1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,840 Chelsea, this week I have some more whale news. And this might just barely be connected to the 2 00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:11,840 things going on with the orcas. It doesn't specify it in the article, but I can talk about it at the 3 00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:15,760 end how it might be related. Or you might be able to connect the dots on how I think it's related 4 00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:22,000 as I read this article out loud. But this article comes from a website called Science Alert. I've 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:26,160 never used it before. I did find it on multiple sources. I thought this was a good article because 6 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:31,520 it mostly connected the other part of the article I wanted in here. But written on December 18th, 7 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:38,560 2023 by Jessica Orwig and Kelsey Vlamis. Title, Scientists Contact Whales in World 8 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:45,200 First Communication Experiment. What? Yeah. Okay. What do whale experts and alien hunters have in 9 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:49,840 common? More than you might expect for a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal 10 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:56,320 Peirge. Never heard of it before. Scientists from UC Davis, the University of California Davis campus, 11 00:00:56,320 --> 00:01:01,360 the Alaska Whale Foundation and SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, teamed up. 12 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:07,040 Their mission? Communicate with whales. And they did just that. In a landmark experiment, the team 13 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:13,440 had a 20 minute conversation with a humpback whale named Twain in her own language. And it doesn't 14 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:19,200 say in the article, but I would like to know if they named it Twain or if they whale told them 15 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:25,840 its name was Twain. It sounds like the whale. In the conversation, by the way, your name's Twain. 16 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:31,600 The way it says it sounds like the whale told them that is the whale's name, which is weird, 17 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:36,720 but you bring up a very good point. It's probably one of the other ones. Twain and the scientists 18 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:42,240 didn't talk about the weather or the latest fish gossip. We're still a long way from that level 19 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:46,400 of understanding. What did happen though was remarkable. The scientists sailed a boat off the 20 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:51,120 coast of Alaska and played what's called a contact call into the ocean to see if any whales would 21 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:55,920 respond. Contact calls are similar to a human greeting. So they just basically put a speaker 22 00:01:55,920 --> 00:02:02,800 into the ocean and yelled hello. Along with whales. Or Welsh. Is it whalish or Welsh? It would be 23 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:09,680 whalish. Okay. Welsh has already taken. Damn. Whales use them to call over other whales or let 24 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:14,560 each other know where they are. Lead author Brandon McCow and a professor at UC Davis' School of 25 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:18,960 Veterinary Medicine told Business Insider. They are one of the most common signals within the 26 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:24,320 humpback whale social sound repertoire. Fred Sharp co-author and principal investigator with the 27 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:28,720 Alaska Whale Foundation told Business Insider. Third enough, Twain swam up to the boat and 28 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:33,840 circled it. For the next 20 minutes, the scientists emitted the same contact call 36 different times 29 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:39,520 at varying intervals and Twain responded to the call each time, even closely matching the intervals. 30 00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:43,680 Meaning if the scientists waited 10 seconds before playing a call back to Twain, she would in turn 31 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:48,240 wait 10 seconds before responding. McCow and said this type of interval matching suggests 32 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:53,840 Twain was engaged in an intentional exchange she added. Quote, it certainly felt like we had been 33 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:58,880 heard. And quote, Sharp told Business Insider emphasizing that their work is done with a permit 34 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:03,600 from the National Marine Fishery Service and readers should not try this at home or sea. 35 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:09,840 Quote again, we believe that this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and 36 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:14,560 humpback whales and the humpback language. And quote McGowan said in a statement, the 37 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:19,040 ballets came back from humpback whales that researchers recorded from a small group of 38 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:23,280 whales just the day before their encounter. And the group had included Twain. So as possible, 39 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:27,200 Twain was responding to her own signal. So they were playing it. She's like, Hey, that's me. 40 00:03:28,320 --> 00:03:34,000 I sound so nice. I hope whales feel that way. What if it's like, is that what I sound like? 41 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:41,600 And it turns out Twain's behavior could be akin to how intelligent alien races may see 42 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:46,800 humanity out, said Lawrence Doyle, a principal investigator at the SETI Institute and co-author 43 00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:51,280 on the paper. Quote, an important assumption on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is 44 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:56,720 that extraterrestrials will be interested in making contact and so target human receivers. 45 00:03:56,720 --> 00:04:00,800 Sort of like how Twain responded to the contact call from the scientist Doyle said in the statement. 46 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:06,240 Doyle and his colleagues at SETI are working with whales and animal experts at UC Davis and the 47 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:10,640 Alaska Whales Foundation to create intelligent filters to aid in their search for extraterrestrial 48 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:16,240 intelligence. If extraterrestrials are out there sending us signals trying to communicate, we might 49 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:20,800 miss them if we don't know what to look for Doyle told Business Insider. By perfecting these 50 00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:25,760 intelligence filters, scientists could use them to identify intelligence signals from space in an 51 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:31,120 attempt to make first contact with an alien race. Quote, there are diverse intelligences on this 52 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:36,080 planet and by studying them we can better understand what an alien intelligence might be like because 53 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:41,200 they're not going to be exactly like ours. End quote said McCallan. The research is still testing 54 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:46,480 the idea of whether or not intelligent alien life would even seek us out. End quote finishes off. 55 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,880 Whale research has indicated if your intelligent curiosity comes along with that and you want 56 00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:55,760 to make contact. End quote Doyle said. Scientists said they hope similar work can be carried out 57 00:04:55,760 --> 00:05:01,280 with other intelligent animals on earth including other citations like dolphins, carnivores that 58 00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:06,800 cooperate to hunt and other highly social species like meerkats and elephants. And that's the article. 