Introduction:
"Hello, Dolphin" was conceived by Dean Rollings,the President of World Dolphin Research in Aspen, CO. Originally, a documentary about the interaction of wild dolphins and children was planned; later, the research was expanded to include adults interacting with dolphins in captivity.
The project was aimed at taking an in-depth look at possible subtle communication modalities between dolphins and humans, starting with the premise that some sort of holographic imaging might be involved in dolphin-dolphin communication, and, thus, in dolphin-human interaction.
Special equipment was constructed to exploit as wide a bandwidth as possible. Wide band sensors and recording equipment made it possible to detect and record --simultaneously--acoustic, electric, electrostatic, and magnetic signals emanating from dolphins. Also, we were interested in the effects of dolphins on human brain waves.
Research was conducted on the Bahama Banks from the Sea Guard, and at the Coral Reef Club in Key Largo. Although not yet completed, preliminary results of the prior studies suggest some intriguing directions for further research, and support our initial feeling that very little is known about the mechanisms of dolphin subtle communication.
Equipment:
Our acoustic sensors consisted of hydrophones with an acoustic bandwidth of 0.1 to 1MHz. Our custom made electric field detectors were designed to operate in sea water, and have a bandwidth of 0-250KHZ. The electrostatic detector was constructed from a static discharge inhibitor wrist strap, and our magnetic sensor was a coil with 11 miles of wire coupled to a high gain custom made amplifier. This magnetometer had a bandwidth of 0.01 to 250KHz and was only two orders of magnitude less sensitive than a SQUID (we could detect microgauss changes in the field). Our data recorder was a multi-channel Honeywell 101 with a bandwidth of 0-2MHZ. A Techtronix 2224 oscilloscope and several pieces of ancillary equipment (including a Macintosh X computer) were used; however, most data analysis was performed by ANSI on the same equipment used to analyze U.S. Navy sonar data.
Conduct of the Experiments:
Eight children ranging in age from 10 to 15 from Japan, Germany, Mexico, U.S., and the Bahamas were selected because of their interest and swimming skills to participate in the initial phase. Recordings were made when no dolphins were present and compared with recordings made while the dolphins and children were interacting in the open ocean. The brain waves of each child was recorded before dolphin interaction and as soon as possible after interaction,
At Coral Reef, divers were used to record captive dolphins' reactions to three dimensional targets (sphere, pyramid, and cube). One trainer was selected to have his brain waves recorded immediately before and after he went into the water to work with the dolphins.
Results:
With dolphins present, a simultaneous electric, magnetic, and acoustic extremely low frequency signal near 16Hz was recorded (in over 70% of all data runs). Several brain wave recordings indicated a shift in predominate frequency to near 16Hz after interacting with the dolphins. Additionally, it was noted that although some frequencies existed acoustically and not magnetically or electrically, and some magnetic frequencies existed when acoustic and electric did not, there were several frequencies common to all three energies: around 12Hz, 16Hz, and 26Hz. A puzzling simultaneous frequency of 42.5Hz showed up on all runs. It was later determined to be the resonant frequency of the protection circuit in the power strip we were using. High frequency information has been captured, but not yet analyzed.
Conclusion:
Based on the analysis of the extremely low frequency data we have collected, we can show that dolphins simultaneously emit acoustic, electric, and magnetic fields that can be recorded in sea water. The magnetic and electric fields may be a function of the piezoelectric substance comprising the sonar shaping material of the melon.
We speculate that dolphins sense electric fields from humans and attempt to communicate using the same frequencies (in the human brainwave band of 6-30Hz). This speculation is based on our data showing a profound alteration of human brainwave frequencies to conform with the fields recorded from dolphins during human interaction.
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