A video of an orca seemingly imitating human speech is leaving viewers both captivated and deeply unnerved.
Killer whales — or orcas — are already recognized as some of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean. They’re striking, highly social, and remarkably smart. As the largest members of the dolphin family and apex predators, their cognitive abilities have fascinated scientists for decades. But their apparent ability to mimic human‑like sounds is now drawing renewed attention.
Killer whale sounds
The phenomenon traces back to a 2018 study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, conducted by researchers from Germany, Spain, the UK, and Chile, according to VT. Their goal was to test just how adaptable orcas are when asked to copy unfamiliar sounds.
“We wanted to see how flexible a killer whale can be in copying sounds,” said Josep Call, professor in evolutionary origins of mind at the University of St Andrews and a co‑author of the study, speaking to The Guardian, per VT.
“We thought what would be really convincing is to present them with something that is not in their repertoire — and in this case, ‘hello’ is not what a killer whale would say,” he added.
To explore this, researchers worked with Wikie, a 14‑year‑old female orca living in a French aquarium. She was first trained to mimic sounds made by her three‑year‑old calf, then challenged with completely unfamiliar noises.
Wikie was presented with a mix of orca and human sounds, including “hello,” “Amy,” “ah ha,” “one, two,” and “bye‑bye.”
“This is as terrifying as it is hilarious”
The results stunned the team. Wikie quickly reproduced several of the sounds, successfully mimicking two of them on her very first try. Recordings of her attempts have since circulated widely on social media, sparking a wave of reactions.
“This is as terrifying as it is hilarious,” one user wrote, according to VT.
“Ok, that second hello was a little demonic. Was that really an orca, or the Devil speaking through a ghost box LOL The funniest and scariest thing EVER!” another joked.
“Now I’m scared,” someone else added, while another commented: “OK that’s the creepiest f’ing thing I’ve ever heard.”
Call said the study offers the first evidence that orcas may be capable of vocal imitation.
“I think here we have the first evidence that killer whales may be learning sounds by vocal imitation, and this is something that could be the basis of the dialects we observe in the wild — it is plausible,” he explained, per VT.
“Even though the morphology of orcas is so different, they can still produce a sound that comes close to what another species — in this case, us — can produce,” he added.
You can listen to the audio here:
