Years ago I began a project called “Around One: Images Along US 1.” It was, and is, a photographic journey along US 1 from the Canadian border in Maine to Key West, Florida. Before then, I had never been out of the Southeastern United States. Driving up through the coastal states I couldn’t help but notice the changing geography. The people, however, seemed pretty much the same–until I stopped to talk. I was in Connecticut before I had much chance to interact with the locals and it was there that I heard myself for the first time. Every warped syllable came wobbling out of my mouth. Every “two syllables where one would do” rebounded, much like a thrown basketball that didn’t quite slip out of the hand properly. I was the stranger there. Yet in my world, any one of them would sound equally strange, though we spoke the same language, more or less.
Which brings me to whales. We humans have a narrowly defined sensory perception, both visual and auditory, but we know energies are within our boundaries and outside of them. Our hearing extends down to roughly 20 Hz (if you’re young, healthy, don’t live in the city or listen to loud music). Whales routinely use frequencies lower than that to communicate. But back in the late 1980’s a whale was discovered making sounds of a higher pitch. Basically, this whale sings falsetto, making sounds around 52 Hz. People keep calling it “the loneliest whale in the world” because other whales don’t talk back to it. This whale (we’re assuming it’s a whale; it’s never been seen) has made news again because somebody is going to try to find him and make a documentary about it. According to The Wrap, Worldview Entertainment has just agreed to finance and produce the Joshua Zeman film entitled “52”. It’s a big ocean, but I hope they are able to tell this story.
Quite some time ago I saw an elephant documentary and was impressed by it. The researchers went out in the middle of desolate elephant country in a pickup truck with a couple of 30 inch woofers set up in the back. Through these large speakers they played some infrasonic elephant recordings and elephants came from several miles away to see what the fuss was all about. What struck me so interesting was that the sound couldn’t be heard at all. On television we watched the speakers visibly moving, the cones flexing and extending, but nothing was heard. Coincidentally, a few weeks ago I ran across The Elephant Listening Project, which began when its founder felt the infrasonic communication between two elephants. The project now is attempting to gather some elephant vocabulary by “listening” to the language of forest elephants. Fascinating stuff. But not easily understandable by humans.
Which brings me back to whales, because, apparently, some whales attempt to understand human language and talk back. Just today I saw this article on Smithsonian.com about a Beluga named Noc that began making human-like sounds. He did this for several years, but only with humans or when by himself. He never “spoke human” to other whales. Then suddenly, he decided not to talk that way anymore. It’s interesting that this was intentional sound. Maybe he thought if he just practiced enough he would become fluent in our language, then finally decided he couldn’t do it, so he stopped. I don’t know. If only Noc could tell us.