Chelsea, this week I have some more whale news. And this might just barely be connected to the
things going on with the orcas. It doesn't specify it in the article, but I can talk about it at the
end how it might be related. Or you might be able to connect the dots on how I think it's related
as I read this article out loud. But this article comes from a website called Science Alert. I've
never used it before. I did find it on multiple sources. I thought this was a good article because
it mostly connected the other part of the article I wanted in here. But written on December 18th,
2023 by Jessica Orwig and Kelsey Vlamis. Title, Scientists Contact Whales in World
First Communication Experiment. What? Yeah. Okay. What do whale experts and alien hunters have in
common? More than you might expect for a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal
Peirge. Never heard of it before. Scientists from UC Davis, the University of California Davis campus,
the Alaska Whale Foundation and SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, teamed up.
Their mission? Communicate with whales. And they did just that. In a landmark experiment, the team
had a 20 minute conversation with a humpback whale named Twain in her own language. And it doesn't
say in the article, but I would like to know if they named it Twain or if they whale told them
its name was Twain. It sounds like the whale. In the conversation, by the way, your name's Twain.
The way it says it sounds like the whale told them that is the whale's name, which is weird,
but you bring up a very good point. It's probably one of the other ones. Twain and the scientists
didn't talk about the weather or the latest fish gossip. We're still a long way from that level
of understanding. What did happen though was remarkable. The scientists sailed a boat off the
coast of Alaska and played what's called a contact call into the ocean to see if any whales would
respond. Contact calls are similar to a human greeting. So they just basically put a speaker
into the ocean and yelled hello. Along with whales. Or Welsh. Is it whalish or Welsh? It would be
whalish. Okay. Welsh has already taken. Damn. Whales use them to call over other whales or let
each other know where they are. Lead author Brandon McCow and a professor at UC Davis' School of
Veterinary Medicine told Business Insider. They are one of the most common signals within the
humpback whale social sound repertoire. Fred Sharp co-author and principal investigator with the
Alaska Whale Foundation told Business Insider. Third enough, Twain swam up to the boat and
circled it. For the next 20 minutes, the scientists emitted the same contact call 36 different times
at varying intervals and Twain responded to the call each time, even closely matching the intervals.
Meaning if the scientists waited 10 seconds before playing a call back to Twain, she would in turn
wait 10 seconds before responding. McCow and said this type of interval matching suggests
Twain was engaged in an intentional exchange she added. Quote, it certainly felt like we had been
heard. And quote, Sharp told Business Insider emphasizing that their work is done with a permit
from the National Marine Fishery Service and readers should not try this at home or sea.
Quote again, we believe that this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and
humpback whales and the humpback language. And quote McGowan said in a statement, the
ballets came back from humpback whales that researchers recorded from a small group of
whales just the day before their encounter. And the group had included Twain. So as possible,
Twain was responding to her own signal. So they were playing it. She's like, Hey, that's me.
I sound so nice. I hope whales feel that way. What if it's like, is that what I sound like?
And it turns out Twain's behavior could be akin to how intelligent alien races may see
humanity out, said Lawrence Doyle, a principal investigator at the SETI Institute and co-author
on the paper. Quote, an important assumption on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is
that extraterrestrials will be interested in making contact and so target human receivers.
Sort of like how Twain responded to the contact call from the scientist Doyle said in the statement.
Doyle and his colleagues at SETI are working with whales and animal experts at UC Davis and the
Alaska Whales Foundation to create intelligent filters to aid in their search for extraterrestrial
intelligence. If extraterrestrials are out there sending us signals trying to communicate, we might
miss them if we don't know what to look for Doyle told Business Insider. By perfecting these
intelligence filters, scientists could use them to identify intelligence signals from space in an
attempt to make first contact with an alien race. Quote, there are diverse intelligences on this
planet and by studying them we can better understand what an alien intelligence might be like because
they're not going to be exactly like ours. End quote said McCallan. The research is still testing
the idea of whether or not intelligent alien life would even seek us out. End quote finishes off.
