obvert
Posts: 14050
Joined: 1/17/2011 From: PDX (and now) London, UK Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: wegman58 "We've got control?" Reminds me of the old spiel (don't know if it is true or not) about a US aircraft carrier on a CBDR (Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range) vector with something on the radar. The carrier keeps on telling the radar contact to change course and the final bit is, "We're a lighthouse." An urban legend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_urban_legend From wikipedia: A commonly circulated version goes thus: This is the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95. Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision. Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision. Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course. Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course. Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship. Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call. Other vessels sometimes named in the transcript include the carriers Enterprise, Coral Sea and Nimitz, and the Missouri, a battleship. The location of the exchange has also sometimes been claimed to be Puget Sound, or off the coast of North Carolina, some other times the lighthouse is located at Cape Finisterre (Spain). (The Spanish version expands the joke by having the lighthouse keeper respond to the aircraft carrier's inventory of the fleet by saying he's accompanied by "our dog, our food, two beers, and a canary that's currently asleep.") Some versions relocate it to the Irish or Scottish coasts; in the former case the ship is sometimes identified as British, with the conversation taking place off the coast of Kerry in 1998.There is sometimes an additional line of dialogue where the lighthouse keeper tells the ship captain he is a Seaman First Class before the final exchange. The prefatory information sometimes notes it was released in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, and/or names Jeremy Boorda, the incumbent Chief of Naval Operations on the stated date.
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