A whale of a time: Listen to ‘Noc’ communicate with humans - The male whale attempts to contact with his human handlers by imitating human sounds

Even though whales produce sound in a very different way than we do – whales make sounds via their nasal tract, not in the larynx as humans do — the sound recordings of Noc were amazingly human-like.

The chatty whale lived at the National Marine Mammal Foundation based in San Diego in California where he came into regular contact with people.

Usually, Noc made these the speech-like sounds when humans were nearby, either observing underwater or on the surface, lending credence to the theory that he was trying to communicate.

They taped the loquacious whale using an underwater microphone.

Listen to Noc here: