In the late 1960s he heard on the radio that a dead whale had washed up on Revere Beach (near Tufts University where he was working) so he drove out to see it.

He found that souvenir hunters had already hacked off the flukes from the dead porpoise, somebody had carved their initials in its side, and a cigar butt had been stuffed into its blowhole.

[6] In 1966, Payne heard about the whale recordings of Frank Watlington, a Navy engineer who eight years earlier had captured eerie underwater moaning and wailing sounds while manning a top-secret hydrophone station off the coast of Bermuda, listening for Russian submarines.

[12] Payne worked as a research zoologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society and also as Scientific Director of its Whale Fund while producing the album and its follow up, Deep Voices, from 1966 to 1983.

Distributed to 10.5 million subscribers, this constituted the largest single pressing in recording history, and helped to raise public awareness about whales.

[14][11][15] The recordings and the tremendous popularity of the album propelled the movement to end commercial whaling, which at the time was pushing many species dangerously close to extinction.

[17] Excerpts from the record have been used in songs by Judy Collins, Léo Ferré, Kate Bush, in the symphonic suite And God Created Great Whales by Alan Hovhaness, and in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.