What can a humpback whale teach the world of science? Scientists are inspired by nature. With the development of technology, researchers now manage to communicate with different living creatures. Researchers had an unprecedented encounter with a humpback whale. This allowed them to learn more about humpback whale communication systems. Additionally, this communication revealed the potential for non-human intelligence communication. Here are the details…
Scientists communicated with the humpback whale!
Communicating with a whale sounds quite interesting. Earlier this year, a group of researchers achieved this. Researchers had an interesting encounter with a humpback whale. This research is being conducted by a group of researchers known as Whale-SETI. The Whale-SETI team is working on humpback whale communication systems to develop intelligence filters for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Researchers managed to hold a 20-minute conversation with a humpback whale named Twain.
Dr. from SETI Institute. Laurence Doyle says: “Due to current limitations in technology, an important assumption in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that extraterrestrials will be interested in communicating and will therefore target human recipients. This important assumption is certainly supported by the behavior of humpback whales.”
This entire conversation is described in great detail in an article in Peer J magazine. In this research, scientists demonstrate the first conversation between humans and humpback whales using “humpback language”. To make such an amazing discovery, researchers used a recorded hunchback communication call to attract Twain’s attention.
For this, they got help from an underwater speaker. The whale responded to this greeting signal. Then he started to circle the boat. During the 20-minute exchange, Twain responded to every play call. It matched the interval changes between each signal.
Co-author Dr. of the Alaska Whaling Foundation. “Humpback whales are highly intelligent, have complex social systems, make tools such as bubble nets to catch fish, and communicate extensively with both songs and social calls,” said Fred Sharpe.
This talk goes a long way in highlighting the intelligence of these creatures. Additionally, this research underlines how complex humpback communication systems are. But this research has a much more important outcome than simply better understanding how humpback whales talk to each other. Researchers say this could also support an important hypothesis in the search for alien life.