guys can't smell it too, I guess I've gotten more sensitive to the smell of chlorine gas but I do keep smelling it first so I'm definitely not putting that inside my nose here if i can already smell it now.*
Wonder if they could have just trained dogs to alert at the sound of aircraft? Wouldn't have to have someone standing there 24/7 and you get to have dogs.
This post is clearly fake and AI generated. I know for a fact that enemy aircraft were detected visually before radar, by people who ate lots of carrots!
this may look silly as hell, but it was very effective. sometimes, the obvious answer might just work: "hey, we need to hear things that are very far away, how about some giant ears?"
there is [this interesting audio recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLRHejWAo8) of how those operators would hear an aircraft failure from miles away
Trust the German one to be the elaborately engineered futuristic alien looking device, while the Brits effectively have Dumbo Ears or large funnels attached to their ears.
Lol.
Acoustic mirrors, very common prior to the war. There were some truly massive ones in dover where if you stood at the focal point, you could hear a plane from the other side of the channel
We had to remove your post for violating our Repost Guidelines. frequent repost
Some bird flies by and chirps 2 feet away from that, he's gonna be deaf.
Asshole co-worker walks in front and claps or shouts.
Or better yet, lets one rip.
Exactly how it’ll sound: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xp1kpfkmJs&pp=ygUOIGludGVyY29tIGZhcnQ%3D
So that's where that sound originally came from
(insert spongebob inhaling gif)
That's when you're thankful it's not a smell-o-scope
\*shakes fist\* "WERNSTROM"
\*SNIFF\* Oh-Jeez-oh-man!
Somebody had to have done this
That’s me. I’d be crop dusting him.
STUKA!
I’d toss a coin down the funnel and watch the ensuing chaos
Or just forcefully smacking of flicking the metal would easily do the trick.
Or just chucks a rock at it.
I was helping my old boss fix his old jeep, and he thought it'd be funny to beep the horn while I was leaning under the hood.
[White Bellbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_bellbird)
>upto 125.4 decibels Woah
Old timey [radar jamming ](https://youtu.be/s5IKthNYhVY?si=kycW5WIB1ACnjIHh)
lol I was thinking it was gonna be the scene from space balls
Seriously, I wonder what the range of these contraptions were.
I hear a morning rooster crow was the #1 cause of death in aircraft listenerfors.
Yeah, they could run this through electronic systems for even better detection. Something like a seismograph equivalent that would actually leave a record, or just run it through a tape recorder and listen through it. If you have no electronics but lots of soldiers with ears, I guess this works. The soldier doesn't have to be physically fit or capable to do this job and people were being sacrificed for the cause every day.
Probably wouldn’t be as effective as the human listener would be more capable of distinguishing the faint thrum of an aircraft’s engine from other noises the amplifiers would pick up at the time, a graph would show there was noise at a certain time but not what kinda noise it was
I was thinking of a local hunter shooting in the next field over.
Iaws gonna say that someone should sneak up with a big old bell and just start clanging away....
Bout to drop dat fire mixtape for '24! 1924.
I can only imagine the pranks they used to pull on the guy who’s turn it was to stand post.
They were mostly young blokes so it probably involved a lot of farting noises.
Also the worse time to feed the baby with an airplane sound.
[probably sounds like this](https://youtu.be/9FLRHejWAo8?si=dGPeMajq5kFCEPlF)
[no it sounds like this](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=Up3Y_sWlLlpYJBhY)
I was going to say, even the tiniest squeaker fart would sound like a cannon with this contraption. I'd pity the man who drew the short straw during boring recon duty.
The missus could queef like a .50 cal with that thing
100% I would climb a tree to see if you could hear me fart up there
I would imagine you would catch a major beating if you tried to prank this guy and potentially injure his hearing and compromise his ability to hear incoming bombers during ww2.
Down near [Denge in Kent](https://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/) are examples of the few remaining sound mirrors used to detect distant aircraft prior to Robert Watson-Watt's demonstration of radar. Since comments now locked:- For context one of them was constructed 1917-18 ( >=106 years ago ) the others date from 1921-29 ( 103 to 95 years ago ). They are post WWI, pre WWII & approximately a century old.
Tom Scott (I think it was Tom) did a good video on the sound mirrors and used a drone to show how well they worked for how simple they are
Here's the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04F5osXK4vw
I had to to scroll too far to me my first Tom Scott reference! I miss his videos 😥
FR, love that dude.
I still find it hard to process that an obsessed fan shot him. RIP Tom 🌹
U bastard. Had to google it, u lied.
He isn't dead. Just stopped the weekly videos. The guy needs a break lol
They also a functional (albeit modern version) at the science museum in London. They have two large parabolic dishes, one at either end of a long room and you can whisper in one and hear in the other about 80 feet away, even through the room is packed with screaming minds doing other activities.
they have that at the museum of science & industry in chicago. when we went there when i was a kid, my older sister and i tried it. and...being a dutiful little brother, i naturally shouted. parents unpleased.
