Whales

[Веретенников Сергей]

You have already read my science-fiction story "In the Name of the Highest Principles of Good," written in 2000, in which I transposed the history of the whales of space. You have even listened to it in my audio drama...
But now the time of AI has come.


Part 1. Voices of the Deep

The ocean has always been something more to humans than mere water. It is a mirror of the heavens, a temple of mysteries, a space in which the planet’s breathing rhythm can be heard. We looked at the surface of the sea, listened to its voices, and thought it was merely the sound of wind in the waves. But through this “noise,” sounds that no one understood had been breaking through for centuries. It seemed as though the elements themselves were singing: low, resonant thuds, undulating moans, measured clicks.


Humanity long believed that it was something chaotic and meaningless. Like a child entering a foreign country for the first time, we heard an unfamiliar speech but did not know that it was speech. And only now, on the threshold of the twenty-first century, has it become clear: all this time, we had been witnessing a dialogue between beings that have lived beside us for millions of years. We heard the language of whales.

The First Myths and Fears of Sailors

Nineteenth-century sailors knew nothing about the science of marine-mammal acoustics. But they were poets against their will: the sounds coming from the darkness of the depths seemed to them the voices of spirits, omens of storms, warnings from the gods of the sea. Whalers’ diaries contain entries such as: “at night, the water spoke,” “blows came from beneath the hull, like the beating of the earth’s heart.”


The irony is that these very whalers, who killed marine giants for their blubber, did not even suspect that before dying, the animals cried out in their own language, called to their kin, and warned their young. To them, these were “noises”—but to us, they are now records of pain and memory.

The Birth of Scientific Listening

The turning point came only in the 1970s. That was when biologist Roger Payne recorded the songs of humpback whales and showed the world that the ocean sounded like a symphony. His album Songs of the Humpback Whale spread around the planet as a cultural sensation. People suddenly heard that whales created musical compositions lasting for hours. They changed themes, returned to motifs, and used repetition and variation just as Bach or Coltrane did.


At that moment, we experienced a shock for the first time: it turned out that we were not alone in the realm of art. There was another intelligence that expressed itself through sound. These songs became the beginning of the “Save the Whales” movement and saved several species from extinction.

The Theater Metaphor

To understand what this meant, imagine that you enter a theater, the curtain rises, the actors come out—and speak a language that no one in the audience understands. You hear emotions, see tears and laughter, and sense the drama, but the content remains inaccessible. That was how it was with the ocean. We sat in the audience, while the play had been running for millions of years.

The Mystery of the Ocean’s Thunder

Sperm whales turned out to be the loudest animals on Earth. Their clicks reach 200 decibels—louder than a jet engine. But almost until the end of the twentieth century, humanity did not even know that they made sounds. We saw their backs and their spouts, and killed them for oil—but we were deaf.


The problem was not only the lack of technology. We were not accustomed to listening to the world in any way other than through the prism of human logic. For us, “speech” had to consist of words and sentences spoken by a mouth. We could not imagine a language in which meaning was conveyed by the time between clicks, the speed of their rhythm, and the intonation of a pause.

Awaiting the Encounter

When Roger Payne said, “People have fallen in love with the sounds of whales. Imagine what will happen when we understand what they mean,” he was prophetically predicting the future. But for another half-century, no one could even begin to unravel the mystery. Only at the beginning of the twenty-first century did it become clear: the time had come to listen closely.

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper">You have already read my science-fiction story "In the Name of the Highest Principles of Good," written in 2000, in which I transposed the history of the whales of space. You have even listened to it in my audio drama...<br /> But now the time of AI has come.<br /> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 26px"><b>Part 1. Voices of the Deep</b></span><br /> <br /> The ocean has always been something more to humans than mere water. It is a mirror of the heavens, a temple of mysteries, a space in which the planet’s breathing rhythm can be heard. We looked at the surface of the sea, listened to its voices, and thought it was merely the sound of wind in the waves. But through this “noise,” sounds that no one understood had been breaking through for centuries. It seemed as though the elements themselves were singing: low, resonant thuds, undulating moans, measured clicks.<br /> <br /> <br /> Humanity long believed that it was something chaotic and meaningless. Like a child entering a foreign country for the first time, we heard an unfamiliar speech but did not know that it was speech. And only now, on the threshold of the twenty-first century, has it become clear: all this time, we had been witnessing a dialogue between beings that have lived beside us for millions of years. We heard the <b>language of whales</b>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The First Myths and Fears of Sailors</b></span><br /> <br /> Nineteenth-century sailors knew nothing about the science of marine-mammal acoustics. But they were poets against their will: the sounds coming from the darkness of the depths seemed to them the voices of spirits, omens of storms, warnings from the gods of the sea. Whalers’ diaries contain entries such as: “at night, the water spoke,” “blows came from beneath the hull, like the beating of the earth’s heart.”<br /> <br /> <br /> The irony is that these very whalers, who killed marine giants for their blubber, did not even suspect that before dying, the animals cried out in their own language, called to their kin, and warned their young. To them, these were “noises”—but to us, they are now records of pain and memory.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Birth of Scientific Listening</b></span><br /> <br /> The turning point came only in the 1970s. That was when biologist Roger Payne recorded the songs of humpback whales and showed the world that the ocean sounded like a symphony. His album <b>Songs of the Humpback Whale</b> spread around the planet as a cultural sensation. People suddenly heard that whales created musical compositions lasting for hours. They changed themes, returned to motifs, and used repetition and variation just as Bach or Coltrane did.<br /> <br /> <br /> At that moment, we experienced a shock for the first time: it turned out that we were not alone in the realm of art. There was another intelligence that expressed itself through sound. These songs became the beginning of the “Save the Whales” movement and saved several species from extinction.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Theater Metaphor</b></span><br /> <br /> To understand what this meant, imagine that you enter a theater, the curtain rises, the actors come out—and speak a language that no one in the audience understands. You hear emotions, see tears and laughter, and sense the drama, but the content remains inaccessible. That was how it was with the ocean. We sat in the audience, while the play had been running for millions of years.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Mystery of the Ocean’s Thunder</b></span><br /> <br /> Sperm whales turned out to be the loudest animals on Earth. Their clicks reach 200 decibels—louder than a jet engine. But almost until the end of the twentieth century, humanity did not even know that they made sounds. We saw their backs and their spouts, and killed them for oil—but we were deaf.<br /> <br /> <br /> The problem was not only the lack of technology. We were not accustomed to listening to the world in any way other than through the prism of human logic. For us, “speech” had to consist of words and sentences spoken by a mouth. We could not imagine a language in which meaning was conveyed by the time between clicks, the speed of their rhythm, and the intonation of a pause.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Awaiting the Encounter</b></span><br /> <br /> When Roger Payne said, “People have fallen in love with the sounds of whales. Imagine what will happen when we understand what they mean,” he was prophetically predicting the future. But for another half-century, no one could even begin to unravel the mystery. Only at the beginning of the twenty-first century did it become clear: the time had come to listen closely.</div>

 

[Веретенников Сергей]

Until the 1970s, humanity had no tools to truly listen to the ocean. Recordings were made on primitive tape recorders, the quality was poor, and, most importantly, scientists worked with fragments, without context. It was like hearing a few phrases from strangers and trying to reconstruct an entire people's culture from them. We saw only pieces of the puzzle and formed hypotheses: perhaps these were mating songs? Alarm signals? Commands meaning “swim this way”?


And yet even then, a vague question began to emerge: what if this language is structured in a completely different way from ours? What if we cannot even imagine how complex their communication is?

A Meeting of Disciplines

In 2017, an event took place at Harvard that could be called the beginning of a new era. Marine biologist David Gruber was listening to recordings of sperm whales. In the adjoining office, cryptographer Shafi Goldwasser—a Turing Award winner—happened to hear the clicks. To her ear, they resembled Morse code. And she proposed an idea: what if machine-learning and cryptographic methods were applied to these signals?


Thus began a dialogue between biologists and artificial-intelligence specialists. Michael Bronstein from Oxford, one of the pioneers of neural networks, joined them. He made a simple but important point: understanding any language requires enormous quantities of data. If we want to decipher whales, we will have to collect billions of recordings.

The SETI Idea Turned Toward the Ocean

Gruber realized that this was not merely a scientific task; it was training for an encounter with another civilization. We have spent decades searching for a signal from space, but perhaps another intelligence has always been nearby—in the ocean. And if we cannot understand whales, how do we hope to understand extraterrestrials?


Sperm whales are creatures with brains weighing up to 9 kilograms, social lives, and culture. They pass on knowledge, raise their young, and hunt together. Their lives resemble those of ancient human tribes, only transplanted into the depths of the ocean.

