Hello all. I have had a look at the "howls" performed by the probe. Here is a rough transcription of the two sequences:
http://ed.gyt.se/pics/up-notes.png
(The above is just used as an illustration and approximate in several aspects. Don't rely on it for exact data.)
The e flats are, as noted on the picture,
very flat. To us who are used to listening to equal tempered music, the probes are singing way out of tune.
Did they get the blues? Probably not. But these false tones make sense if part of an overtone (or natural
harmonics) series. The nature of the overtones of a certain fundamental tone, is such that their frequencies are multiples of the frequency of the fundamental tone. For example, to produce the overtone series of the concert A, 440 Hz, just multiply 440 with 2 for the first overtone, with 3 for the second overtone, with 4 for the third overtone, and so on.
As for the howls of the probe, the fundamental tone is not your standard concert A though. Incidentally, it is instead a much lower concert A, at 110 Hz. (At least I'd say it is much closer to 110 Hz than it is to 109 or 111 Hz.)
In other words, the song of the unknown probe is performed on multiples of 110 Hz.
The "A" sequence, which in my transcription above consists of 6 tones, is as follows:
- The first tone, g, is the 13th overtone of 110 Hz and has a frequency of 1540 Hz
- 2nd tone, a, 15th overtone, 1760 Hz
- 3rd tone, e, 11th overtone,1320 Hz
- 4th tone, e flat, 10th overtone, 1210 Hz
- 5th tone, another g
- 6th tone, E, 5th overtone, 660 Hz
And the "B" sequence:
- 1st tone, low E, 2nd overtone, 330 Hz
- 2nd tone, E, 5th overtone, 660 Hz
- 3rd tone, e, 11th overtone, 1320 Hz
- 4th tone, a, 15th overtone, 1760 Hz
- 5th tone, g, 13th overtone, 1540 Hz
- 6th tone, e flat, 10th overtone, 1210 Hz
- 7th tone, another g
- 8th tone, another e flat
- 9th tone, b, 18th overtone, 2090 Hz
The fact that the e flat is so incredibly "out of tune" fits it's role as the the 10th overtone perfectly, since the 10th overtone will always be much lower than it's closest equivalent on an equal tempered chromatic scale. (An "in tune" e flat here would have had a frequency of 1244.5 Hz, while the one in the actual howl is 1210 Hz.)
That's all. I don't have any fun theories to match these numbers. So, the howls in their entirety seem to have a common fundamental tone of 110 Hz. Whether this frequency is of any significance, I do not know. (What I can say, however, is that 110 Hz is the same frequency as that of the 5th guitar string, which suggests a slightly more boring explanation.)
