Lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend – Wikipedia

The USS Enterprise, a large warship of the U.S. Navy A canadian beacon

The lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend describes an meet between a big naval ship and what at first appears to be another vessel, with which the transport is on a collision course. The naval vessel, normally identified as of the United States Navy or Royal Navy and generally described as a battleship or aircraft carrier, requests that the other transport variety naturally. The other party ( generally identified as canadian or much irish and occasionally spanish ) responds that the naval vessel should change course, whereupon the captain of the naval vessel reiterates the demand, identifying himself and the transport he commands and sometimes making threats. This elicits a reception worded as “ I’m a lighthouse. Your call “ ( or similarly ), a punchline which has become shorthand for the entire anecdote. It has circulated on the Internet and elsewhere in particular since a 1995 iteration that was represented as an actual transcript of such a communication released by the office of the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. There appears to be no evidence that the event actually took position, and the report is farfetched for respective reasons. [ 1 ] It is thus considered an urban legend, a variation on a joke that dates to at least the 1930s, [ 2 ] sometimes referred to as “ the lighthouse vs. the carrier “ or “ the lighthouse vs. the battleship “. The U.S. Navy once had a web page debunking it, [ 3 ] although this did not stop the former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell using it as a joke in a 2008 speech. [ 4 ] other speakers have frequently used it merely as a parable teaching the dangers of inflexibility and egotism, or the want for situational awareness. In 2004 a swedish company dramatized it in an award-winning television ad. [ 5 ]

case [edit ]

A normally circulated interpretation goes frankincense : [ 2 ]

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.[2]

other vessels sometimes named in the transcript include the carriers Enterprise, Coral Sea and Nimitz, and the Missouri, a battleship. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The location of the exchange has besides sometimes been claimed to be Puget Sound, or off the coast of North Carolina, some other times the beacon is located at Cape Finisterre ( Spain ). [ 6 ] ( The spanish adaptation expands the joke by having the beacon keeper react to the aircraft carrier ‘s inventory of the fleet by saying he ‘s accompanied by “ our pawl, our food, two beers, and a canary that ‘s presently asleep. ” ) Some versions relocate it to the Irish or Scottish [ 7 ] coasts ; in the former subject the ship is sometimes identified as british, with the conversation taking place off the slide of Kerry in 1998. [ 8 ] There is sometimes an extra line of negotiation where the beacon custodian tells the ship master he is a Seaman First Class before the final exchange. [ 9 ] The introductory information sometimes notes it was released in answer to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, and/or names Jeremy Boorda, the incumbent Chief of Naval Operations on the submit date .

Debunking [edit ]

The Virginian-Pilot, the daily newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia, a city with a boastfully naval presence, investigated the history after it had begun circulating extensively on and off the Internet in 1995. A spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet called it “ a wholly bogus floor ”. Boorda ‘s office said it had not released any such transcript on the date in interview. And not only was the narrative an old one, the ships normally named in it were largely either out of avail by 1995 ( the Coral Sea, for model, had been scrapped two years before ) [ 1 ] or not aircraft carriers. [ 10 ] other sources the newspaper consulted found more flaws with the floor. A spokesman for the Coast Guard, which operates all american lighthouses, said that they had all farseeing since been automated, so there would have been no one in one to talk to a ship, if the incident had taken space in US waters. He speculated that it had been circulated by members of the Coast Guard to make fun of the Navy. [ 10 ] Four years later, in reply to a report that a adviser continued to tell the report at speeches as if it were a true happening, Fast Company talked to Wayne Wheeler, a former Coast Guardsman who was then head of an enthusiasts ‘ group called the US Lighthouse Society. He confirmed that it was an old report, and that in his have with lighthouses was highly improbable :

first, a beacon does n’t look anything like a ship. Unless the weather ‘s actually foggy—and most versions of the story do n’t mention fog — you can see a beacon from far away as a fix white light that flashes at a put total of seconds. On the other hand, ships are normally moving and have smaller, colored lights at the bow and aft. There ‘s absolutely no way to mistake one for the other .

A canadian beacon keeper, Jim Abram of British Columbia, agreed. “ I ‘ve been lighthouse keeping for 21 years, ” he told the magazine, “ and no one ‘s always thought that I was in anything but a beacon. ” [ 1 ] The Military Officers Association of America ( MOAA ) calls it “ well credible if you are not familiar with how the Navy operates or elementary things such as GPS. ” In addition to the historical inaccuracies with most of the ships named, the organization notes on its web log the extreme point improbability that an aircraft mailman ‘s crew would not realize they were off the seashore of a landmass such as Newfoundland. The MOAA claimed, in 2009, to receive it in forwarded e-mail an average of three times a sidereal day. “ [ After ] fifty dollar bill times the only matter to separate about it is to see which details have been changed. ” [ 11 ]

history [edit ]