The Birth of Project CETI

In 2019, a seminar was held at Harvard. Biologists, linguists, engineers, and robotics specialists gathered there. By the end of the second day, they had all reached the same conclusion: deciphering the whales’ code was a realistic task.


In 2020, the CETI — Cetacean Translation Initiative project emerged. It received $33 million in funding. The team included scientists from MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Berkeley, and dozens of other institutions. It became a new kind of international expedition: not hunting whales, but searching for their dictionary.

Dominica—An Island Laboratory

Dominica in the Caribbean Sea was chosen as the site of the work. There, underwater depths begin almost right off the coast. Sperm whales approach close to shore and return year after year. This created unique conditions: the same families could be studied for decades.


The section of ocean was transformed into a gigantic underwater studio. Dozens of hydrophones recorded sound around the clock. Robotic drones tracked the animals’ movements, while miniature biosensors attached to their bodies recorded heart rate, depth, and speed. For the first time in history, humanity could look not only into whale acoustics, but also into the whale’s life from within.


But even with all this equipment, the CETI team encountered a new problem: too much data. Billions of clicks, thousands of hours of recordings, endless graphs and tables. The human brain cannot process all of it.


And here artificial intelligence entered the scene. The sounds were converted into spectrograms—color maps in which each click became a drawing on the screen. AI began searching for patterns that would be invisible to humans.


And what had seemed chaotic turned out to be a system.

The Birth of a Code

Scientists discovered that sperm whales use short rhythmic sequences of clicks—codes. They are like words. One code may consist of five clicks, another of three. Between them are precise intervals.


Among Caribbean sperm whales, the “1+1+3” code is popular: a click, a pause, a click, a pause, and three rapid clicks in succession.


But the most interesting discovery was that the same code could vary.

• Speed: a slow or fast rhythm changed the meaning.
• Additional clicks at the beginning or end—like suffixes and prefixes in our words.
• The intonation of pauses: an extended pause could express emotion.
• And even microscopic shifts in timing functioned like “vowels” in human speech.

In essence, it was a language.

A Two-Level System

MIT researcher Jacob Andreas explained:
— We see a two-level system. At the lower level, sounds combine into words. At the upper level, words combine into sentences. It resembles human language.


In other words, whales are capable of combining elements, which means they create complex meanings rather than merely repeating commands.

Cultural Differences

But the dialects were even more astonishing. Different sperm-whale clans had different ways of performing the codes. Some extended the pauses, while others accelerated the rhythm. Moreover, when the clans’ territories overlapped, they borrowed elements from one another. This means that whales have a language culture, with traditions and innovations being passed on.


This became the first evidence that their language was not only living, but also evolving.

Individual Voices

AI went further: it learned to distinguish individual whales. It turned out that each one has a “signature”—small differences in rhythm and timing. Just as we recognize the voice of someone we know, scientists can now identify a specific whale among hundreds.


Moreover, the system tracks changes in an “accent” as the whales mature. Young whales adopt elements from older ones, but add something of their own.

Mind Games

It is especially fascinating to observe the calves. They experiment with sounds and invent new combinations. Sometimes adults pick up these “childhood inventions,” and they become part of the local dialect.


This means that the language of sperm whales is not a fixed code, but a living fabric that is constantly changing. It resembles the way new words, slang, and fashionable expressions arise among humans.


Once the researchers had enough data, they began comparing sounds with the whales’ behavior. And it turned out that the codes were not random. They were precisely connected to the situation.

• There are social codes—they are uttered when families meet, like greetings.
• There are coordination codes—they help the whales act together during hunting or migration.
• There are care codes—mothers “talk” to their calves and teach them.
• A special group consists of diving codes. Before diving, sperm whales “announce” to their kin where they are going, why, and for how long.

The analysis revealed something astonishing: if a whale “said” it would dive north in search of squid, it really did dive in that direction. The language predicted the action.

A Conversation Across Distance

But the language proved capable of more. In some cases, hydrophones recorded exchanges of signals between families hundreds of kilometers apart. Hours after such “conversations,” the entire group changed course—as if it had received a warning.


In one episode, a whale family changed its route and went around an area where military sonar exercises later began. This means they can share information over enormous distances, saving lives.

The First Steps Toward Dialogue

By 2023, the scientists had a natural question: if we understand the structure of the language, can we try to respond?


The first experiments showed that we could. A code played through an underwater speaker elicited an immediate response from a sperm whale. An exchange of phrases began. Primitive, perhaps, but a genuine dialogue.


For the team, it was a moment of revelation. They felt like researchers who had captured the first radio signal from space. Only the “aliens” had been living nearby all along—in the ocean.

The Ethical Horizon

But the further the experiments went, the more questions arose. Do we have the right to interfere in their communication? Can humanity speak with another intelligence without causing harm?


CETI participants developed strict rules: no experiment should harm the whales. If an animal shows no interest, contact is terminated.


And yet the very possibility of dialogue presents us with a new challenge. What will happen if one day we fully understand their language? How will our conception of the boundaries of intelligence change?

Looking Within

Roger Payne said:
— Fifty years ago, people fell in love with whale songs and saved them from extinction. Now we must fall in love with their meaning.


The first chapter in the history of Project CETI is the story of human hearing finally learning to listen. We have journeyed from fear of the “voices of the deep” to the first attempts at communication.


But this is only the beginning. Beyond the horizon lies the possibility of a real dialogue with another intelligent species. And the question is growing louder: are we ready for a conversation that will change everything?

