{"id":678610,"date":"2026-11-08T12:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T12:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/678610\/"},"modified":"2026-11-08T12:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T12:56:10","slug":"have-humpback-whales-been-witnessed-trying-to-send-messages-to-humans-what-could-they-be-trying-to-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/678610\/","title":{"rendered":"Have humpback whales been witnessed trying to send messages to humans? What could they be trying to tell us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Humpback whales<\/a> have long been\u00a0admired\u00a0for their intelligence,\u00a0and their behaviour\u00a0around other marine creatures has been\u00a0extensively\u00a0observed and documented.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In particular, the whales\u2019\u00a0habit of\u00a0teaming up to\u00a0blow bubbles\u00a0and\u00a0form a ring around a school of small fish to \u2018corral\u2019 them and make\u00a0feeding easier. This\u00a0hunting\u00a0collaboration\u00a0has raised\u00a0interesting speculation\u00a0about\u00a0the nature of\u00a0communication between\u00a0team members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2021,\u00a0a team of scientists\u00a0from the SETI Institute conducted what was termed a \u2018conversation\u2019 with a single humpback named Twain. This\u00a0consisted of playing whale calls through an underwater speaker that Twain responded to with similar calls.<\/p>\n

Later,\u00a0in\u00a0a 2024 study\u00a0by the same group,\u00a0whale\u00a0calls\u00a0made during\u00a0bubble\u00a0feeding\u00a0events,\u00a0originally\u00a0thought to\u00a0be\u00a0random and purposeless apart,\u00a0perhaps,\u00a0from\u00a0being\u00a0a way\u00a0to keep\u00a0in touch with other members of the pod,\u00a0were\u00a0surmised\u00a0to have more specific objectives. Certain calls seemed to be a way of\u00a0the whales\u00a0issuing instructions or making targeted comments to the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But\u00a0these studies\u00a0did not touch on\u00a0humpback\u00a0whales\u2019\u00a0voluntary\u00a0interactions\u00a0with humans, rather than\u00a0contact\u00a0engineered by the researchers,\u00a0or their\u00a0use of bubble\u00a0blowing,\u00a0other than as a hunting strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A\u00a02025 study by\u00a0the\u00a0scientists from SETI and the University of California, published in\u00a0Marine Mammal Science<\/a>,\u00a0addressed both these aspects\u00a0of whale behaviour\u00a0and\u00a0documented humpbacks producing large bubble rings during friendly\u00a0encounters with humans\u00a0that seem to be an attempt at sending messages.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0SETI\u00a0Institute\u2019s\u00a0overall\u00a0purpose is to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the universe\u00a0so these interactions aroused great interest. Non-verbal communications,\u00a0as well as attempts at speech,\u00a0wherever they occur,\u00a0are seen as key to\u00a0furthering our\u00a0understanding\u00a0of\u00a0all life forms. This applies to non-human species currently\u00a0on Earth\u00a0as well as\u00a0to\u00a0any\u00a0sentient\u00a0beings\u00a0that might be\u00a0encountered\u00a0in the future,\u00a0if space exploration brings us in\u00a0communication\u00a0contact with\u00a0life forms on other\u00a0planets.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumpback whales live in complex societies, are acoustically diverse, use bubble tools and assist other species being harassed by predators,\u201d\u00a0says\u00a0co-lead author Dr Fred Sharpe.\u00a0\u201cNow, akin to a candidate signal,\u00a0we show they are blowing bubble rings in our direction in an apparent attempt to playfully interact, observe our response, and\/or engage in some form of communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

A candidate signal is the name given to\u00a0interesting radio\u00a0waves\u00a0that can be\u00a0detected\u00a0from the depths of space, that have been the subject of much analysis as to their origin and meaning.\u00a0The team likened\u00a0what they see as\u00a0these attempts at communication\u00a0on the part of the whales,\u00a0and\u00a0the efforts\u00a0researchers\u00a0are making to understand their\u00a0bubble messages, as\u00a0akin to\u00a0the work\u00a0being\u00a0done to interpret\u00a0interplanetary radio signals.<\/p>\n

The study analysed 12 bubble ring-production episodes involving 39 rings made by 11 individual whales.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve now located a dozen whales from populations around the world, the majority of which have voluntarily approached boats and swimmers blowing bubble rings during these episodes of curious behaviour,\u201d\u00a0said co-lead author Jodi\u00a0Frediani,\u00a0a\u00a0marine wildlife photographer.<\/p>\n

The Whale-SETI team aims\u00a0to\u00a0use the results of their research to\u00a0develop filters that aid in parsing cosmic signals for signs of extra-terrestrial life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They\u00a0hope that with\u00a0continued observation and\u00a0the help of AI they may in the future be able to\u00a0accurately\u00a0interpret the communications, verbal and non-verbal, of whales and other animals. These learnings\u00a0and techniques could then be applied\u00a0to communications coming from outside our world.<\/p>\n

Listen to the sounds of bubble-making whale pack<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Humpback whales have long been\u00a0admired\u00a0for their intelligence,\u00a0and their behaviour\u00a0around other marine creatures has been\u00a0extensively\u00a0observed and documented. \u00a0In particular,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-678610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}