According to marine researchers over in the US, a beluga whale named NOC recently made some strange noises that were ‘remarkably close to human speech’. That’s good, right?
According to marine researchers, dolphins have previously been thought to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech. However, the beluga whale NOC, who has been making waves over in the US recently, simply decided to try his hand at speaking like humans, without ever being thought how to. Freaky, we know.
You can listen to the recording of NOC ‘speaking’ over on the BBC wesite
Now, it doesn’t sound like NOC is speaking any language we’ve ever heard before, but apparently beluga whales usually make fast high pitch sounds and hearing one making sounds like this is a first.
Speaking about the findings Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation said, “The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale.”
So what does that mean for the human race? Well, were no scientists, but we’d like to be the first to welcome our new marine overlords…