Whale research has indicated if your intelligent curiosity comes along with that and you want
to make contact. End quote Doyle said. Scientists said they hope similar work can be carried out
with other intelligent animals on earth including other citations like dolphins, carnivores that
cooperate to hunt and other highly social species like meerkats and elephants. And that's the article.
After reading it again out loud, I realized I probably should have used the Business Insider
article that they keep quoting but we're past that point now. I didn't really notice. I have so many
things to say. Number one, I mean I just gotta address the elephant or whale in the room if you
may. Can you do it in whalish? Is anybody trying to reach out to the orcas? Well and that's why I
feel like one's at towards reasoning with the orcas off the coast of the Iberia Peninsula. I
say the rich people do it. Yeah. Just just throwing it out there. They got nothing to lose I guess.
I mean. See I feel that the rich people should actually hire a poor person to do it because the
orcas seem to understand the poor people and be on good terms with them. It's true. Second, I feel
like SETI is grasping at straws here by saying this is how aliens might react. Well as whales are
just kind of minding their own business in the ocean and they don't know that anything's really
happening outside of their life I don't think. Yeah. Unless they do. Unless they're like really
intelligent and we just want to know that. Yeah and if you're red enough in sci-fi I'm not that well
red but I'm red enough. Whales come up a lot in sci-fi for reasons that are comedy. Other reasons
are because they are an intelligent species or because it's Star Trek 5. But what I think the
reason they use whales is because they are intelligent enough to have like their own
language and communication system so that we can see with us attempting to communicate with them how
they attempt to communicate back. It is not coming from a human standpoint. Their way of communicating
back to us is coming from a completely other evolved intelligence. So we can see another evolved
intelligence as a way of communicating. Okay. When we attempt to communicate. So we can see
hey if something like this was coming to us what could be expected back from say like a whale.
If it was whales out there doing it. So they pull up in a UFO and they get out and they use
whale-ish and we're like we trained for this. No it's it's in fact just hello. My next point won't
be Dick's sci-fi right. No I think that was all in fact modern day technologies at the time.
What was that other do you remember the other dick. What was that other. Moka dick.
Now there's the sci-fi and then my third point I mean we've all had interactions with our pets.
It responds. They do. It responds. It does but we don't know their language and we don't really
signal it properly. Like we can teach them ours. We don't really actually know how to communicate
with them in there. We don't speak in their language that's correct and I don't know that dogs
like talk to each other. Exactly so I don't think they actually have a fully vocal communication
system the way that whales do. Okay so that's why they went with whale. Yeah of course they also
said elephant and meerkats at the end there which do have a very social society but I think they're
less vocal than whales are and I think that's why they chose whales first. Also just you know
biggest brains on the planet so. Meerkats. Whales. Right. I think that's well I mean what if it's just
body language. That's a very important part of communication even with humans. It is but we're
not going to be able to convey that across the vast every space. You're going to do it. We're
going to have a little jiggle dance and we stand down. Point taken. But there's so many different
ways that this research can go. It can go towards the orcas. It can go into space. Maybe there are
in fact space whales and my vast collection of space whale pictures are not just fantasy and
science fiction but based in reality and that's something I think we can all hope for. That's
best case scenario. Yes. Based on what we want for ourselves and the research we're currently doing.
Yeah and based on all the disclosure information that's been coming to the surface in the last
six months of very annoyingly I might add and this research happening that's my best estimate
as to what's actually out there as space whales. So. That's you heard it here first. Yeah as always.
And that's why we make these predictions that are always right. We're like the Alex Jones.
So it's actually saying bright predictions in that he is wrong all the time but anyhow
to contemplate over the next 48 hours there'll be less space whale related information in the
next episode. I do apologize for that but maybe there'll be more space whales. OK good. I'll see
you Friday. See you.