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.

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    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!”