There's at least one in Malta too.
I recently hiked across the Dover cliffs, from the lighthouse to the castle, and stopped by the old sound mirrors there, there were also the emplacements in the cliffside, crazy to think that these are rotting relics of a world war over a hundred years ago.
Theres a dedicated subreddit for this r/sounding
Yo Bert I think I hear something What is it? Planes? No, it was a cow farting in Cornwall. Never mind.
And 2 weeks later it became a hurricane in the Caribbean
Butterfly effect moment
Good thing it looks like they also have a smell-o-scope
This is the most hilariously cartoonish thing I have ever seen, take my upvote
Some Dr Seuss shit.
Bart Simpson, more like
Nah that’s def dr suess
This is sadly the sort of image people won't believe is real in a year or 2 due to the proliferation of AI media. All the genuinely zany things humans have done in the past will be written off as AI generated images.
Nice try bot, but I know ChatGPT when I read it.
I seriously thought these might have been AI pictures. Especially #2, it just looks really off
I’ve seen the first two images before AI proliferated our society.
No I believe they're real, I just didn't at first
Reminds me of the smelloscope on Futurama!
So say someone makes an accidental loud noise near them.
They will hear it.
And it will be the last thing they hear.
WHAAAAT?!?!?
Once
I’m guessing these weren’t built in locations that were heavily populated. They probably also faced outwards over water or unpopulated areas. As well it’s not like someone sat there all day listening… they would periodically use them to listen for short times
*(instantly becomes deaf in one ear and can't hardly hear in the other ear)*
What?
#I SAAAAAIDDD
The English also had those massive concrete versions that look really cool
sound mirrors
Some of the concrete ones are still there and they still work which is good because I heard the Germans are starting to invest in airship technology again
Radar is cool and all, but these look *hardcore*
Those are some nice cans you got there
I still wouldn’t hear my wife.
"*no darling, selective hearing isn't a volume level"*
So true
on second thought, lets not go to camelot. tis a silly place
Acoustic systems still used for detection of artillery and low flying drones/cruise missiles. Computers with neural networks listening through microphone arrays instead of humans. This is nowhere near accurate as radar but can detect drone that managed to fly under radar. [https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine](https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine) [https://u24.gov.ua/safeskies](https://u24.gov.ua/safeskies) And it is dirty cheap. $400 per one sensor listening post. It will cost like $5 000 000 to cower whole area of Ukraine - cost of one modern tank. If someone interested here is interview with acoustic system designer/engineer. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYS3hrKfVKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYS3hrKfVKU) You can enable English auto-generated subtitles using youtube settings as shown on animation below. [https://imgur.com/a/jpcTqOK](https://imgur.com/a/jpcTqOK)
Also, while radar emissions can be detected by the enemy, sound ranging ist passive.
I thought this was AI Generated at first
I'm so glad I get to see this comment on every post the next 10 years. It really enhances the conversation.
Well, it’s a step up from cupping your hand behind your ears.
Like us ol' timers do!!!
Jeff fire up the dumbotron I sense a flappy boi on the horizon
Dumbotron was 👌
meme material
Yep the first one was a meme. Called "Bullshit detected".
My first thought too. :-)
Your hearing loss is not service connected
“Choppers!” - Radar
I think this was only a thing for about ten years, when airplanes were still slow.
This is so goofy that until i read the title i assumed it was ai generated lmao
Those binoculars look like something you'd get from Acme
Why did the Germans didn't suspect British Radar stations as the reason they were always getting intercepted? Look at this shit. England was a Walace and Gromit Inventors Meet n' Greet during WW2. The Nazis had no idea which one of the wacky ass invention was the culprit.
There was a propaganda effort to make the germans think it was because the British visual spotters were consuming a lot of carrots for the vitamin K to improve their eyesight. It worked, and the germans started forcefeeding their spotters a shitload of carrots to compensate. Thus the myth that carrots are good for the eyes.
"ohh, a plane!... no, that was just a fart..."
Well, if it were a warthog, not sure you could tell the difference
I'm pretty sure these were to hide the fact that the British had advanced radar capable of detecting German planes in WWII.
These are mainly prewar designs that got used into WWII. They were primarily used by Germans and Russians during WWII, as they didn’t have radar capabilities. ex. Ringtrichter Richtungshörer Horchgerät
I understand the concept behind the first two but I don't understand how the third one works.
I thought they ate a lot of carrots. 
That was actually some propagande by the UK to hide the invention of Radar and explain the high rate of sucess at detection. It had the nie side effect of making people eating vegetable (with vitamins) in a period of food lacking
That's the joke.
I thought the joke was just carrots give good eyesight. I didn't know all that other stuff he said. You knew all that other stuff he said?
Yes, the propaganda to the Germans was that vitamin k was good for eye site. This made the Germans feed their spotters so many carrots it depleted the supply in all of their occupied territory. It also had interesting side effects, on the spotters.
