Scientists Talk to a Whale, Suspect ET Might Be Listening In
I have breaking news, ladies and gentlemen. Scientists from UC Davis have announced a major breakthrough in the quest to improve diplomatic relations between humans and enormous aquatic mammals. Yes, dear readers, the Cali researchers have successfully talked to a whale. They think ET might have been eavesdropping, too.
I’m not making this up. It is absolutely true. A team from UC Davis’ SETI Institute recorded a humpback “contact” call and then played it for a whale named Twain. Said whale apparently responded with appropriate guttural utterings of its own. Fine. But I have questions.
1. What does SETI stand for?
The aforementioned team is known as Whale-SETI. ‘Whale’ I get. But what’s the deal with SETI? Because UC Davis did not offer a comment for this piece, I am forced to decipher the arcane acronymical code on my own.
As far as I can tell, and Whale-SETI team members can correct me if I’m wrong, SETI stands for ‘Some Extraterrestrial Thingy Incognito’. Either that or it is a completely meaningless brand, like the spring football league formerly known as the XFL.
2. How do they know the whale’s name?
SETI team members report having a 20-minute conversation, which I have trouble believing because I don’t think they could stay off their phones for that long, with Twain the humpback. How do they know its name? Did the whale present a photo ID at the UC Davis visitor’s desk? Did the SETI team conduct an FBI background check before enlisting its assistance with their little gag?
Maybe the team chose the name for the whale. If so, that would be a bit pretentious, no? Yes. But even more disturbing is this delicate question: was the whale named after Mark or Shania? There are implications either way.
3. What do aliens have to do with any of this?
Researchers say, and I am not making this up either, that their experiment supports the idea of extraterrestrials listening in with the expectation that we will make some kind of noise they can hear. When they hear that noise, they will respond just like Twain did. But why do we assume ETs speak whale? How do we know they aren’t more attuned to dolphins, or chimps, or any number of housing inadequate vagrants who spend their days strolling San Francisco’s streets while mumbling about the end of the world as we know it?
4. What exactly is a humpback contact call?
UC Davis scientists used a humpback contact call to initiate their conversation with Twain. I don’t know what that means. Was Twain in the lead scientist’s contact list? Was it a cell phone kind of thing, or did they use the marine mammal version of Facetime? All I know is that the term ‘humpback contact call’ sounds a little sketchy to me. I’m not even sure if the whole thing is legal.
5. Can they contact my cousin Irving?
Finally, I would really like to know if team SETI can use that same contact call to reach out to my cousin Irving. I’m not quite sure where he is at the current time. The last we saw him he was headed up I-95 to chase his lifelong dream of being the guy at Starbucks who reads the names on the cups and then screams them at the top of his lungs.
With his calling skills, I’m sure team SETI could put Irving to work serenading all sorts of marine life, for scientific reasons of course. Maybe he could even do what team SETI couldn’t: actually understand that Twain was telling them to stop wasting their time. I suspect Twain had already been in contact with ET and told him to stay home.
