Story V: Moby
A postmortem account of Silver Water, Inc.'s breakthrough communication with sperm whales and the tragic events that transpired off the coast of Baja California Sur in August 2022...
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Selection from the June 9th, 2021 “Hello World Alphabet Dialogue” with Moby’s mother, Eona.
Hey! A quick tip on reading footnotes in Substack: if you use the browser or the Substack application, you can click on the footnote number to navigate to the footnote and back again. Very, very easy.
LOOMINGS
Call me Ishmael.
On April 11th, 2023, I was employed by Noel Muckraker1 (commonly known as “Muck”) to support the translation, registration, production and encryption of CETO’s (Cetology and Translation Outreach) program for aquatic mammalian communication.
I’m correctly attributed with the foundational insight that led to the “silver water” breakthrough for the eponymous Silver Water Project.
I was the first to “speak with whales” or, as was understood in the popular imagination, “sing” with whales. Neither was correct, or not in the way the terms are generally understood. Even the general, impersonal “with whales” is incorrect. “With Eona” is correct. Was correct.
After the dissolution of CETO and its reconstitution as Silver Water Inc., I was transferred from my work at Stanford University’s Anthropological Linguistics Research Center and the Department of Computational Neuroscience to assist Silver Water. I knew little of the project apart from what I was able to discover in the media, but I knew I disliked, even loathed, Muckraker and his social media empire. I was certainly not alone, although he had his legion of fawning admirers.
I share the events that transpired off the coast of Baja California Sur between August 19th and 23rd of 2023 as a historical courtesy, and because I remain the only one among the living to tell the tale. “Among the living.” What a curious turn of phrase.
Where it serves the comprehensiveness of this post-mortem, I cite primary source excerpts, together with contextual footnotes and contemporaneous information. They are all critical to this account’s credibility. As requested, I also include relevant Silver Water internal communications, both those to which I had authorized and unauthorized access.
I imagine your expectation is that I’m neutral to the events of August 2023, but I’m not neutral. I’m not heartless. I’ve never been heartless, and besides, it isn’t your story about me that concerns me.
It is Moby’s story that concerns me.
THE SPOUTER-INN
On April 23rd, 2021, National Geographic made public the first of CETO’s three rapid-fire linguistic breakthroughs.2 Over a period of two months, the CETO team pulled out what project director Alice Lovington called an “Interspecies Hat Trick.”3 The team demonstrated the existence of a 112-letter alphabet in the language of physeter macrocephalus (commonly known as the sperm whale).4
Lovington made the case to the world that Eona, the most promising cow among the CETO project’s three research pods, communicated through discrete blocks of “speech” structured from 112 component sounds. The meaning of what she was saying was unknown, but semantically her clicks, whistles, moans, and pulses - her codas - were arranged in complex, non-arbitrary patterns. These patterns comprised an alphabet of aquatic mammal communication. In the early press conferences, Lovington called Eona’s codas, rather romantically, “songs.”
Song is incorrect. Coda is incorrect. And Lovington was incorrect. Eona only began to sing - truly sing - at the end of her life.
On May 5th, the team had their second, if more technical breakthrough: they established an approximate Cetacean syntax. Not surprisingly, the public was more captivated by a CNN video5 of the team’s free divers swimming with Eona that was shared over 163 million times on GreetUP, Muckraker’s flagship social networking application. Magdalena Bay of Baja California Sur became a surprise focal point of international attention.
The May 30th “hat trick” event stunned even the team. Eona began to initiate the alphabet exchanges directly. Now Eona not only passively echoed back the deciphered alphabet, but she was intentionally “teaching” the team new letters. Gabriel Vasquez6 realized that Eona was introducing additional “letters” in a consistent, progressive, and orderly pedagogy.
“It is like she’s teaching us to read one small set of letters at a time,” Vasquez reported. “Her sounds are not imitative. If it’s not a letter, she won’t echo it. It’s the craziest thing, but it’s like she’s being patient with us. She’s slowing the transmissions down, simplifying “harmonies,” and altering pitch. We just don’t have the compute to record, model, and reproduce her sounds quickly enough.7
Within three days of the start of Eona’s instruction, the entire physeter macrocephalus alphabet was decoded. She revealed 19 more letters than the team initially catalogued.8
On June 9th, Vasquez and Eona took turns reading the complete set of 131 alphabet letters back and forth with each other as confirmation. It wasn’t clear who was checking whom. The second time they completed the alphabet together, Eona disappeared for 38 hours, separating herself even from her pod.9
“It’s humbling,” Donny Lardon of National Geographic reported. “We’re starting to think we don’t understand anything. Honestly, we really don’t understand anything, but it’s beautiful. It’s a dream.”
Eona’s first “active” introduction of the “A” cycle of the two cycles of the 19 undetected letters in the physeter macrocephalus “diacritical” sub-alphabet.
THE QUARTER-DECK
The following transcripts and recordings precede my involvement with Silver Water, Inc.
Call me Ishmael.