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper">Until the 1970s, humanity had no tools to truly listen to the ocean. Recordings were made on primitive tape recorders, the quality was poor, and, most importantly, scientists worked with fragments, without context. It was like hearing a few phrases from strangers and trying to reconstruct an entire people's culture from them. We saw only pieces of the puzzle and formed hypotheses: perhaps these were mating songs? Alarm signals? Commands meaning “swim this way”?<br /> <br /> <br /> And yet even then, a vague question began to emerge: what if this language is structured in a completely different way from ours? What if we cannot even imagine how complex their communication is?<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Meeting of Disciplines</b></span><br /> <br /> In 2017, an event took place at Harvard that could be called the beginning of a new era. Marine biologist David Gruber was listening to recordings of sperm whales. In the adjoining office, cryptographer Shafi Goldwasser—a Turing Award winner—happened to hear the clicks. To her ear, they resembled Morse code. And she proposed an idea: what if machine-learning and cryptographic methods were applied to these signals?<br /> <br /> <br /> Thus began a dialogue between biologists and artificial-intelligence specialists. Michael Bronstein from Oxford, one of the pioneers of neural networks, joined them. He made a simple but important point: understanding any language requires enormous quantities of data. If we want to decipher whales, we will have to collect billions of recordings.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The SETI Idea Turned Toward the Ocean</b></span><br /> <br /> Gruber realized that this was not merely a scientific task; it was training for an encounter with another civilization. We have spent decades searching for a signal from space, but perhaps another intelligence has always been nearby—in the ocean. And if we cannot understand whales, how do we hope to understand extraterrestrials?<br /> <br /> <br /> Sperm whales are creatures with brains weighing up to 9 kilograms, social lives, and culture. They pass on knowledge, raise their young, and hunt together. Their lives resemble those of ancient human tribes, only transplanted into the depths of the ocean.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Birth of Project CETI</b></span><br /> <br /> In 2019, a seminar was held at Harvard. Biologists, linguists, engineers, and robotics specialists gathered there. By the end of the second day, they had all reached the same conclusion: deciphering the whales’ code was a realistic task.<br /> <br /> <br /> In 2020, the <b>CETI — Cetacean Translation Initiative</b> project emerged. It received $33 million in funding. The team included scientists from MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Berkeley, and dozens of other institutions. It became a new kind of international expedition: not hunting whales, but searching for their dictionary.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Dominica—An Island Laboratory</b></span><br /> <br /> Dominica in the Caribbean Sea was chosen as the site of the work. There, underwater depths begin almost right off the coast. Sperm whales approach close to shore and return year after year. This created unique conditions: the same families could be studied for decades.<br /> <br /> <br /> The section of ocean was transformed into a gigantic underwater studio. Dozens of hydrophones recorded sound around the clock. Robotic drones tracked the animals’ movements, while miniature biosensors attached to their bodies recorded heart rate, depth, and speed. For the first time in history, humanity could look not only into whale acoustics, but also into the whale’s life from within.<br /> <br /> <br /> But even with all this equipment, the CETI team encountered a new problem: too much data. Billions of clicks, thousands of hours of recordings, endless graphs and tables. The human brain cannot process all of it.<br /> <br /> <br /> And here artificial intelligence entered the scene. The sounds were converted into spectrograms—color maps in which each click became a drawing on the screen. AI began searching for patterns that would be invisible to humans.<br /> <br /> <br /> And what had seemed chaotic turned out to be a system.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Birth of a Code</b></span><br /> <br /> Scientists discovered that sperm whales use short rhythmic sequences of clicks—codes. They are like words. One code may consist of five clicks, another of three. Between them are precise intervals.<br /> <br /> <br /> Among Caribbean sperm whales, the “1+1+3” code is popular: a click, a pause, a click, a pause, and three rapid clicks in succession.<br /> <br /> <br /> But the most interesting discovery was that the same code could vary.<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Speed: a slow or fast rhythm changed the meaning.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Additional clicks at the beginning or end—like suffixes and prefixes in our words.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The intonation of pauses: an extended pause could express emotion.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And even microscopic shifts in timing functioned like “vowels” in human speech.</li> </ul><br /> In essence, it was a language.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Two-Level System</b></span><br /> <br /> MIT researcher Jacob Andreas explained:<br /> — We see a two-level system. At the lower level, sounds combine into words. At the upper level, words combine into sentences. It resembles human language.<br /> <br /> <br /> In other words, whales are capable of combining elements, which means they create complex meanings rather than merely repeating commands.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Cultural Differences</b></span><br /> <br /> But the dialects were even more astonishing. Different sperm-whale clans had different ways of performing the codes. Some extended the pauses, while others accelerated the rhythm. Moreover, when the clans’ territories overlapped, they borrowed elements from one another. This means that whales have a <b>language culture</b>, with traditions and innovations being passed on.<br /> <br /> <br /> This became the first evidence that their language was not only living, but also evolving.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Individual Voices</b></span><br /> <br /> AI went further: it learned to distinguish individual whales. It turned out that each one has a “signature”—small differences in rhythm and timing. Just as we recognize the voice of someone we know, scientists can now identify a specific whale among hundreds.<br /> <br /> <br /> Moreover, the system tracks changes in an “accent” as the whales mature. Young whales adopt elements from older ones, but add something of their own.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Mind Games</b></span><br /> <br /> It is especially fascinating to observe the calves. They experiment with sounds and invent new combinations. Sometimes adults pick up these “childhood inventions,” and they become part of the local dialect.<br /> <br /> <br /> This means that the language of sperm whales is not a fixed code, but a living fabric that is constantly changing. It resembles the way new words, slang, and fashionable expressions arise among humans.<br /> <br /> <br /> Once the researchers had enough data, they began comparing sounds with the whales’ behavior. And it turned out that the codes were not random. They were precisely connected to the situation.<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There are <b>social codes</b>—they are uttered when families meet, like greetings.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There are <b>coordination codes</b>—they help the whales act together during hunting or migration.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There are <b>care codes</b>—mothers “talk” to their calves and teach them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A special group consists of <b>diving codes</b>. Before diving, sperm whales “announce” to their kin where they are going, why, and for how long.</li> </ul><br /> The analysis revealed something astonishing: if a whale “said” it would dive north in search of squid, it really did dive in that direction. The language predicted the action.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Conversation Across Distance</b></span><br /> <br /> But the language proved capable of more. In some cases, hydrophones recorded exchanges of signals between families hundreds of kilometers apart. Hours after such “conversations,” the entire group changed course—as if it had received a warning.<br /> <br /> <br /> In one episode, a whale family changed its route and went around an area where military sonar exercises later began. This means they can share information over enormous distances, saving lives.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The First Steps Toward Dialogue</b></span><br /> <br /> By 2023, the scientists had a natural question: if we understand the structure of the language, can we try to respond?<br /> <br /> <br /> The first experiments showed that we could. A code played through an underwater speaker elicited an immediate response from a sperm whale. An exchange of phrases began. Primitive, perhaps, but a genuine dialogue.<br /> <br /> <br /> For the team, it was a moment of revelation. They felt like researchers who had captured the first radio signal from space. Only the “aliens” had been living nearby all along—in the ocean.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Ethical Horizon</b></span><br /> <br /> But the further the experiments went, the more questions arose. Do we have the right to interfere in their communication? Can humanity speak with another intelligence without causing harm?<br /> <br /> <br /> CETI participants developed strict rules: no experiment should harm the whales. If an animal shows no interest, contact is terminated.<br /> <br /> <br /> And yet the very possibility of dialogue presents us with a new challenge. What will happen if one day we fully understand their language? How will our conception of the boundaries of intelligence change?<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Looking Within</b></span><br /> <br /> Roger Payne said:<br /> — Fifty years ago, people fell in love with whale songs and saved them from extinction. Now we must fall in love with their meaning.<br /> <br /> <br /> The first chapter in the history of Project CETI is the story of human hearing finally learning to listen. We have journeyed from fear of the “voices of the deep” to the first attempts at communication.<br /> <br /> <br /> But this is only the beginning. Beyond the horizon lies the possibility of a real dialogue with another intelligent species. And the question is growing louder: <b>are we ready for a conversation that will change everything?</b></div>

 

[Веретенников Сергей]

Part 2. The Codes of the Ocean
The Symphony Hidden in the Noise

Once, sperm whale sounds seemed meaningless—random clicks and fragments. But artificial intelligence revealed that a complex grammar was hidden within them. It was as if you had a book in an unfamiliar language before you: the letters were visible, but the meaning remained elusive. CETI began turning chaos into a system.


The sounds were converted into colorful spectrograms, where the clicks looked like fiery points on a map. Machine-learning algorithms searched for recurring patterns. Gradually, codes emerged—short rhythmic sequences.


Scientists called them “click codes.” One might consist of three clicks, another of five. Between them were pauses. The pauses turned out to carry meaning, like the silence between words in human speech.

A Language That Lives in Time

Amazingly, the codes had not fixed but flexible meanings. The same code could change depending on speed, pause length, and intonation.


It was like music: the same melody, played slowly and sadly or quickly and cheerfully, conveys different emotions.

• Speed changed the meaning, like a word spoken faster or drawn out.
• Additional clicks turned a code into a new word—like a prefix or suffix.
• Rhythmic modulation expressed feelings, like our intonation.
• Microscopic shifts in timing worked like vowels in speech.

It turned out that whales had a true marine morphology—a complex system for changing words.

Dialects of the Ocean

The study showed that different sperm whale clans had different “accents.” In Dominica, the same code was performed with short pauses; in other areas, the pauses were longer.


When families met, they adopted features from one another. This means that whale language is not only inherited but also develops culturally. They have their own traditions, their own “fashion in pronunciation.”


The discovery came as a shock: cultural evolution was considered the preserve of humans, but the ocean showed that it too harbors its own schools and currents.

The Voices of Individuals

AI learned to distinguish individual whales. Each had its own “signature” in rhythm, timing, and micro-pauses. It was like recognizing someone by their voice on the telephone.


Moreover, the system tracked how speech style changed with age. Young whales initially copied adults, then experimented and introduced something new. Some innovations were adopted by the entire group and became part of the dialect.


This means that sperm whales are capable of language innovation. They do not merely repeat—they create.

Ocean Grammar

Based on billions of recordings, scientists identified more than 150 basic patterns. But behind them lay enormous variability. The vocabulary was constantly expanding.


AI showed that whales had a two-level structure:

1. Sounds—words. Codes consisting of clicks.
2. Words—sentences. Sequences of codes that follow one another.

If we once thought that whales simply “cried out,” it was now clear that they constructed entire phrases.


When the CETI team had accumulated billions of sounds, they began matching them with the animals’ behavior. It was a titanic task: each recording was accompanied by data on where the whale was, what situation it was signaling in, who was nearby, and how it was moving.


Then a pattern suddenly emerged: certain codes were repeated in the same circumstances.

• When a family reunited after a long separation, greeting codes sounded.
• During a collective hunt, there were coordination signals.
• Mothers with calves used care codes—gentle, soft series of clicks.
• And before deep dives, special codes announcing intentions appeared.

The discovery stunned scientists: whales communicated not only about the present (“I am here”) but also about the future (“I am going to dive over there”). Language ceased to be merely an emotional reaction—it became planning and prediction.

Predicting Actions

What was especially impressive was that if a whale “said” it was going north to hunt, it actually dove there. Researchers could predict its route from a single code.


This means that we are dealing with a system of symbols directly linked to action. And that is one of the main signs of an advanced language.

Long-Distance Dialogue

There were cases in which whale families communicated across hundreds of kilometers. The sounds traveled through the ocean, and several hours later the behavior of the entire group changed—they altered course, avoided dangerous areas, and headed toward a new hunting ground.


