Scientists from the University of California Davis and the SETI Institute had a 20-minute interaction with a humpback whale named Twain off the coast of Alaska.
Using an underwater speaker, the researchers played recorded humpback contact calls. To their surprise, Twain approached and started responding by circling them and matching the timing of the calls.
The interaction is believed to be the first communicative exchange between humans and humpbacks using the whales’ own language.
The researchers aim to understand whale communication to help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They hope to identify patterns that could apply to signals from space.
The behavior of Twain engaging with the humans supports the idea that intelligent life may want to make contact with other civilizations.
Studying whale communication can provide insights into how to detect and understand intelligent signals from other worlds.
The research was published in the journal PeerJ and supported by the Templeton Foundation. The scientists plan to further decode humpback sounds and messages using AI and information theory.
Source: Earth