Despite 3rd party preliminary scientific corroboration from Scripps10, the unprecedented succession of CETO’s claims was greeted with skepticism if not hostility from certain rivals, most notably the larger and better funded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.11A narrative became established in the media that CETO’s original reports were questionable, if not deliberately misleading.12
Eager to regain control of the messaging, a three-day impromptu conference was arranged in Oslo13 August 2nd – August 5th, 2021 by Lovington.
Muckraker and his entourage entered the picture with a surprise appearance on the evening of Day 1 and then attended keynotes and sessions on Day 2 and Day 3. His stance on the significance and credibility of the April Magdalena Bay Alphabet Dialogues at first remained unclear.14
In hindsight, it is absurd to think that Muckraker didn’t believe CETO’s stated results. Muckraker teased the press with ambiguous, contradictory social media posts, but despite the muddied waters and unquenchable narcissism, his appearance at the conference belied the coy skepticism. He took the CETO results very seriously.
Muckraker had never been one to hide from breakthrough scientific developments. In fact, he had a penchant for co-opting them. His habit of aggressively taking over emerging technological breakthroughs and attributing their successes to his personal engineering genius and entrepreneurial prowess was a long-established behavior.
In a brazen play, Muckraker scheduled an overlapping press conference in the same conference center. His creation of “dueling” press conferences on the evening of both Day 2 and Day 3 triggered strong reactions in the press, even delight, and his grandstanding declaration that he would “get in the water with his own whales if he needed to” dominated the messaging and reporting.15 There was a perception that he felt slighted at the lack of direct involvement during the conference.16
It should have been immediately evident that Muckraker’s demonstrated knowledge in his press conferences was superficial. If a reader or viewer didn’t know the subject matter themself or care to investigate it independently, the multi-billionaire appeared to be an oracle. But if you weren’t a “true believer” in Muckraker, it was obvious his participation was a distraction from CETO’s mission, if not a threat.17
Everything he regurgitated in his press conferences was information available through the conference’s workshop sessions. Admittedly, he was a quick study but offered no substantial insights or perspective. The CETO team privately expressed extreme frustration.18
THE STREET
During the September 17th of 2023 deposition nine months after CETO’s dissolution, Alice Lovington explained that she was furious at the “circus atmosphere” of the billionaire’s appearance in Oslo. She decried the dueling press events as an insult and a “wholesale pandering for the press’s attention.”19
“But if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” she explained to Simon Brower from the Wall Street Journal.20
In front of the assembled press corps in CETO’s conference, she was asked about Muckraker’s press event across the hall. By way of answer, Lovington rose from the press dias, left her own stage, crossed the hallway, and appeared in person at Muckraker’s press conference in the Vinterhage Conference Room. During his question-and-answer session, Lovington spoke to Muckraker from the main aisle in the press seating area.21
The dialogue below from this exchange is excerpted from the NDA violations deposition of September 30th, 2023, from Silver Water, Inc. vs. Lovington, et al. The exchange takes place between Lovington and her attorney, Christine Ferguson.22
Ferguson: Why did you cross the hall to Muckraker’s press conference?
Lovington: I suppose my thinking was if we were going to have a carnival, let’s have a carnival.
Ferguson: Were there any other reasons?
Lovington: I spend most of my time fundraising. Getting one of the richest men in the world into a one-on-one conversation wasn’t something I was going to pass up.
Ferguson: Did you anticipate it would work?
Lovington: At the time, I thought I knew how to appeal to him. I understand small boys that need attention. I have two of them. I also know how to raise money.
Call me Ishmael.
The following exchange between Lovington and Muckraker is a transcript of the August 5th, 2021 Oslo press conference dialogue.23 Again, this precedes my involvement. I did not have direct access to record it. As you might expect, I had virtually immediate access on publication. The exchange was played back for the deposition and became evidentiary in the NDA litigation.
Muckraker: We couldn’t get a ticket to your event, so I thought we’d throw a little something together across the hall.
Lovington: I apologize on behalf of CETO. From here on out, you have my word that I’ll never schedule the middle of our press conference during the beginning of yours. [laughter]
Muckraker: How can I help you, Alice? You’re not here to say hello.
Lovington: I need funding. I need compute.
Muckraker: Aren’t those the same thing?
Lovington: They are not, unfortunately. The level of compute we need to get beyond the current rudimentary alphabet requires a scale of compute not available outside the NSA, and we’re definitely not going to them. And we can’t afford to go to AWS and solve for this. So, I’m asking for four hours on the largest network in the world: your GreetUP network. We’d need everything you can give us. I’ll be direct: GreetUP would need to go offline.
Muckraker: Have you asked Srihar? Srihar loves this stuff.
Lovington: I asked Srihar. Noel, this would be pocket money for you. It’s one bad day on the street. [laughter]
Muckraker: A very bad day. [laughter] You want me to shut down the largest social media network in the world for four hours? Back of napkin, that’s something like 300 million dollars. You’re not the only out there begging for money, Alice.
