Encounter with humpback whales reveals potential for intelligent non-human communication

A team of scientists from the SETI Institute, University of California Davis and the Alaska Whale Foundation had a close encounter with non-human (aquatic) intelligence. The Whale-SETI team studied the communication systems of humpback whales with the goal of developing intelligence filters for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

In response to a “contact” call recorded in the sea via an underwater speaker, a humpback whale named Twain approached and circled the team’s boat while responding in a conversational style to the whale’s “greeting signal”. During the 20-minute exchange, Twain responded to each play call and matched the interval variations between each signal.

A description and analysis of the meeting appear in a recent issue of the journalPeerJentitled “Interactive bioacoustic reading as a tool for detecting and exploring non-human intelligence: “Conversing” with an Alaskan humpback whale.

“We believe this is the first such communication exchange between humans and humpback whales in humpback whale language,” said lead author Dr. Brenda McCowan of UC Davis.

“Humpback whales are extremely intelligent, have complex social systems, make tools – nets from bubbles to catch fish, and communicate extensively with songs and social calls,” said co-author Dr. Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation.

“Due to current limitations in technology, an important hypothesis of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that extraterrestrials will be interested in establishing contact and thus target human receptors. This important hypothesis is certainly supported by the behavior of humpback whales ” said Dr. Laurance. Doyle of the SETI Institute, co-author of the paper.

Similar to the study of Antarctica as a proxy for Mars, the Whale-SETI team is studying intelligent, terrestrial and non-human communications systems to develop filters to apply to any received extraterrestrial signals. The mathematics of information theory to quantify communicative complexity (e.g. the rule structure embedded in a received message) will be used.

Other team members and co-authors of the paper are Dr Josie Hubbard, Lisa Walker and Jodi Frediani, who specialize in animal intelligence, humpback whale song analysis and photography and behavior respectively. humpback whales. A second paper from the team will soon be available on the non-audio communication behavior of humpback whales: bubble rings made in the presence of (and perhaps for) humans.