Can people communicate with animals? J.R.R. Tolkien discussed in his essay On Fairy Stories, that in “faerie-stories” people often talk to beasts, birds, and trees and it revealed a hidden desire:

“In some part (often small) this marvel derives from one of the primal ‘desires’ that lie near the heart of Faerie: the desire of men to hold communion with other living things.”

Yesterday, our friends over at Boing Boing posted this video:

The article explains:

“A new paper published by the National Marine Mammal Foundation in the scientific journal Current Biology sheds light on the ability of marine mammals to spontaneously mimic human speech.”

“These ‘conversations’ were heard several times before the whale was eventually identified as the source. In fact, we discovered it when a diver mistook the whale for a human voice giving him underwater directions.”

Are scientists who are hearing whales “talk” actualizing the “primal desire” that Tolkien described?