Need for Contact?: Human Voice Produced by White Whale

Whales are known to produce sounds in a manner that is completely different from humans. But to the surprise of researchers from the National Marine Mammal Foundation, they saw how whales, at least one very special white whale, can imitate the voice of humans.

The researchers have depicted this through acoustic analysis.

"Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds," said Sam Ridgway of the National Marine Mammal Foundation. "Such obvious effort suggests motivation for contact."

The need for this research developed when Ridgway and others began to notice some unusual sounds in the vicinity of the whale and dolphin enclosure.  The scientists became serious when on one fine day a diver surfaced from the tank and asked, "who told me to get out?" The researchers realized the garble came from a captive male Beluga whale. For several years, they recorded its spontaneous sounds while it was underwater and when it surfaced. They described the sound as though two people were conversing in the distance, just out of range of their understanding.

They traced the peculiar sounds to a white whale by the name of NOC. That whale had lived among dolphins and other white whales and had often been in the presence of humans.

Prior to this there were studies that revealed that whales sound like human, but what is different in this study is that the researcher Ridway captured some real evidence.

The team recorded the whale's sounds to reveal a rhythm similar to human speech and fundamental frequencies several octaves lower than typical whale sounds, much closer to that of the human voice.

 "Whale voice prints were similar to human voice and unlike the whale's usual sounds," Ridgway said. "The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale."

 According to the researchers, whales make sounds via their nasal tract, not in the larynx as humans do. To make those human-like sounds, NOC had to vary the pressure in his nasal tract while making other muscular adjustments and inflating the vestibular sac in his blowhole.

Ridgway cautions " (we)should not think that whales can communicate with us at a conversational level based on these results." Still, "that is an intriguing possibility for future research to determine what, if anything could be achieved at a conversational level."

The findings are being reported in the October 23 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press Publication.