The researchers' messages to the humpback whales led to a 20-minute greeting on the coast of Alaska. Apart from the greeting, there is no common language yet.
Whale- and zoologists dreamed that someday humans and whales could communicate with each other.
Humans would eventually understand the sounds and dialects of different species of whales. Just wrote about a dream Tom Mustill the book too: How to talk about an oath.
Whales really have a language of their own. Their versatile vocalizations have been recorded for decades.
Humans have not yet been able to trace the complex sounds and language of whales. Many believe that artificial intelligence can eventually help with this as well.
But now the humpback whales have already been communicated with – or at least greeted.
Science journal Posted by Peerj account of a meeting in which researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the Alaska Whale Foundation tested whether rudimentary communication with whales would be successful.
Researchers collected humpback whales off the southeast coast of Alaska. The connection with the whales was achieved with a recording that had previously been taken of whale vocalizations.
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“It really felt like we were being listened to.”
The group sent a type of cetacean communication into the coastal waters, with which the whales clearly call each other.
One whale, nicknamed Twain, came close to the boat. It circled the boat and answered the greeting.
For the next 20 minutes, the researchers sent the same short message several times. The message was repeated after intervals and pauses of different lengths.
Twain always responded in a way that corresponded in time to the messages people sent and the pauses in the messages.
With the help of greetings, whales tell each other in which waters they swim, says the professor Brenda McCowan, who was on the boat. He is a researcher at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
McCowan said that if the researchers waited 10 seconds before sending a message to Twain, the whale in turn waited the same 10 seconds before responding.
The correspondence of the pauses suggested that Twain understood the pauses and their durations.
“Used signals are very common in humpback whale communication,” says Fred Sharpe. He is the author of a study published in the Peerj magazine and a researcher at the Alaska Whale Foundation.
“It really felt like we were being listened to,” says Sharpe According to Science Alert.
The researchers emphasized that the experiment was conducted with the permission of the US fisheries authorities.
The message was picked up by humpback whales, which the supporters followed the day before their own experiment. So it is possible that Twain was responding to his own vocalizations that had been recorded.
The encounter tells at least that you can get in touch with whales with the help of recordings and playback.
The same the idea of repetition could be tried if we ever encounter an intelligent entity that comes from outside the earth.
A representative of the SETI organization, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence, took part in the oath test, he says Business Insider.
“It is important in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence to realize that beings from space are interested in making contact if they direct a message to humans, thinks a researcher from the SETI Institute Laurance Doyle.
Twain may have realized this, Doyle says. SETI made the trip own bulletin.
Doyle works with whales and other animal scientists to find filters that will help them encounter or search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Messages can go unnoticed if we don't even know what to look for. With the help of a smart filter, a person would realize that someone is trying to take over the band with their own tricks.
“Perhaps we could use filters to better understand what alien intelligence might be like. Even a whale's intelligence is not like ours,” McCowan said.
“If you're intellectual, curiosity comes from that. Curious people want to connect.”
The method tried with humpback whales could be tested with other social animal species, such as mongooses or elephants.
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