Certain orca whales have been taught how to replicate human speech, and the recorded result has been deemed 'demonic' by some as many are left disturbed at how it sounds.
It's no secret that whale communication is one of the most intriguing sounds across planet Earth, as they're capable of producing some of the loudest sounds of any animal that relies more on echolocation and 'biosonar' systems to communicate than traditional words.
Some scientists have been been left shocked after the 'mysterious' sounds of whale communication has revealed their location where other methods wouldn't, but perhaps the most shocking thing you'll hear today is the sound of an orca trying to speak like a human.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, one study aimed to see whether killer whales - specifically Orcinus orca, or orca for short - would be capable of replicating human speech sounds.
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"Here we use a do-as-I-do paradigm to study the abilities of a killer whale to imitate novel sounds uttered by conspecific (vocal imitative learning) and human models (vocal mimicry)," the study explains.
It further outlines that the capability of replication attempted and shown within the study "may scaffold the natural vocal traditions of killer whales in the wild," but it might also have the ability to terrify many too.
As shown in a report by CBS News, the whales have developed the ability to produce relatively basic human words like 'hello', 'bye bye', certain names, and a couple of numbers. They've also shown their skills in a number of non-lexical sounds like blown raspberries or even screams and cries.
The almost baby-like voice of the orca is somewhat reminiscent of how a parrot speaks, only much louder and arguably much scarier too - definitely something you'd not want to hear if you were home alone at night.
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Josep Call, one of the co-authors of the study and professor of evolutionary origins of mind at the University of St Andrews, outlined in an interview with the Guardian: "That is what makes it even more impressive - 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."
As remarkable and stunning from a scientific perspective it may be, it still doesn't mask how scary it can sound - at least if you go by the comments on social media.
"Ok, that second hello was a little demonic," outlines one user, "was that really an orca, or the Devil speaking through a ghost box LOL."
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Another added that "that's the creepiest f'ing thing I've ever heard," but not everyone shares the same fear.
"Can't help it but orcas mimicking human language sounds incredibly adorable," says one comment, and it's definitely not hard to see how lovably impressive they are when you go beyond the initial knee-jerk reaction to the sounds.