A strange clip of orcas copying human words went viral about seven years ago and left many people unsettled
Scientists have now shed light on a viral audio clip of orcas that seemed to be mimicking human voices, a recording that left many people spooked when it first surfaced.Killer whales, better known as orcas, are remarkable creatures. According to National Geographic, these marine mammals can cover up to 40 miles in a single day, hunt both in water and near land, and they also possess one of the largest brains found in the ocean.Their abilities have fascinated researchers for decades, but the idea that they could copy human speech has taken that fascination to a whole new level.
Incredibly, orcas have been recorded copying simple human words such as ‘hello’ and ‘bye bye’. A 2018 video showing this ability quickly spread online, leaving viewers stunned and more than a little creeped out.This eerie recording was part of a study published in 2018 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The research involved experts from Germany, Spain, the UK, and Chile, who set out to test whether orcas were capable of imitating unfamiliar sounds.To do this, they trained a 14-year-old orca named Wikie. She was first asked to repeat three familiar calls made by her three-year-old calf, and then introduced to five brand-new orca sounds she had never encountered before.
In the next stage, Wikie listened as a human produced three orca calls, followed by six human-made sounds, which included words like ‘hello’, ‘Amy’, ‘ah ha’, ‘one, two’, and ‘bye bye’.The results were astonishing. Researchers noted that Wikie managed to imitate the sounds surprisingly quickly, and on her very first attempt, she nailed two of the human words with impressive accuracy.Hearing those eerie, almost human-like noises coming from an orca left many people feeling unsettled, and it’s easy to see why the internet reacted the way it did.
Deborah Giles, a killer whale scientist with the SeaDoc Society, pointed out that it’s not actually shocking that orcas can do this, given how they survive and communicate in the wild.“Killer whales make their living by being able to communicate over vast distances in order to know what the surrounding environment is like, where to find each other, and where to find food,” she told Discover magazine.Meanwhile, neuroscientist Lori Marino explained that while experts haven’t fully worked out the exact process behind the imitation, the evidence clearly shows orcas are vocal learners with a level of self-awareness.
“In order to imitate, you have to compare what you’re doing with someone else,” she noted.Marino also added: “If you’re in a situation where you have this other species keeping you in a tank, feeding you, asking you to do things, I think you’d want to try to communicate, try to make contact with that other being.”Even with these scientific explanations, there’s no denying that the recording itself still carries an eerie quality that continues to unsettle listeners.
