I understand now why the Chinese are doing their own search away from everybody else, instead of cooperating with the international team. It’s obvious: They want to keep their military capabilities secret. If I had their military capabilities, I would, too. Let’s review:
1. Their search team is 3 guys in a rubber raft.
2. Their acoustic equipment is a U.S.-made Teledyne Benthos Hydrophone, which is similar to the gear an amateur batrachiologist might purchase from Radio Shack to listen to frogs croaking in a pond, taped to a bamboo pole.
3. They used earbuds, not headphones.
4. They lacked the capability of recording the clicks they thought they heard.
5. They had a spare pinger in their rubber raft, which would ping if it got wet, and you can hear a pinger even with earbuds in your ears if you’re sitting on it, but you’ll hear it better if you take the earbuds out of your ears.
I don’t think we have to worry about these guys for a while, any more than we need to worry about North Korea’s three-stage ballistic missile.
