Let slip the tubas of war

You kind of half-expect an enormous foot to descend, Monty Python-like, to squelch these odd looking instruments, but this is no joke. These Imperial Japanese military acoustic locators (sometimes known as "war tubas", not for the way they functioned but for the way they looked) were used to detect enemy aircraft early in World War II, before radar rendered them obsolete.

Another inadvertent war/music connection here (who knows what Wagner would have made of this scene and his music's role in this iconic bit of pop culture?).



"O peace! how many wars were waged in thy name."
~Alexander Pope