In one case, the warning worked perfectly: one family changed its route, and it turned out that military ships equipped with powerful sonar were indeed passing along the original path. It appears that whales can achieve collective safety through communication.

Language as the Fabric of Culture

Scientists began viewing whale language not simply as a set of signals, but as a social fabric that binds families and generations together.

• Elders teach the young using special “teaching codes.”
• Calves experiment and introduce innovations.
• Families adopt elements from one another, forming cultural dialects.

This is remarkably similar to how human language developed. We too have traditions, accents, and new words that become established in society.

A Philosophical View

Language is always a mirror of the mind. It shows whether a species can think about the future, analyze the past, and discuss abstract ideas. And each new step in CETI’s research brought scientists closer to the conclusion that sperm whales think in categories we once attributed only to ourselves.


Humans are accustomed to considering themselves the sole bearers of intelligence. But what if a parallel civilization had always existed in the ocean, simply invisible and inaudible to us?


At some point, CETI scientists realized that if we could predict whales’ actions from their codes, we were truly beginning to understand their language. But could we go further? Could we try to answer?


In 2023, the team undertook a bold experiment. One of the studied “contact signals” was played through an underwater speaker in the ocean. The response came instantly: the nearest sperm whale answered with a similar code. Then there was another exchange. It was a real dialogue. Short and primitive, perhaps—but a dialogue.


Scientists described the moment as a revelation. “It was as if we had caught the first radio signal from space,” one participant said. “Only the aliens turned out to be nearby, in the ocean.”

Experiments with Humpback Whales

At the same time, another Whale-SETI group was working with humpback whales in Alaska. They managed to conduct a 20-minute exchange of phrases with a female named Twain. She circled the boat and responded to every signal, maintaining intervals in the way her kind do during conversations. This showed that whales do not simply react to noise; they recognize dialogic structure.

Unexpected Behavior

After the first attempts at communication, researchers noticed something strange: whales began producing sounds that had never before been heard in the presence of humans. It was as if they were discussing the very fact of communicating with people. Sometimes the entire family joined the dialogue, and a group “conversation” began.


Young whales swam closer, showing curiosity. For them, it was like meeting creatures that had suddenly begun speaking their language.

The Ethical Horizon

These experiments sparked heated debate. Do we have the right to interfere in the communication of an intelligent species? If whales truly think and have a culture, does that mean they should have rights?


Together with lawyers and philosophers, CETI developed a principle: no experiment should cause whales harm or stress. If an animal shows no interest, the experiment is stopped.


But the questions remained:

• What will happen if one day we can converse fully?
• How will our understanding of humanity change if intelligence exists beyond us?
• Are we ready to acknowledge equality with beings whom humans have killed for centuries?

Language and Responsibility

Humans have always used language as an instrument of power: whoever speaks is in control. But the situation here is different. We are guests. For the first time, we have “overheard” a conversation belonging to another intelligence. And now we face a choice: use it for science and technology, or to build an ethic of coexistence.


Researchers were especially struck by how older whales teach the young. AI identified special “teaching codes”—they sounded slower, with repetitions, as if grandmothers and mothers were patiently explaining a lesson to their young.


Young whales that underwent this kind of “education” later displayed more developed communication skills and hunted more effectively. This means that sperm whales have their own form of education, and therefore a way of passing knowledge down through generations.

Memory and Stories of the Past

The recordings revealed another feature: whales sometimes “remember” events. Several hours after meeting another family or completing a successful hunt, they reproduced certain codes. It reminded us of humans discussing the day that had passed.


Thus, whales can not only react to the present but also analyze the past. This is one of the key signs of complex consciousness.

Abstract Thought

In several cases, whales created new combinations of codes to describe unfamiliar situations. For example, when a strange technological object appeared in the water, a family combined the signals for “unknown” and “danger.” This means they are capable of abstraction and creativity.

Language as a Mirror of Civilization

All these discoveries show that sperm whale language is not merely a tool for hunting or defense. It is the fabric on which their culture is embroidered. They pass on traditions, teach their young, plan for the future, and analyze the past.


In this sense, whales are no less “civilized” than we are. Their civilization is simply oceanic, hidden from our eyes.

The Threshold of New Understanding

In 2024, CETI published a paper in Nature Communications: it identified 156 basic patterns, but their variability made thousands of unique “words” possible. This is only the beginning. For the first time, humanity has a chance not merely to listen to the ocean, but to read its speech.


This is no longer exotic science or romance. It is a new reality. We have reached a point where we will have to redefine what it means to be an intelligent being.

A Philosophical Conclusion

Humans have always thought that language makes us unique. But now the ocean has answered: “No, you are not alone.” Another intelligence has its own words, songs, and dialects. And these words have echoed in the depths for millions of years, long before humans invented the first written symbols.


Perhaps the true lesson is that intelligence is not an exception but a rule of the Universe. We have simply finally learned to hear it.

