Their ear-drums have been perforated.
How?
The whales are emitting an intense, low frequency pulse...like...like a sonar; as well as an EM field. The combination is very dangerous to humans - particularly in such close proximity.
[having heard none of this; his voice raised] It's the whales!
[ignoring Rodney] Their hearing's been impaired; it should heal soon...
[continuing anyway; his voice still raised] It's their echolocation! It's creating very powerful vibrations! The closer we got, the worse it became!
Yes... [Raising his voice] Yes Rodney! We know!
[after a brief pause] Oh!
[after an even longer pause] What?
More from this episode
All quotes from this episode →More Stargate Atlantis quotes · These quotes come from Wikiquote's Stargate Atlantis pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.