The Beluga Whale That Mimicked Humans

Noc was a beluga whale that spent most of its life at a naval research facility in San Diego.

Scientists studying Noc say he imitated human sounds. They have published Noc’s human-like sounds in a new study in the journal Current Biology.

The World’s science reporter Rhitu Chatterjee explains the new findings to Marco Werman.

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Marco Werman: I should say at theworld.org we’ve also got sounds. So see if you can recognize this sound. Okay, to me, this sounds like somebody playing a kazoo in the rain.

Rhitu Chatterjee: Or someone singing in the rain, someone in an unusually good mood.

Werman: Yeah, I’ll say, that’s The World’s science reporter Rhitu Chatterjee, and Rhitu, you’re here to tell us what that sound really is.

Chatterjee: Indeed, Marco, and it wasn’t a human at all. That’s a whale, a white whale, or a Beluga named Noc. And scientists think he was imitating the human voice.

Werman: Wow, a Beluga whale imitating the human voice is incredible. So this Beluga, this Noc, who was or is he?

Chatterjee: Well, his story is fascinating. In 1977, when Noc was about 3-4 years old he was captured off the coast of Canada by Inuit hunters and shipped off to a Navy research lab in San Diego where scientists were studying whale behavior. They kept Noc and two other Belugas in enclosures at a pier and they would often record whale calls. In 1984, when Noc had been with the scientists for about 7 years, the scientists thought they heard human voices in the background of those recordings.

Werman: And those were the whales talking?

Chatterjee: Wait, wait, Marco, you’re getting ahead of the story. At the time, researchers thought that they were hearing people talking at a neighboring pier, so they didn’t make much of it, but one day some divers were doing experiments at the whale facility, and they were communicating with their supervisors on land through underwater communication devices and suddenly a diver surfaces and asked “Who asked me to get out?” No one had it seemed and that’s when they realized it was one of the whales.

Werman: Wow.

Chatterjee: From then on the scientists started paying more and more attention to the whale sounds and realized that one of their three whales, Noc would often switch his voice to sound like humans. And yeah, they were never able to record him saying out, out, which according to the divers he said a lot, but they were able to record him at other times singing or saying goodness knows what.

Werman: So this seems like a really big deal. Is this the first Beluga whale to imitate human speech?

Chatterjee: No, Marco, a Beluga at the Vancouver aquarium is known to have said his name, Negozi, again and again. But Noc’s human-like sounds was the first to be recorded by us and Sam Ridgeway is one of the scientists who worked with Noc for nearly 30 years, I spoke with him and Ridgeway thinks that Noc wasn’t as good an imitator of human sounds say like parrots, but he thought Noc was trying pretty hard.

Werman: So, Noc lived a happy long life, but we should say that he died about four years ago, so we may never learn what he was trying to say in that song.

Chatterjee: That’s right, Marco, but who knows, another Beluga might in the future give us some insight.

Werman: Rhitu Chatterjee, The Worlds science correspondent, thank you so much. It’s always good for you to stop by.

Chatterjee: You’re welcome, Marco.

Werman: We have Noc’s human-like sound and other normal Beluga calls; you can listen to them online at theworld.org.

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(Sound courtesy of Vancouver Aquarium Cetacean Research Program)

(Sound courtesy of Vancouver Aquarium Cetacean Research Program)

(Sound courtesy of Vancouver Aquarium Cetacean Research Program)