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper"><span style="font-size: 26px"><b>Part 2. The Codes of the Ocean</b></span><br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Symphony Hidden in the Noise</b></span><br /> <br /> Once, sperm whale sounds seemed meaningless—random clicks and fragments. But artificial intelligence revealed that a complex grammar was hidden within them. It was as if you had a book in an unfamiliar language before you: the letters were visible, but the meaning remained elusive. CETI began turning chaos into a system.<br /> <br /> <br /> The sounds were converted into colorful spectrograms, where the clicks looked like fiery points on a map. Machine-learning algorithms searched for recurring patterns. Gradually, <b>codes</b> emerged—short rhythmic sequences.<br /> <br /> <br /> Scientists called them “click codes.” One might consist of three clicks, another of five. Between them were pauses. The pauses turned out to carry meaning, like the silence between words in human speech.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Language That Lives in Time</b></span><br /> <br /> Amazingly, the codes had not fixed but flexible meanings. The same code could change depending on speed, pause length, and intonation.<br /> <br /> <br /> It was like music: the same melody, played slowly and sadly or quickly and cheerfully, conveys different emotions.<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Speed</b> changed the meaning, like a word spoken faster or drawn out.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Additional clicks</b> turned a code into a new word—like a prefix or suffix.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Rhythmic modulation</b> expressed feelings, like our intonation.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Microscopic shifts</b> in timing worked like vowels in speech.</li> </ul><br /> It turned out that whales had a true <b>marine morphology</b>—a complex system for changing words.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Dialects of the Ocean</b></span><br /> <br /> The study showed that different sperm whale clans had different “accents.” In Dominica, the same code was performed with short pauses; in other areas, the pauses were longer.<br /> <br /> <br /> When families met, they adopted features from one another. This means that whale language is not only inherited but also <b>develops culturally</b>. They have their own traditions, their own “fashion in pronunciation.”<br /> <br /> <br /> The discovery came as a shock: cultural evolution was considered the preserve of humans, but the ocean showed that it too harbors its own schools and currents.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Voices of Individuals</b></span><br /> <br /> AI learned to distinguish individual whales. Each had its own “signature” in rhythm, timing, and micro-pauses. It was like recognizing someone by their voice on the telephone.<br /> <br /> <br /> Moreover, the system tracked how speech style changed with age. Young whales initially copied adults, then experimented and introduced something new. Some innovations were adopted by the entire group and became part of the dialect.<br /> <br /> <br /> This means that sperm whales are capable of <b>language innovation</b>. They do not merely repeat—they create.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Ocean Grammar</b></span><br /> <br /> Based on billions of recordings, scientists identified more than 150 basic patterns. But behind them lay enormous variability. The vocabulary was constantly expanding.<br /> <br /> <br /> AI showed that whales had a two-level structure:<br /> <br /> <br /> <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><b>Sounds—words.</b> Codes consisting of clicks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><b>Words—sentences.</b> Sequences of codes that follow one another.</li> </ol><br /> If we once thought that whales simply “cried out,” it was now clear that they constructed entire phrases.<br /> <br /> <br /> When the CETI team had accumulated billions of sounds, they began matching them with the animals’ behavior. It was a titanic task: each recording was accompanied by data on where the whale was, what situation it was signaling in, who was nearby, and how it was moving.<br /> <br /> <br /> Then a pattern suddenly emerged: certain codes were repeated in the same circumstances.<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When a family reunited after a long separation, <b>greeting codes</b> sounded.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">During a collective hunt, there were <b>coordination signals</b>.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mothers with calves used <b>care codes</b>—gentle, soft series of clicks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And before deep dives, special <b>codes announcing intentions</b> appeared.</li> </ul><br /> The discovery stunned scientists: whales communicated not only about the present (“I am here”) but also about the future (“I am going to dive over there”). Language ceased to be merely an emotional reaction—it became <b>planning and prediction</b>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Predicting Actions</b></span><br /> <br /> What was especially impressive was that if a whale “said” it was going north to hunt, it actually dove there. Researchers could predict its route from a single code.<br /> <br /> <br /> This means that we are dealing with a <b>system of symbols directly linked to action</b>. And that is one of the main signs of an advanced language.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Long-Distance Dialogue</b></span><br /> <br /> There were cases in which whale families communicated across hundreds of kilometers. The sounds traveled through the ocean, and several hours later the behavior of the entire group changed—they altered course, avoided dangerous areas, and headed toward a new hunting ground.<br /> <br /> <br /> In one case, the warning worked perfectly: one family changed its route, and it turned out that military ships equipped with powerful sonar were indeed passing along the original path. It appears that whales can achieve <b>collective safety</b> through communication.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Language as the Fabric of Culture</b></span><br /> <br /> Scientists began viewing whale language not simply as a set of signals, but as a <b>social fabric</b> that binds families and generations together.<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elders teach the young using special “teaching codes.”</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Calves experiment and introduce innovations.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Families adopt elements from one another, forming cultural dialects.</li> </ul><br /> This is remarkably similar to how human language developed. We too have traditions, accents, and new words that become established in society.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Philosophical View</b></span><br /> <br /> Language is always a mirror of the mind. It shows whether a species can think about the future, analyze the past, and discuss abstract ideas. And each new step in CETI’s research brought scientists closer to the conclusion that <b>sperm whales think in categories we once attributed only to ourselves</b>.<br /> <br /> <br /> Humans are accustomed to considering themselves the sole bearers of intelligence. But what if a parallel civilization had always existed in the ocean, simply invisible and inaudible to us?<br /> <br /> <br /> At some point, CETI scientists realized that if we could predict whales’ actions from their codes, we were truly beginning to understand their language. But could we go further? Could we try to answer?<br /> <br /> <br /> In 2023, the team undertook a bold experiment. One of the studied “contact signals” was played through an underwater speaker in the ocean. The response came instantly: the nearest sperm whale answered with a similar code. Then there was another exchange. It was a real <b>dialogue</b>. Short and primitive, perhaps—but a dialogue.<br /> <br /> <br /> Scientists described the moment as a revelation. “It was as if we had caught the first radio signal from space,” one participant said. “Only the aliens turned out to be nearby, in the ocean.”<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Experiments with Humpback Whales</b></span><br /> <br /> At the same time, another Whale-SETI group was working with humpback whales in Alaska. They managed to conduct a 20-minute exchange of phrases with a female named Twain. She circled the boat and responded to every signal, maintaining intervals in the way her kind do during conversations. This showed that <b>whales do not simply react to noise; they recognize dialogic structure</b>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Unexpected Behavior</b></span><br /> <br /> After the first attempts at communication, researchers noticed something strange: whales began producing sounds that had never before been heard in the presence of humans. It was as if they were discussing the very fact of communicating with people. Sometimes the entire family joined the dialogue, and a group “conversation” began.<br /> <br /> <br /> Young whales swam closer, showing curiosity. For them, it was like meeting creatures that had suddenly begun speaking their language.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Ethical Horizon</b></span><br /> <br /> These experiments sparked heated debate. Do we have the right to interfere in the communication of an intelligent species? If whales truly think and have a culture, does that mean they should have <b>rights</b>?<br /> <br /> <br /> Together with lawyers and philosophers, CETI developed a principle: no experiment should cause whales harm or stress. If an animal shows no interest, the experiment is stopped.<br /> <br /> <br /> But the questions remained:<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What will happen if one day we can converse fully?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How will our understanding of humanity change if intelligence exists beyond us?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Are we ready to acknowledge equality with beings whom humans have killed for centuries?</li> </ul><span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Language and Responsibility</b></span><br /> <br /> Humans have always used language as an instrument of power: whoever speaks is in control. But the situation here is different. We are guests. For the first time, we have “overheard” a conversation belonging to another intelligence. And now we face a choice: use it for science and technology, or to build an <b>ethic of coexistence</b>.<br /> <br /> <br /> Researchers were especially struck by how older whales teach the young. AI identified special “teaching codes”—they sounded slower, with repetitions, as if grandmothers and mothers were patiently explaining a lesson to their young.<br /> <br /> <br /> Young whales that underwent this kind of “education” later displayed more developed communication skills and hunted more effectively. This means that sperm whales have their own form of <b>education</b>, and therefore a way of passing knowledge down through generations.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Memory and Stories of the Past</b></span><br /> <br /> The recordings revealed another feature: whales sometimes “remember” events. Several hours after meeting another family or completing a successful hunt, they reproduced certain codes. It reminded us of humans discussing the day that had passed.<br /> <br /> <br /> Thus, whales can not only react to the present but also <b>analyze the past</b>. This is one of the key signs of complex consciousness.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Abstract Thought</b></span><br /> <br /> In several cases, whales created new combinations of codes to describe unfamiliar situations. For example, when a strange technological object appeared in the water, a family combined the signals for “unknown” and “danger.” This means they are capable of <b>abstraction and creativity</b>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Language as a Mirror of Civilization</b></span><br /> <br /> All these discoveries show that sperm whale language is not merely a tool for hunting or defense. It is the fabric on which their culture is embroidered. They pass on traditions, teach their young, plan for the future, and analyze the past.<br /> <br /> <br /> In this sense, whales are no less “civilized” than we are. Their civilization is simply oceanic, hidden from our eyes.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Threshold of New Understanding</b></span><br /> <br /> In 2024, CETI published a paper in Nature Communications: it identified 156 basic patterns, but their variability made thousands of unique “words” possible. This is only the beginning. For the first time, humanity has a chance not merely to listen to the ocean, but to <b>read its speech</b>.<br /> <br /> <br /> This is no longer exotic science or romance. It is a new reality. We have reached a point where we will have to redefine what it means to be an intelligent being.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Philosophical Conclusion</b></span><br /> <br /> Humans have always thought that language makes us unique. But now the ocean has answered: “No, you are not alone.” Another intelligence has its own words, songs, and dialects. And these words have echoed in the depths for millions of years, long before humans invented the first written symbols.<br /> <br /> <br /> Perhaps the true lesson is that <b>intelligence is not an exception but a rule of the Universe</b>. We have simply finally learned to hear it.</div>

 

[Веретенников Сергей]

Part 3. A Conversation with Another Intelligence
The First Words Spoken in Reply

For the first time in human history, a person spoke a “word” in the language of sperm whales and received a reply. CETI scientists call this moment the “point of no return”: it is now impossible to say that the ocean is silent. It speaks.


The experiment looked simple: underwater, they turned on a loudspeaker that reproduced one of the recorded codes—a short series of clicks. A sperm whale nearby immediately responded. Then the scientists repeated the signal, and another response came. Thus began the first echo communication.


To an outside observer, it might have looked like the children’s game “repeat after me.” But for science, it meant that the whale perceived the signal as part of a dialogue, not as noise. It recognized that it was meaningful.

A Twenty-Minute Conversation with Twain

The discovery by the Whale-SETI team in Alaska was no less astonishing. There, they worked with humpback whales and decided to reproduce their “contact songs.” A female named Twain responded to the call.


For twenty minutes, she circled the boat, repeating the intervals and rhythms made by the researchers. It looked as though two beings were having a conversation, following the same rules.


This meant that whales do not merely respond to sound but understand the structure of dialogue: turn-taking, pauses, and the balance between “speaking” and “listening.”

New Sounds—New Meanings

After these experiments, the whales began behaving unusually. They produced sounds that had never previously been recorded in the presence of humans. The scientists concluded that the whales might have been discussing the very fact of communicating with people.


Sometimes the entire family joined the conversation, and a genuine roundtable under the water began. Several animals exchanged codes as if discussing a subject.


The young ones reacted especially actively—they swam closer, clearly showing curiosity. For them, it was an event: strange bipedal creatures had suddenly begun speaking their language.

The Researchers’ Emotions

David Gruber described the team’s feelings this way:
— It was like the moment humanity received its first radio signal from extraterrestrials. Only these “aliens” turned out to be here, beside us, and to have lived alongside us for millions of years.


For the scientists, this became not only a scientific discovery but also an emotional shock. Many said that, for the first time, they felt genuinely humbled before another intelligence.


Once it became clear that whales really did respond to human attempts to reproduce their codes, the next idea emerged: could we create a device that would translate their speech in real time?