The earliest know version of the joke appeared in a single-panel cartoon, reproduced from the London yellow journalism hebdomadally The Humorist by the canadian newspaper The Drumheller Review in 1931. It showed two men standing by their rails, shouting through megaphones : “ skipper : Where are you going with your blinking ship ? / The other : “ This is n’t a wink transport. It ‘s a beacon ! ” ”

In August 1934, the London weekly Answers, founded by Alfred Harmsworth, expanded the cartoon into a humorous anecdote, which was reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic. This version read :

There was a dense summer fog and the officer on the bridge was becoming more and more infuriate. As he leaned over the side of the bridge trying to pierce the gloom, he saw a brumous number leaning on a rail a few yards from his ship. He about choked. “ What do you think you ‘re doing with your blinking ship ? ” he roared. “ Do n’t you know the rules of the ocean ? “ This ai n’t no blinkin ‘ ship, guv’nor, ” said a hushed voice ; “ this ‘ere ‘s a light’ouse ! ” [ 2 ]

Variants appeared in wit books and periodicals over the future several decades. In 1943, Raphael Tuck & Sons issued a postcard version, with an illustration of the bow of an ocean liner and passing a uniform homo at the rail of a like object : ” Where the ell are you going on your perishin ‘ ship ? / This ai n’t no ship, it ‘s a beacon ! ” Steven Covey told his own interpretation in his 1989 best seller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, [ 12 ] and Covey in turn cited an issue of Proceedings published two years earlier. [ 13 ] Isaac Asimov included it in a 1992 humor anthology. [ 14 ] Since 1995, the floor continues to be told, albeit with some awareness that it is probably fictional. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] In 2004 Silva circumnavigate, a swedish godhead of marine navigational equipment, dramatized it in a television receiver ad called “ The Captain ”. Its version was set in the Irish Sea, with the embark called the USS Montana [ a ] and an irish beacon custodian. [ 5 ] The ad, filmed in English with swedish subtitles, won a Bronze Lion at that year ‘s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. [ 17 ] Four years later, in 2008, retired Admiral Mike McConnell, then Director of National Intelligence, used the anecdote at the beginning of a manner of speaking at Johns Hopkins University. He insisted it was a true floor. “ I was in the signals intelligence clientele where you listen to the people spill the beans and therefore on ” he told his listeners beforehand. “ This is true. It ‘s an actual record. ” [ 2 ] When he was former questioned on this, a spokesman said those statements were meant merely to set the audience up. “ It ‘s a technique—comedians use it all the time to get the audience to buy in ”. [ 18 ]

Interpretations [edit ]

Most commentators who have used it in speeches or books point to it as Mikkelson does, “ a moral in the humbleness of ego “. [ 2 ] Felix Dennis, in whose retelling the floor, represented as true, takes place off the seashore of British Columbia, calls it his “ favorite narrative about the ‘infallibility ‘ of world power ”. He comments :

Oh, boy. naturally that policeman of the watch can never have lived it down. He will be nicknamed “ Your call ” or “ Lighthouse ” until the day he retires. All those years of saluting and keeping his nose to the grindstone destroyed in moments, because he believed the sun glitter out of his buttocks. [ 19 ]

Others, particularly those writing about management for business audiences, see it as demonstrating the indigence for flexibility. Barry Maher calls the intractability of some listeners the Abraham Lincoln Syndrome after the ship named in his version of the anecdote, which he besides represents as true. “ When the person you ‘re dealing with refuses to let you go where you want to go, divert your course ”, he advises salesperson, echoing the speech in the fib. “ Smashing into lighthouses is not a successful navigational strategy—no matter how pushful those lighthouses might be. ” [ 20 ] Within a marital context, Gary Smalley uses it to advise husbands trying to reconcile with their wives that “ like the dark blue captain ‘s attempts to manipulate the beacon, your attempts to control the situation could cause your wife to become an real property rock and resent you more deeply ”. [ 21 ]

Another exegesis of the report is the importance of situational awareness. christian media adviser Phil Cooke tells the report, conceding that it ‘s fictional, and uses it to demonstrate the importance of the research he reads, and knowing one ‘s audience in finical. “ We ‘re blind unless we know who we ‘re talking to. ” [ 22 ] “ [ W ] hile it is [ the captain ‘ ] randomness ship, it ‘s most decidedly not his ocean ” writes Russ Linden, a columnist at Governing, of the lesson offered. [ 23 ] Some speakers think the anecdote is an overuse cliché. Alan Stevens, president of the Global Speakers Federation, noted that Covey was still using it in speeches in 2010, and reported that the same workweek he heard him use it a client emailed him that two speakers at a political event she attended had used it. He tells those giving speeches to avoid not only the beacon history, but the boiling frog fib and the story about a young boy throwing beached starfish second into the ocean. “ They may have happened once, but they wo n’t have happened to the narrator. What ‘s worse, they are used indeed frequently, they have lost their impingement. ” They should alternatively follow his model and tell stories of things that actually happened to them or that they did themselves. [ 24 ]

See besides [edit ]

Notes [edit ]

1. ^ No actual U.S. Navy ship has used that name since the early twentieth century .

References [edit ]