blackram
Reviewer
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2010
- Messages
- 14,008
Looks like the whales have gotten tired of waiting for us to begin talking to them, they're now trying to talk to us! Hmmmmmm
Listen to the video, it's freaky! :YMPARTY:
Researchers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California had often heard the sound of people talking near the whale and dolphin enclosure, but had never managed to catch the culprits or get close enough to tell what they were saying.
It was only when a diver surfaced from the pen and asked colleagues why they had told him to exit the tank – when in fact no such command had been issued – that the penny dropped.
Rather than belonging to a hidden miscreant or a ghostly supervisor, the strange noises had in fact been emanating from a teenage white whale called NOC.
After recording the sounds, scientists at the research charity discovered that the whale had changed the way it produced noises in order to make its voice sound more similar to those of its keepers.
Despite the fact whales' vocal mechanisms are very different to ours, and come from the nasal tract rather than the larynx, NOC had developed a similar rhythm and had lowered his voice several octaves to bring it closer to the human range.
Listen to the video, it's freaky! :YMPARTY:
Researchers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California had often heard the sound of people talking near the whale and dolphin enclosure, but had never managed to catch the culprits or get close enough to tell what they were saying.
It was only when a diver surfaced from the pen and asked colleagues why they had told him to exit the tank – when in fact no such command had been issued – that the penny dropped.
Rather than belonging to a hidden miscreant or a ghostly supervisor, the strange noises had in fact been emanating from a teenage white whale called NOC.
After recording the sounds, scientists at the research charity discovered that the whale had changed the way it produced noises in order to make its voice sound more similar to those of its keepers.
Despite the fact whales' vocal mechanisms are very different to ours, and come from the nasal tract rather than the larynx, NOC had developed a similar rhythm and had lowered his voice several octaves to bring it closer to the human range.