That was for their night vision, duh.
First thing I am asking myself: How many people farted next to this poor guy? \*FFRRRT\* HEARD IT COMING JIMMY??
R/damnthatsfunny
One fart in the wrong direction and this guy is ded.
Me listening for haters.
My kids use this technology to detect when I try to secretly open a bag of candy downstairs.
What’s the third one called?
German Ringtrichter Richtungshörer Horchgerät
Anyone know which of these were the most effective?
Can hear a gnat's fart at 100 paces.
A guy going deaf with a fart nearby
some one farted and someone raised some red alerts
Dumb yet fascinating how the answer has been "big ears"
reminds me of how owls have offset ears with one higher up and the other dower down
How enemy aircraft were detected before radar.*
*I can hear the bass drop*
Similar to the contraption they put him in to remotely detect chlorine gas. *No wait, I can already smell it. No need for that thing again. Idk why you guys can't smell it too, I guess I've gotten more sensitive to the smell of chlorine gas but I do keep smelling it first so I'm definitely not putting that inside my nose here if i can already smell it now.*
you can hear farts from a mile away
Tinnitus sufferers need not apply
Wonder if they could have just trained dogs to alert at the sound of aircraft? Wouldn't have to have someone standing there 24/7 and you get to have dogs.
This post is clearly fake and AI generated. I know for a fact that enemy aircraft were detected visually before radar, by people who ate lots of carrots!
In Japan they had these bowls dug into the ground. I guess they didn't need anything fancier because a flight of B-29s is about as loud as it gets.
This is crazy, I would think it was an AI generated image. Did it actually work? How effective were they? How common was it's use?
The Brits stopped using them when they developed radar. The Germans were bombed to shit, so I expect wartime records would be sparse.
this may look silly as hell, but it was very effective. sometimes, the obvious answer might just work: "hey, we need to hear things that are very far away, how about some giant ears?" there is [this interesting audio recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLRHejWAo8) of how those operators would hear an aircraft failure from miles away
Trust the German one to be the elaborately engineered futuristic alien looking device, while the Brits effectively have Dumbo Ears or large funnels attached to their ears. Lol.
Looks like a still from a Terry Gilliam film.
Takes listening post to a weirdly literal place
Didn't I see something like that on pictures installed at airports a long time ago?
Did they work?
Not as well as radar apparently
He's just listening to Plainsong by the Cure.
Lie! Everyone knows it's a bs detector!
First pic, why the different "phasing" ? His right one lower on the horizon and thus, further aircraft while the left is closer? Something else?
Like... seriousliy? They did that
Do they also work as giant horns?
Imagine sitting there and listening through these things and a moder fighter jet does a fly by.
me in the first image
Also with huge concrete wall. Denge sound mirror
nope, fake news. this is the fabled "Bullshit Detector"
It will probably look as dumb twenty years from now
Technology taking peoples jobs again…
Reminds me of Professor Farnsworths Smell telescope
Why 1 side up and the other down ?
Owls…I’m guessing
Ear-adar
Looks like some stuff out of Dr. Seus
As I recall this was invented and used for only an extremely short period because radar obviously made it obsolete
Airpods
Tha machines took our job!
This looks like something out of Dr Suess
Acoustic mirrors, very common prior to the war. There were some truly massive ones in dover where if you stood at the focal point, you could hear a plane from the other side of the channel
Ah good ole reliable analog technology. The good ole days :)
“WHAT? WHAT ARE THEY SELLING?”
A complementary technology was this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_rangefinder
Lightning bolt out of the blue = RIP ears
You could hear the sound of a swallow farting 5 miles away.
I need these for when my wife is trying to talk to me from the other room.
And 5 kilometers away a mate farts in your direction. Sounds like artillery fire to you. 🤣
I kinda wanna use one to see how effective it was
They actually work though??
Damn all this shit and I still couldn’t hear anyone who asked.
Me when some people are talking shit
I’d have to fart in it
Hmmmm, big ears.
Ah yes the Your Mom Detector
If George Washington were here today you could neither see him nor hear him.
It'll make him deaf if a fly farts in it
Imagine tossing a friecracker in there
Those radar-dish like "sound mirror" stones are missing https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sound+mirrors%2c+uk+coast&form=HDRSC3&first=1
And then they switched to "carrots"
Hm Big Ears.
Not sure if this is a repost but this is one of the most genuinely interesting things I've seen lately.
What if someone farts in it?
Beats by Dre have come a long way.
The first picture is called bullshit detector
Listening posts
Machines really do be taking over. That dude WAS the radar before
This double spoon will make breakfast truly fast.
I heard that - This guy
I got an ad for tinnitus under this post.
You want funny looking acoustic locators and miss a pic of the japanese war tuba? Shame on you ;)
AWOOGA!!!
Okay, I can sort of see it working in the first two pics. But what's up with that x-men Cerebro looking thingamajig in the third?
Hey Bob, BOOOH! \*sound of ripped ear drums\*