&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Shhh! That creepy sound is not a ghost in the lighthouse, it's just a marine creature sneezing")
For decades, lighthouses, standing alone on a small island in the middle of nowhere, have induced fear among visitors. Many of them have creepy stories associated with them, leading to claims that they are haunted. However, turns out a deep-sea creature was causing all the pandemonium, scaring the hell out of caretakers at lighthouses. According to new research, a strange sound and rumbling that is often heard in these structures is nothing but humpback whales sneezing. They are so powerful that they can travel for five miles and even be felt inside these buildings. This particular finding comes from Alaska, where the region's humpback whales have been scaring lighthouse keepers and fishermen. Fred Sharpe, a biologist with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), led the team that studied the Five Finger lighthouse in Frederick Sound, in southeast Alaska.
Humpback whales sneezing and sniffing - Are humans missing alien calls too?
Sharpe said the noise could be either a self-soothing sigh or a sneeze, and sounds like distant thunder, the rumble of an elephant or machinery. They are between 30 and 300 hertz and sound "more mechanical" when heard from a distance. Scientists say the findings can be used to trace the region that is the source of the sounds, which will help locate these creatures and prevent collisions. Sharpe has another interesting analogy stemming from the humpback whales' sneezing. He told The Times that the whales have been sighing and sneezing for centuries, yet we have never been able to recognise them. If this is the case with Earth, humans may have also been missing the call of aliens. "If conspicuous sounds from our beloved whales are falling on deaf ears, goodness knows what cosmic signals might fall under the radar," he told the outlet.
Talking to a whale
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Sharpe was previously part of a team which had a conversation with a 38-year-old humpback whale named Twain. Researchers from the SETI Institute and UC Davis spoke to the marine creature using a pre-recorded contact call. This was the first time that humans and the whales had talked to each other in their own language. The team proposed that this method could be used to talk to extraterrestrials in the future.
