From an AP story by Patrick Whittle headlined “Roger Payne, scientist who discovered whales can sing, dies at 88”:

Roger Payne, the scientist who spurred a worldwide environmental conservation movement with his discovery that whales could sing, has died.

Payne made the discovery in 1967 during a research trip to Bermuda in which a Navy engineer provided him with a recording of curious underwater sounds documented while listening for Russian submarines. Payne identified the haunting tones as songs whales sing to one another.