Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) in the US claim to have conversed with a humpback whale in Alaska as a proxy for communicating with aliens.
…
They found that while most of the whales ignored the recorded calls, one of them – a female named Twain – circled the scientists’ boat, mimicking the noises for about 20 minutes.
Researchers are not entirely sure what the recorded call meant, but suspect it is a kind of “contact call” that whales use to call each other.
“It might have just been us saying hello, and her responding hello, and us saying hello again,” Dr Walker explained.
“We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback ‘language,’” study lead author Brenda McCowan said in a statement.
You must log in or # to comment.
How’s the old search for extraterrestrial life going?
Badly.
Well how about, and hear me out now, we go and talk to some whales.
Oh, do we understand what they say?
Well no, but we get out of the lab and mess about in boats.
Where do I sign up?
The pier.
You don’t sign up you get abducted.
Why are you so eager for this? Why keep desperately clamoring for this?
I said “woof” and my dog looked at me and started wagging his tail and replied “woof” back. I don’t know what we said, but I think we may have made contact.
I said meow to my cat and it mewed back at me. We have made contact
Mine ahwoos and I awhoo back then they ahwoo and it’s food time.
I’m certain after several years, ahwoo means “I’m excited to see you and for you to feed me”
My dog and I have some ‘conversations’ of sorts: Me: starts getting ready to go out Dog: up nods [Oi!] Me: up nods back [What?] Dog: up nods again [Are we going for a walk?] Me: down nods [Yes!] Dog: starts sneezing and getting exited [Fuck yeah!] Or: Me: nopes with the head No darling, I’m going to work :'( Dog: gets closer and lays against me [oh no! Pleassseee! Look how cute I am…]
Did he pass your message to the aliens?
I played a recording of myself saying hello to myself. I have made contact.
Just pet a sheep and his tail started wagging. He wanted more scritches behind the ears.
Boat: Mysterious whale sounds Poor whale: “Why hellow there!” Boat: Mysterious whale sounds Poor whale: “… ya, I heard you, hi.” Boat: Mysterious whale sounds Poor whale: “YES I GET IT! Are we gonna fuck or what??”
Here’s a great 6-minute video about swimming with sperm whales. In addition to their clicks being loud enough to kill you (although they’ve never done that as far as we know), researchers think they are potentially a more sophisticated form of communication than any human language. Other research shows potential dialects and or even cultures.
In addition to their clicks being loud enough to kill you
I am validated in my hatred/fear of the ocean at least twice a year.
They could do it in theory, but so far as we know, they have never decided to kill someone with their clicks.
That’s a good point that I knew, but overlooked including. I’ll edit that.
That’s their secret dark souls move when you finally get comfortable with their moveset.
Yep! They can generate sound pressure up to 233 dB. That would blow out your eardrums and vibrate your insides to mush.
For reference, a jet taking off is around 130 dB at around 300 meters away. 233 dB is literally over 10 million times louder.
We’ve got a community specifically on this and other types of bioacoustics.
I’ll definitely check it out! Edit: Now I know that elephants name each other.
Yes! That’s one of cooler new discoveries in the world of animal communication. It’s such an exciting time for bioacoustics with all the recent advancements in AI, I think there’s going to be quite a few big discoveries in the coming years.
Just as long as we never figure out how to talk to our pets. Ignorance is bliss and I’m more likely to be annoyed if I can meaningfully converse with a Labrador about when to go for walks.
cant they talk to monkeys in sign language too?
i find this kind of thing fascinating as fuck.
cant they talk to monkeys in sign language too?
All the Great Apes have been taught sign language. It’s rarer in monkeys but has been done. Quite what it means is an ongoing debate (Noam Chomsky is sceptical but he might just be angry they named a signing chimp, Nim Chimpsky). For example, they don’t ask questions. However, Alex the talking parrot can, so perhaps we are talking to the wrong species.
Jesus, all of them know sign language??? I didn’t vote for that
All of them - once you teach one they secretly pass it on to others until they are all communicating behind our backs. I think there’s a documentary about how this can’t possibly go wrong and bite us in the arse - Compliance of the Apes or something.
In this case I take Noam Chomsky’s side seeing as how their opponent literally tortured a monkey to try and prove a fascist eugenicist and didn’t stop even though it was already made abundantly clear it was hurting the animal and they weren’t going to get the results they wanted.
Unfortunately there’s little evidence that Koko could actually talk, and a lot to the contrary. here’s a video on it if anyone is interested, but be warned it has a few heavy topics like abuse.
Give Orange Me Give Eat Orange Me Eat Orange Give Me Eat Orange Give Me You
Scientists Claim.
Nope no they did not. They stated that a whale had responded in an intersting way to thier attempts to do so.
The media as usual completely exaggerated a scientific paper to get frucking clicks. They do not even try to quote anything that sounds like the seti scientists in any way considered it communication.
imagine if a swarm of murderhornets formed the shape of the letters “HELLO” in the air in front of a dude
and the dude was like “uh … hey…?”
and the swarm forms a “HI THERE :)”
and then they all just fly away
i feel like this whale is very creeped out and alarmed and telling all her whalefriends “GUYS THE WEIRDEST SHIT JUST HAPPENED TO ME”
“ugh, WE KNOW, BRENDA. we just don’t care. They don’t ACTUALLY understand us you know”
“Um excuse you my human-name is Twain, thank you very much, HMPH!”“New Species who dis?”
Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) in the US claim to have conversed with a humpback whale in Alaska as a proxy for communicating with aliens.
They went out to talk to some whales. Do you think they had a nice voyage home?
I see what you did there!
I bet they are fucking pissed off at us
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) in the US claim to have conversed with a humpback whale in Alaska as a proxy for communicating with aliens.
Whales are known to make complex vocalisations that can travel thousands of miles underwater to converse with one another but a complete understanding of their sounds has remained elusive.
Researchers have previously recorded several whale populations immersing in lengthy songs underwater that are also rhythmic and constantly evolving.
They found that while most of the whales ignored the recorded calls, one of them – a female named Twain – circled the scientists’ boat, mimicking the noises for about 20 minutes.
By studying intelligent non-human communication systems, such as in whales, researchers hope to develop filters to apply to any extraterrestrial signals received.
The latest findings also point to the use of effectively designed playback calls to make experimental conversation with whales and other interactive nonhuman species.
The original article contains 348 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
