Why is 52 Hz whale mysterious and unseen?

[snorkack]

It has been heard for 35 years, since 1989, and has attracted a lot of interest. Why has it never been seen?
How often does the 52 Hz whale vocalize?
When it does, how, and how fast, do hydrophones resolve its whereabouts?
When a ship or a few sail Pacific specifically listening to the 52 Hz whale and going to the region where it was or seemed to be going to, what stops them from reaching the sight of it?

 

[jedishrfu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale

The 52-hertz whale, colloquially referred to as 52 Blue, is an individual whale of unidentified species that calls at the unusual frequency of 52 hertz. This pitch is at a higher frequency than that of the other whale species with migration patterns most closely resembling the 52-hertz whale's[1] – the blue whale (10 to 39 Hz)[2] and the fin whale (20 Hz).[1] Its call has been detected regularly in many locations since the late 1980s and appears to be the only individual emitting a whale call at this frequency. However, the whale itself has never been sighted; it has only been heard via hydrophones. It has been described as the "world's loneliest whale", though potential recordings of a second 52-hertz whale, heard elsewhere at the same time, have been sporadically found since 2010.[3][4]

The 52-hertz whale has been tracked mainly in the North Pacific Ocean, following a migration pattern similar to that of blue and fin whales.

General Locations:

• It has been detected moving from the Aleutian Islands in the north, down toward the California coast in the south.
• The whale’s path suggests a seasonal migration, likely influenced by food availability, similar to other baleen whales.
• Recordings have been captured across a broad range of the Pacific, but its exact locations and routes are not entirely known.