In 2024, CETI engineers presented the first prototypes. These were underwater microphones connected to AI that instantly analyzed incoming clicks and selected a human “equivalent” for them—subtitles. Imagine a diver wearing a mask whose corner displays a message: “Sperm whale report: I’m going hunting” or “Beware, ships are nearby.”


It looked like science fiction, but became a step toward a true two-way translator.

Language and Power

But along with the excitement came concern. Throughout human history, whoever understood another’s language gained power. What will happen if people learn to speak with whales? Could this become a new means of manipulation?


Philosophers and lawyers brought in by CETI raised difficult questions:

• If whales have a culture, does that mean they have rights?
• Can we use their language for our own purposes?
• What will happen if corporations begin applying this knowledge to fishing or military operations?

These discussions showed that not only science is at stake, but also the ethics of the future.

The Impact of Climate and Humans

Researchers noticed that whales have long been adapting to our presence. They alter the volume and frequency of their signals to shout over the noise of shipping. In some areas, they have even created special “ship codes”—signals describing a vessel’s size, speed, and direction.


This means that whales do not merely notice us; they also organize information about our activities. Perhaps they have their own “maps” of the human world.

Inter-Species Dialogue

If a two-way translator is created, we will be able to ask questions directly. What do they think about humans? How do they perceive the ocean? Do they have myths, stories, or memories of the past?


And perhaps they will ask us questions. That will be the most difficult moment: what will we say when the whales ask why we have killed them for hundreds of years, or why we are polluting their home?

The Conversation That Will Change Us

Scientists increasingly admit that CETI’s real result is not that we understand whales, but that they change how we perceive ourselves. We can no longer consider intelligence an exclusive human trait. We are merely one form of consciousness on the planet.



The Ocean as the Cosmos Beside Us

Scientists participating in Project CETI often compare their work with the SETI program—the search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. The only difference is that the “aliens” turned out not to be millions of light-years away, but right under our noses, in the ocean.


Whales are creatures that evolved completely separately from us. They did not build cities or create writing, but they developed language, culture, and social structures as complex as those of humans. This is a parallel civilization.

Training for Meeting the Other

David Gruber said:
— If we receive a signal from space tomorrow, we will use the same algorithms that we are currently applying to whales.


And indeed: methods for finding patterns, analyzing recurring patterns, and matching signals with context are all universal. Language, whatever form it takes, leaves traces of order.


So CETI is not only about the ocean. It is a rehearsal for the most momentous event in human history—contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.

Intelligence as a Universal Principle

If whales can plan, pass on knowledge, and create cultural differences and dialects, then we can no longer claim that humans are unique in possessing intelligence. Intelligence is a property of life that manifests itself in different forms.


And then the question sounds different: if intelligence arose in the ocean and on land, why should it not also arise among the stars?

A New Map of the Universe

The familiar picture is collapsing. We are no longer at the center. We are merely part of a large system of minds. Whales converse in the ocean, birds create their own dialects in forests, and bees dance a language of movements. The universe is full of communication; we were simply blind and deaf to it before.


Now, having learned to listen to the ocean, we seem to have opened a new telescope—but aimed it not at space, but into the depths of Earth.

The Next Step

CETI’s plans for 2025–2026 include creating a fully functional translator. The device should not only recognize codes but also generate them according to the rules of whale language. This will be the first genuine interspecies conversation.


The question is no longer “will we be able to?” but “what will we ask first?”

Roger Payne’s Legacy

The man who first gave the world the songs of whales, Roger Payne, passed away in 2023. His final words to the participants of Project CETI sounded like a parting message:

“Fifty years ago, people fell in love with the songs of humpback whales and united to save them. It is time to listen again—but now not only with our hearts, but with our minds. We must understand them.”

This phrase became the project’s motto. It served as a reminder that everything began with music—and must now end with understanding.

A New View of Humanity

Every CETI discovery changed not only science but also us. We were accustomed to thinking of intelligence as a rare gift, almost a miracle. But by listening to the ocean, we realized: intelligence is not an exception, but one of the forms of life.


Whales think, plan, raise their young, and create culture. Their history spans millions of years and is far older than ours. We are a young civilization beside them.


This overturns our understanding of our place in the universe. We are not the apex of the pyramid. We are neighbors in a home inhabited by other minds as well.

The Question They Will Ask

When the translator is created, when we can ask questions and receive answers, the hardest part will not be “how?” but “what?”


What will we say when the whales ask:

• why have you been killing us for hundreds of years?
• why are you destroying the ocean?
• why are you poisoning the water and filling it with noise?

We are used to asking the world questions. But now the world will ask us questions.

The Voice of the Ocean and the Voice of the Universe

Perhaps this is CETI’s main meaning: learning to listen. Having heard the ocean, we will be able to hear space as well. If a signal ever comes from the depths of the universe, we will be ready.


And perhaps whales will become our first teachers in communicating with other intelligences.

The Final Perspective

We stand on the threshold of a new era. For the first time in human history, another intelligence has spoken to us in its own language. This changes everything: philosophy, science, religion, and self-awareness.


We can no longer look at the ocean as silence. It is a library of knowledge, a theater of dialogues, a history written in sound.


And the main question now sounding above the waves is:
are we ready to listen and respond?

