The Whale That Spoke Like a Human (Audio)
Source: Earth Heal – News For An Earth In Transition
The Whale That Spoke Like a Human (Audio)
- A white whale known as NOC was able to imitate the sound of human voices even though cetaceans make sounds in a totally different way.
This audio clip captures the unusual speech-like sounds from a white whale known as NOC.
Back in 1984, strange sounds were heard at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California, that sounded like a distant conversation between two people.
One day, a diver in the whale enclosure thought he heard someone telling him to get out of the water. The noises turned out to be coming from NOC, whose calls were similar to human speech and several octaves lower than the sounds whales typically make.
“Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds,” said study co-author Sam Ridgway. “Such obvious effort suggests motivation for contact.”
