WHALIEN CONTACT
1st humpback chat. Next, E.T.
A group of scientists had a “conversation” with a humpback whale in Alaska — and they hope principles learned from it will someday help communicate with aliens.
The team was assembled by the SETI Institute, a nonprofit whose mission is to search for extraterrestrial intelligence .
While the organization normally looks to the skies, they turned their attention to the seas over the winter.
“Whales are a proxy for aliens,” animal behaviorist Dr. Josie Hubbard told The Post.
“They’re intelligent creatures with a language that is foreign to us. The things we learn from communicating with whales could help us when it comes time to connect with aliens.”
“Their language is complex,” adds Lisa Walker, a whale-song theorist who was part of the mission. “They make whoops and thrups and groans and squeaks. Their vocalizations are fascinating. We are trying to figure out what the vocalizations mean.”
While the scientists believe the noises are mainly social sounds, they hypothesize that at least some of the vocalizations communicate specific meanings.
“They could be making commands,” says Hubbard. “Go up, down; go here and there.”
In December, the team was on a boat off the coast of Alaska, looking for whale pods. When they’d find one, the researchers would play underwater recordings of humpbacks.
Most of the whales ignored them — or at least make no discernable acknowledgment of the sounds.
But then, a female humpback named Twain began circling their boat.
Twain began mimicking the recording and calling out to the boat, as if to say hello.
“It was a contact call,” says Hubbard. “It’s how the whales call to each other . . . and we believe that’s how they determine each other’s locations. And here we were having a unique encounter with Twain. She gave a resounding response.”
Hello, humans
“It might have just been us saying hello, and her responding hello, and us saying hello again,” explains Walker, “but it was definite communication. She did it 36 times in 20 minutes, and only stopped after playback stopped.”
“We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback ‘language,’” lead author Dr. Brenda McCowan of University of California, Davis said in a statement.
“Humpback whales are extremely intelligent,” added coauthor Dr. Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation. “They have complex social systems, make tools nets out of bubbles to catch fish, and communicate extensively with both songs and social calls.”
So how will this help scientist communicate with otherworldly creatures?
“Language has structure,” says Hubbard. “And if we can learn to communicate with a creature so different from us, then hopefully we will be able to use those same principles with intelligent beings that aren’t from Earth.”