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper"><span style="font-size: 26px"><b>Part 3. A Conversation with Another Intelligence</b></span><br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The First Words Spoken in Reply</b></span><br /> <br /> For the first time in human history, a person spoke a “word” in the language of sperm whales and received a reply. CETI scientists call this moment the “point of no return”: it is now impossible to say that the ocean is silent. It speaks.<br /> <br /> <br /> The experiment looked simple: underwater, they turned on a loudspeaker that reproduced one of the recorded codes—a short series of clicks. A sperm whale nearby immediately responded. Then the scientists repeated the signal, and another response came. Thus began <b>the first echo communication</b>.<br /> <br /> <br /> To an outside observer, it might have looked like the children’s game “repeat after me.” But for science, it meant that the whale perceived the signal as part of a dialogue, not as noise. It recognized that it was meaningful.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A Twenty-Minute Conversation with Twain</b></span><br /> <br /> The discovery by the Whale-SETI team in Alaska was no less astonishing. There, they worked with humpback whales and decided to reproduce their “contact songs.” A female named Twain responded to the call.<br /> <br /> <br /> For twenty minutes, she circled the boat, repeating the intervals and rhythms made by the researchers. It looked as though two beings were having a conversation, following the same rules.<br /> <br /> <br /> This meant that whales do not merely respond to sound but understand the <b>structure of dialogue</b>: turn-taking, pauses, and the balance between “speaking” and “listening.”<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>New Sounds—New Meanings</b></span><br /> <br /> After these experiments, the whales began behaving unusually. They produced sounds that had never previously been recorded in the presence of humans. The scientists concluded that the whales might have been discussing the very fact of communicating with people.<br /> <br /> <br /> Sometimes the entire family joined the conversation, and a genuine <b>roundtable under the water</b> began. Several animals exchanged codes as if discussing a subject.<br /> <br /> <br /> The young ones reacted especially actively—they swam closer, clearly showing curiosity. For them, it was an event: strange bipedal creatures had suddenly begun speaking their language.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Researchers’ Emotions</b></span><br /> <br /> David Gruber described the team’s feelings this way:<br /> — It was like the moment humanity received its first radio signal from extraterrestrials. Only these “aliens” turned out to be here, beside us, and to have lived alongside us for millions of years.<br /> <br /> <br /> For the scientists, this became not only a scientific discovery but also an emotional shock. Many said that, for the first time, they felt genuinely humbled before another intelligence.<br /> <br /> <br /> Once it became clear that whales really did respond to human attempts to reproduce their codes, the next idea emerged: could we create a device that would translate their speech in real time?<br /> <br /> <br /> In 2024, CETI engineers presented the first prototypes. These were underwater microphones connected to AI that instantly analyzed incoming clicks and selected a human “equivalent” for them—subtitles. Imagine a diver wearing a mask whose corner displays a message: “Sperm whale report: I’m going hunting” or “Beware, ships are nearby.”<br /> <br /> <br /> It looked like science fiction, but became a step toward a true <b>two-way translator</b>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Language and Power</b></span><br /> <br /> But along with the excitement came concern. Throughout human history, whoever understood another’s language gained power. What will happen if people learn to speak with whales? Could this become a new means of manipulation?<br /> <br /> <br /> Philosophers and lawyers brought in by CETI raised difficult questions:<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If whales have a culture, does that mean they have rights?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can we use their language for our own purposes?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What will happen if corporations begin applying this knowledge to fishing or military operations?</li> </ul><br /> These discussions showed that not only science is at stake, but also the <b>ethics of the future</b>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Impact of Climate and Humans</b></span><br /> <br /> Researchers noticed that whales have long been adapting to our presence. They alter the volume and frequency of their signals to shout over the noise of shipping. In some areas, they have even created special “ship codes”—signals describing a vessel’s size, speed, and direction.<br /> <br /> <br /> This means that whales do not merely notice us; they also organize information about our activities. Perhaps they have their own “maps” of the human world.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Inter-Species Dialogue</b></span><br /> <br /> If a two-way translator is created, we will be able to ask questions directly. What do they think about humans? How do they perceive the ocean? Do they have myths, stories, or memories of the past?<br /> <br /> <br /> And perhaps they will ask us questions. That will be the most difficult moment: what will we say when the whales ask why we have killed them for hundreds of years, or why we are polluting their home?<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Conversation That Will Change Us</b></span><br /> <br /> Scientists increasingly admit that CETI’s real result is not that we understand whales, but that they change how we perceive ourselves. We can no longer consider intelligence an exclusive human trait. We are merely one form of consciousness on the planet.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Ocean as the Cosmos Beside Us</b></span><br /> <br /> Scientists participating in Project CETI often compare their work with the SETI program—the search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. The only difference is that the “aliens” turned out not to be millions of light-years away, but right under our noses, in the ocean.<br /> <br /> <br /> Whales are creatures that evolved completely separately from us. They did not build cities or create writing, but they developed <b>language, culture, and social structures</b> as complex as those of humans. This is a parallel civilization.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Training for Meeting the Other</b></span><br /> <br /> David Gruber said:<br /> — If we receive a signal from space tomorrow, we will use the same algorithms that we are currently applying to whales.<br /> <br /> <br /> And indeed: methods for finding patterns, analyzing recurring patterns, and matching signals with context are all universal. Language, whatever form it takes, leaves traces of order.<br /> <br /> <br /> So CETI is not only about the ocean. It is a rehearsal for the most momentous event in human history—contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Intelligence as a Universal Principle</b></span><br /> <br /> If whales can plan, pass on knowledge, and create cultural differences and dialects, then we can no longer claim that humans are unique in possessing intelligence. Intelligence is a property of life that manifests itself in different forms.<br /> <br /> <br /> And then the question sounds different: if intelligence arose in the ocean and on land, why should it not also arise among the stars?<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A New Map of the Universe</b></span><br /> <br /> The familiar picture is collapsing. We are no longer at the center. We are merely part of a large system of minds. Whales converse in the ocean, birds create their own dialects in forests, and bees dance a language of movements. The universe is full of communication; we were simply blind and deaf to it before.<br /> <br /> <br /> Now, having learned to listen to the ocean, we seem to have opened a new telescope—but aimed it not at space, but into the depths of Earth.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Next Step</b></span><br /> <br /> CETI’s plans for 2025–2026 include creating a fully functional translator. The device should not only recognize codes but also <b>generate them according to the rules of whale language</b>. This will be the first genuine interspecies conversation.<br /> <br /> <br /> The question is no longer “will we be able to?” but “what will we ask first?”<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Roger Payne’s Legacy</b></span><br /> <br /> The man who first gave the world the songs of whales, Roger Payne, passed away in 2023. His final words to the participants of Project CETI sounded like a parting message:<br /> <br /> <br /> <blockquote class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent "> “Fifty years ago, people fell in love with the songs of humpback whales and united to save them. It is time to listen again—but now not only with our hearts, but with our minds. We must understand them.” </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink"><a>Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>This phrase became the project’s motto. It served as a reminder that everything began with music—and must now end with understanding.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>A New View of Humanity</b></span><br /> <br /> Every CETI discovery changed not only science but also us. We were accustomed to thinking of intelligence as a rare gift, almost a miracle. But by listening to the ocean, we realized: <b>intelligence is not an exception, but one of the forms of life</b>.<br /> <br /> <br /> Whales think, plan, raise their young, and create culture. Their history spans millions of years and is far older than ours. We are a young civilization beside them.<br /> <br /> <br /> This overturns our understanding of our place in the universe. We are not the apex of the pyramid. We are neighbors in a home inhabited by other minds as well.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Question They Will Ask</b></span><br /> <br /> When the translator is created, when we can ask questions and receive answers, the hardest part will not be “how?” but “what?”<br /> <br /> <br /> What will we say when the whales ask:<br /> <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">why have you been killing us for hundreds of years?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">why are you destroying the ocean?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">why are you poisoning the water and filling it with noise?</li> </ul><br /> We are used to asking the world questions. But now the world will ask us questions.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Voice of the Ocean and the Voice of the Universe</b></span><br /> <br /> Perhaps this is CETI’s main meaning: learning to listen. Having heard the ocean, we will be able to hear space as well. If a signal ever comes from the depths of the universe, we will be ready.<br /> <br /> <br /> And perhaps whales will become our first teachers in communicating with other intelligences.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 18px"><b>The Final Perspective</b></span><br /> <br /> We stand on the threshold of a new era. For the first time in human history, another intelligence has spoken to us in its own language. This changes everything: philosophy, science, religion, and self-awareness.<br /> <br /> <br /> We can no longer look at the ocean as silence. It is a library of knowledge, a theater of dialogues, a history written in sound.<br /> <br /> <br /> And the main question now sounding above the waves is:<br /> <b>are we ready to listen and respond?</b></div>

 

[Веретенников Сергей]

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper"><div class="lbContainer lbContainer--inline " title="golosa_glubin_kody.jpeg" data-xf-init="lightbox" data-lb-single-image="1" data-lb-container-zoom="1" data-lb-trigger=".js-lbImage-attachment9053" data-lb-id="attachment9053"> <div class="lbContainer-zoomer js-lbImage-attachment9053" data-src="https://www.youryoga.ru/school/en/attachments/golosa_glubin_kody-jpeg.9053/" aria-label="Zoom"></div> <img src="https://www.youryoga.ru/school/en/attachments/golosa_glubin_kody-jpeg.9053/" data-url="" class="bbImage" data-zoom-target="1" alt="golosa_glubin_kody.jpeg" style="" /> </div></div>

 

[5728]

OM SHANTI, diamond of my SOUL!!!!!! I only have time to read your information, and it is extraordinarily interesting!!! Unfortunately, I have no time for books; I work with practices and want to absorb more of the divine. After such information, it is difficult to communicate with people, and sometimes I have no desire to. I meet people and see myself as I was in the past, and shudder in fear at the thought, “I used to be like that too.” I THANK GOD ENDLESSLY for opening the “Your Yoga” page to me many years ago. I bought a computer; in those days, training was expensive, and somehow, through tears, I taught myself to use the computer keys—and that is how it all began. Slowly, but it BEGAN... My jumping thoughts gradually changed. Every morning I BLESS YOU and your school, thank YOU endlessly, and love your cosmic SOUL.

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper">OM SHANTI, diamond of my SOUL!!!!!! I only have time to read your information, and it is extraordinarily interesting!!! Unfortunately, I have no time for books; I work with practices and want to absorb more of the divine. After such information, it is difficult to communicate with people, and sometimes I have no desire to. I meet people and see myself as I was in the past, and shudder in fear at the thought, “I used to be like that too.” I THANK GOD ENDLESSLY for opening the “Your Yoga” page to me many years ago. I bought a computer; in those days, training was expensive, and somehow, through tears, I taught myself to use the computer keys—and that is how it all began. Slowly, but it BEGAN... My jumping thoughts gradually changed. Every morning I BLESS YOU and your school, thank YOU endlessly, and love your cosmic SOUL.</div>

 

[Веретенников Сергей]

I already told you at the Mahapurna School that India was the first country in the world to recognize whales and dolphins as a second intelligent race equal to humans.
This happened more than 10 years ago!
That is why all dolphinariums and experiments on them—anything against their will—are prohibited in India.
After India, several more countries supported a complete ban on catching whales and dolphins and keeping them in captivity.
Thus, at present, the high intelligence of whales and dolphins, their emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and so on have been officially and scientifically recognized by several countries.

• India — 2013
  Recognized as “non-human persons”.
  A complete ban on dolphinariums and the exploitation of dolphins.
• Canada — 2019
  The Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act;
  enshrined the right to freedom and emotional well-being of dolphins.
• France — 2021
  A complete ban on breeding dolphins and killer whales and on shows featuring them;
  recognized their complex social and cognitive lives.
• United Kingdom — 2022
  The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act;
  official recognition of dolphins as “sentient beings”.
• New Zealand — 2015
  An amendment to the Animal Welfare Act;
  legally established the concept of “sentient beings”,
  including dolphins and whales.
• Spain — 2019–2022 (regional)
  The Canary Islands and Catalonia—ban on dolphinariums,
  recognition of dolphins’ right to consciousness and freedom.
• United States — since 2023 (scientific initiative)
  The Project CETI (MIT, Harvard, SETI) —
  a proposal to regard whales and dolphins as “intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations of Earth”; it has not yet been established by law, but is supported by UNESCO and the scientific community.