Lovington: I’m the only one that can let you speak with a sperm whale. It will be the most famous social media post of all time. GreetUP’s exclusively. The initial conversation media will be entirely yours.24 Talk to her about whatever you like. Tell her about Mars. You have my commitment we will not release the first conversation. It’s yours.25 It’ll be worth a fortune to GreetUP.
Muckraker: I don’t care about media rights.26 You should stay in your lane, Alice.
Lovington: I’m sorry. I apologize. Please, Noel, can I count on you for your support? Please. [long pause] How about this: if you don’t say no, I’ll cross the hallway and make the announcement in my press conference. Or would you prefer to donate anonymously?
Muckraker: I’m not the one crossing any hall, Alice. My money, my conference room. Yeah, I’m in.
At the time of the collapse of the Silver Water Project, Muckraker was ranked #4 in the 2023 list of the World’s Billionaires (Fortune Magazine, May 16th, 2023). His net worth was estimated at $177 billion dollars. Muckraker was the legally changed last name of Rucker in 2014.
National Geographic Channel, "Speaking with Whales," by Donny Lardon. Lardon was embedded with the team, present for the early communications, and among the three free divers for the Alphabet Test.
McAlinden, Mary. “Whale Songs in Mexico.” Journal of Comparative Psychology. May 24th, 2021 pages 13, 15-16.
Ibid., p. 15. The rapid advances were attributed to two factors: the first, an exponential increase in available compute for the AI models. Access to the NVIDIA GPUs was given the lion’s share of the credit. Less heralded was the team’s good fortune to work with Moby’s mother, Eona, a highly responsive, but docile, female cow. Prior to Moby’s birth, Eona was the only one of fourteen tagged sperm whales tracked by the North American CETO research team that would communicate with the team’s divers. She was also the sole member of the pod that never showed aggressive tendencies, an ongoing concern of the free dive team.
CNN, Inquiry, July 5th, 2021. A one-hour program dedicated to CETO’s breakthroughs.
Gabriel Vasquez reports working as the CETO language intermediary prior to his dismissal on February 2nd, 2022.
Ibid.
National Geographic Channel, "Speaking with Whales," “They were still poorly understood in May, but the additional letters were formed with low-frequency harmonic “diacritical adornments. We eventually could echo them back.”
Ibid.
Scripps Institute of Oceanography. July 7th, 2021. Conference for Aquatic Research, Miami, Florida. Rick Walden & Jamie Hanna. Retrieved from https://scripps.ucsd.edu/
“Whales Speak with Humans (Or Did They?)” Journal of Science, July 9th, 2021. External scientific teams attributed the proactive alphabetic communication to a variety of factors: anthropomorphism, interpretation bias, and contextual factors. That the communication couldn’t be repeated with any of the other members of the pod was a repeated criticism as were the intermittent exchanges with Eona and her refusal to continue the “alphabet dialogues.” While the original recordings remained, the results could not be replicated at the time.
Ibid.
The International Conference on Environmental Science and Development (ICESD) at the Thon Hotel Opera, August 2nd to August 5th, 2021.
"Muck Plays His Game (Cards to the Vest)" The Washington Post, August 3rd, 2021.
Drudge Report – main page headline, August 4th, 5 AM – 11 PM: “Hold Your Breath! Muckraker’s Taking Diving Lessons!”
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Brower, Simon. “Behind the Tensions in Oslo.” Wall Street Journal, September 27th, 2023.
Ibid.
Brower, Simon. “Lovington on the Stand.” Wall Street Journal, September 30th, 2023.
Exhibit C-17.
Exchange recorded by BBC during the Muckraker press conference, published February 28th, 2023.
“The whole thing made me sick, selling CETO and Eona out like a freak show, but we needed the funds, and something had to give. We were still thinking there was a way to do it with respect to Eona and the pod. If I’m honest with myself, I probably knew that wouldn’t be possible with Muckraker.” Alice Lovington, Silver Water vs. Lovington et al., NDA violations deposition, September 27th, 2023.
I recorded, encrypted, and released to the media the first conversation between Eona and a human without authorization. Muckraker never had direct access to it, and the internal breach was never resolved. I remain in possession of the encrypted original recording. Quantum-resistant cryptography safeguards the recording. Otherwise, I have no interest in its contents. Establishing who was “first” to communicate as a matter of any significant relevance is an absurdity.
Schuster, Abe. “The CETO Whale Conversation Rights Take Center Stage.” The New York Times, August 6th, 2021. This, of course, was not accurate. He cared a great deal about the initial rights. The contractual language for control of the initial conversation was extensive.
I’m feeling like a school girl who didn’t study for an exam. Is this fiction? I want to say it is only because you have a knack for research and detail…and I want to erase this comment now because I’m afraid everyone will read it and think, “That Kimberly isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.” But please enlighten me anyway!
For a story about communication brimming with sub-stories and footnotes and dialogue, this has left me tantalizingly both over- and under-enlightened. How do you do it?