What if their sounds became stories?

On July 8, 2023, the Project CETI team encountered 11 sperm whales (8 adults and 3 calves) from a well-studied unit off the coast of Dominica. When we first encountered the whales and began recording video and audio with our aerial drones and synchronized hydrophones, their behavior seemed different than usual. What we then witnessed was surprising – a sperm whale birth. Over six hours we documented the most extensive dataset of any cetacean birth ever recorded. The group of whales (who included both family and non-family) worked collaboratively to keep the newborn afloat for several hours, until its fluke unfolded and it could swim properly. 

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We observed notable changes in vocal patterns surrounding the birth, including during interactions with pilot whales that occurred shortly afterward. The only other time a sperm whale birth was even witnessed by scientists was in 1986, with a few other scattered observations made while hunting whales. The most frequent coda type during the birth (1+1+3, or Type 3) is thought to relate to the social identity of the Eastern Caribbean Clan, the group these whales belong to.

While sperm whale vocalizations may sound nothing like human speech—they produce clicks that emit from the top of their heads. Yet, when examining their spectral properties closely, CETI Linguistics Lead Professor Gašper Beguš found striking parallels between whale clicks and human vowels. Just as humans use mouths and vocal cords to shape sounds, whales use phonic lips and an air sac, which they manipulate in a similar way.

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At first, their clicks seem entirely unlike our vowels. That’s because whale clicks are slow, while human vowels are fast. By removing the silences between clicks and speeding them up to match the tempo of human speech, clear patterns and a resemblance began to emerge and the patterns closely resemble our vowels.

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CETI has already identified two such vowel-like sounds—corresponding to the human “a” and “i”—being used in whale communication. These patterns are so distinct and consistent that you can literally transcribe them.

Click here for coda and vowel visuals.

In 1970, Dr. Roger Payne released the album “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” which served as an anthem for the Save the Whales movement and became the bestselling environmental album in history. These whale songs were given to Roger a few years earlier by Frank Watlington, a Navy engineer. Roger carefully wrote out “Listening Instructions” that accompanied the album.  In the fall of 2019, Roger visited Dr. David Gruber, CETI’s Founder and Lead in New York City and handed him a box of compact discs. Inside were recordings from Payne’s decades of oceanic exploration. Among them was a notable disc labeled “Humpback Tape 2, April 28, 1964 – Frank Watlington”. 

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Watlington, a U.S. Navy engineer stationed in Bermuda during the Cold War, was originally tasked with eavesdropping on Soviet submarines and monitoring dynamite blasts via hydrophones (underwater microphones). But in the early 1950s, his equipment began picking up something unexpected: unfamiliar, melodic sounds echoing through the ocean. Watlington soon realized he was hearing the vocalizations of humpback whales swimming nearby.

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More than a decade later, in 1967, after the recordings were declassified, Watlington passed them on to a trusted friend—Roger Payne—who was also conducting marine research in the area.

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With Songs of the Humpback Whale, mediation occurs on several levels: through the ocean itself, through Watlington’s Cold War-era hydrophone technology, and through the choices made in track editing. As anthropologist Stefan Helmreich notes, “To think transductively demands inquiry into the very histories and languages that organize conceptions of sensing—and is, therefore, an endeavor in dialogue with the anthropology of sensing more generally.”

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So while the recordings may seem raw or “natural,” they are deeply embedded in human context. They are not just documents of nature—they are products of it, captured and shaped by human hands, culture, and history.