Scientists in the United States have established that whales and dolphins give one another unique whistling “names” by which they recognize and address their companions. These “names” can be passed from mother to calf and sometimes even remain in memory for decades. Studies have shown that dolphins’ behavior resembles humans’ use of names for communication, and that they are the only animals besides humans with this ability.

• Identifiers:
  Each dolphin is assigned a unique whistling sound—a “signature whistle” that serves as its “name.”
  
  
• Recognition:
  Other dolphins recognize one another by these unique whistles, not merely by the general sound of their voices.
  
  
• Learning:
  Young dolphins can borrow elements of their mothers’ signature whistles and modify them, which can be considered analogous to a “surname.”
  
  
• Memory:
  Surprisingly, dolphins can remember the “names” of other individuals even decades later.
  
  
• Use:
  Dolphins use their “names” to address one another, and can also imitate the whistles of others to attract attention or provoke a conflict.
  
  
• Uniqueness:
  This ability makes dolphins the only beings besides humans that use individual identifiers for communication.

Dolphins have names—and they call one another by them

Many animals respond to a name—even turtles.
But only dolphins, like humans, invent their own names and use them to name others.
They know their acoustic names, know what their friends are called, “introduce themselves” when they meet, and address one another by name.


One of the first to prove this was Laela Say of the University of North Carolina.
She noticed that dolphins understand when they are being addressed and distinguish one another’s names—not by voice, but by a special signature whistle.


In Florida and Scotland, scientists broadcast synthesized sounds corresponding to the dolphins’ “names.”
The result: dolphins responded only to their own whistles, and sometimes even “spoke” about a third dolphin by name.


Doctors Stephanie King and Vincent Janik of the University of St Andrews confirmed:
dolphins really do communicate what they are called to those around them and respond only to their own names.
Females with calves “introduce themselves” especially often so that the young ones remember their mother’s voice.


Dolphins communicate over distances of up to a kilometer, and, when necessary, can “shout” as far as 20 kilometers.
Since there are no scents and visibility is poor in the ocean, acoustic names help them recognize one another and stay connected with those close to them.


Scientists believe that this is a genuine form of intelligent communication.
As early as in projects by SETI and the University of California, dolphin signals were analyzed using Zipf’s method,
and it turned out that the structure of their language is as organized as that of human language.
Dolphins have six levels of speech: sound, syllable, word, simple and complex phrase, and paragraph.


And so, perhaps somewhere in the depths of the sea, what can already be heard is not merely whistles—
but the ancient language of the ocean, in which creatures call one another by name.

🔊 Listen ⏹ Stop 🌐 Choose language

<div class="bbWrapper">I already told you at the Mahapurna School that India was the first country in the world to recognize whales and dolphins as a second intelligent race equal to humans.<br /> This happened more than 10 years ago!<br /> That is why all dolphinariums and experiments on them—anything against their will—are prohibited in India.<br /> After India, several more countries supported a complete ban on catching whales and dolphins and keeping them in captivity.<br /> Thus, at present, the high intelligence of whales and dolphins, their emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and so on have been officially and scientifically recognized by several countries.<br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇮🇳" title="India :flag_in:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1ee-1f1f3.png" data-shortname=":flag_in:" /> <b>India — 2013</b><br /> Recognized as <i>“non-human persons”</i>.<br /> A complete ban on dolphinariums and the exploitation of dolphins.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇨🇦" title="Canada :flag_ca:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1e8-1f1e6.png" data-shortname=":flag_ca:" /> <b>Canada — 2019</b><br /> The <i>Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act</i>;<br /> enshrined the right to freedom and emotional well-being of dolphins.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇫🇷" title="France :flag_fr:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1eb-1f1f7.png" data-shortname=":flag_fr:" /> <b>France — 2021</b><br /> A complete ban on breeding dolphins and killer whales and on shows featuring them;<br /> recognized their complex social and cognitive lives.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇬🇧" title="United Kingdom :flag_gb:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1ec-1f1e7.png" data-shortname=":flag_gb:" /> <b>United Kingdom — 2022</b><br /> The <i>Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act</i>;<br /> official recognition of dolphins as <i>“sentient beings”</i>.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇳🇿" title="New Zealand :flag_nz:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1f3-1f1ff.png" data-shortname=":flag_nz:" /> <b>New Zealand — 2015</b><br /> An amendment to the <i>Animal Welfare Act</i>;<br /> legally established the concept of <i>“sentient beings”</i>,<br /> including dolphins and whales.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇪🇸" title="Spain :flag_es:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1ea-1f1f8.png" data-shortname=":flag_es:" /> <b>Spain — 2019–2022 (regional)</b><br /> The Canary Islands and Catalonia—ban on dolphinariums,<br /> recognition of dolphins’ right to consciousness and freedom.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🇺🇸" title="United States :flag_us:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f1fa-1f1f8.png" data-shortname=":flag_us:" /> <b>United States — since 2023 (scientific initiative)</b><br /> The <b>Project CETI (MIT, Harvard, SETI)</b> —<br /> a proposal to regard whales and dolphins as <i>“intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations of Earth”</i>; it has not yet been established by law, but is supported by UNESCO and the scientific community.</li> </ul><br /> <br /> Scientists in the United States have established that whales and dolphins give one another unique whistling “names” by which they recognize and address their companions. These “names” can be passed from mother to calf and sometimes even remain in memory for decades. Studies have shown that dolphins’ behavior resembles humans’ use of names for communication, and that they are the only animals besides humans with this ability. <br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Identifiers:</b> <br /> Each dolphin is assigned a unique whistling sound—a “signature whistle” that serves as its “name.” <br /> <br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Recognition:</b> <br /> Other dolphins recognize one another by these unique whistles, not merely by the general sound of their voices. <br /> <br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Learning:</b> <br /> Young dolphins can borrow elements of their mothers’ signature whistles and modify them, which can be considered analogous to a “surname.” <br /> <br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Memory:</b> <br /> Surprisingly, dolphins can remember the “names” of other individuals even decades later. <br /> <br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Use:</b> <br /> Dolphins use their “names” to address one another, and can also imitate the whistles of others to attract attention or provoke a conflict. <br /> <br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><b>Uniqueness:</b> <br /> This ability makes dolphins the only beings besides humans that use individual identifiers for communication. </li> </ul><span style="font-size: 18px"><b>Dolphins have names—and they call one another by them</b></span><br /> <br /> Many animals respond to a name—even turtles.<br /> But only dolphins, like humans, <b>invent their own names</b> and <b>use them to name others</b>.<br /> They know their acoustic names, know what their friends are called, “introduce themselves” when they meet, and address one another by name.<br /> <br /> <br /> One of the first to prove this was <b>Laela Say</b> of the University of North Carolina.<br /> She noticed that dolphins understand when they are being addressed and distinguish one another’s names—not by voice, but by a special signature whistle.<br /> <br /> <br /> In Florida and Scotland, scientists broadcast synthesized sounds corresponding to the dolphins’ “names.”<br /> The result: dolphins responded only to their own whistles, and sometimes even “spoke” about a third dolphin by name.<br /> <br /> <br /> Doctors <b>Stephanie King</b> and <b>Vincent Janik</b> of the University of St Andrews confirmed:<br /> dolphins really do communicate what they are called to those around them and respond only to their own names.<br /> Females with calves “introduce themselves” especially often so that the young ones remember their mother’s voice.<br /> <br /> <br /> Dolphins communicate over distances of up to a kilometer, and, when necessary, can “shout” as far as 20 kilometers.<br /> Since there are no scents and visibility is poor in the ocean, <b>acoustic names</b> help them recognize one another and stay connected with those close to them.<br /> <br /> <br /> Scientists believe that this is a <b>genuine form of intelligent communication</b>.<br /> As early as in projects by SETI and the University of California, dolphin signals were analyzed using Zipf’s method,<br /> and it turned out that the structure of their language is as organized as that of human language.<br /> Dolphins have six levels of speech: sound, syllable, word, simple and complex phrase, and paragraph.<br /> <br /> <br /> And so, perhaps somewhere in the depths of the sea, what can already be heard is not merely whistles—<br /> but the ancient language of the ocean, in which creatures call one another by name.</div>