59 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:11,280 After reading it again out loud, I realized I probably should have used the Business Insider 60 00:05:11,280 --> 00:05:17,600 article that they keep quoting but we're past that point now. I didn't really notice. I have so many 61 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:24,000 things to say. Number one, I mean I just gotta address the elephant or whale in the room if you 62 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:30,480 may. Can you do it in whalish? Is anybody trying to reach out to the orcas? Well and that's why I 63 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:37,040 feel like one's at towards reasoning with the orcas off the coast of the Iberia Peninsula. I 64 00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:42,160 say the rich people do it. Yeah. Just just throwing it out there. They got nothing to lose I guess. 65 00:05:42,160 --> 00:05:46,640 I mean. See I feel that the rich people should actually hire a poor person to do it because the 66 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:52,480 orcas seem to understand the poor people and be on good terms with them. It's true. Second, I feel 67 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:59,840 like SETI is grasping at straws here by saying this is how aliens might react. Well as whales are 68 00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:04,000 just kind of minding their own business in the ocean and they don't know that anything's really 69 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,800 happening outside of their life I don't think. Yeah. Unless they do. Unless they're like really 70 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,600 intelligent and we just want to know that. Yeah and if you're red enough in sci-fi I'm not that well 71 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:20,480 red but I'm red enough. Whales come up a lot in sci-fi for reasons that are comedy. Other reasons 72 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:25,520 are because they are an intelligent species or because it's Star Trek 5. But what I think the 73 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:30,560 reason they use whales is because they are intelligent enough to have like their own 74 00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:35,680 language and communication system so that we can see with us attempting to communicate with them how 75 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:41,440 they attempt to communicate back. It is not coming from a human standpoint. Their way of communicating 76 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:48,240 back to us is coming from a completely other evolved intelligence. So we can see another evolved 77 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:52,880 intelligence as a way of communicating. Okay. When we attempt to communicate. So we can see 78 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:59,440 hey if something like this was coming to us what could be expected back from say like a whale. 79 00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:05,200 If it was whales out there doing it. So they pull up in a UFO and they get out and they use 80 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:12,480 whale-ish and we're like we trained for this. No it's it's in fact just hello. My next point won't 81 00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:18,000 be Dick's sci-fi right. No I think that was all in fact modern day technologies at the time. 82 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:23,280 What was that other do you remember the other dick. What was that other. Moka dick. 83 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:31,200 Now there's the sci-fi and then my third point I mean we've all had interactions with our pets. 84 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:37,600 It responds. They do. It responds. It does but we don't know their language and we don't really 85 00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:42,320 signal it properly. Like we can teach them ours. We don't really actually know how to communicate 86 00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:46,880 with them in there. We don't speak in their language that's correct and I don't know that dogs 87 00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:54,000 like talk to each other. Exactly so I don't think they actually have a fully vocal communication 88 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:59,360 system the way that whales do. Okay so that's why they went with whale. Yeah of course they also 89 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:04,960 said elephant and meerkats at the end there which do have a very social society but I think they're 90 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:10,480 less vocal than whales are and I think that's why they chose whales first. Also just you know 91 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:20,080 biggest brains on the planet so. Meerkats. Whales. Right. I think that's well I mean what if it's just 92 00:08:20,080 --> 00:08:26,560 body language. That's a very important part of communication even with humans. It is but we're 93 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:33,200 not going to be able to convey that across the vast every space. You're going to do it. We're 94 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:39,440 going to have a little jiggle dance and we stand down. Point taken. But there's so many different 95 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:44,560 ways that this research can go. It can go towards the orcas. It can go into space. Maybe there are 96 00:08:44,560 --> 00:08:51,120 in fact space whales and my vast collection of space whale pictures are not just fantasy and 97 00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:55,440 science fiction but based in reality and that's something I think we can all hope for. That's 98 00:08:55,440 --> 00:09:01,680 best case scenario. Yes. Based on what we want for ourselves and the research we're currently doing. 99 00:09:01,680 --> 00:09:06,720 Yeah and based on all the disclosure information that's been coming to the surface in the last 100 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:11,280 six months of very annoyingly I might add and this research happening that's my best estimate 101 00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:16,880 as to what's actually out there as space whales. So. That's you heard it here first. Yeah as always. 102 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:20,880 And that's why we make these predictions that are always right. We're like the Alex Jones. 103 00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:27,120 So it's actually saying bright predictions in that he is wrong all the time but anyhow 104 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:35,120 to contemplate over the next 48 hours there'll be less space whale related information in the 105 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:40,160 next episode. I do apologize for that but maybe there'll be more space whales. OK good. I'll see 106 00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:52,720 you Friday. See you.