I am not one of those who think that whales and dolphins have some
kind of "superior" intelligence over humans. I know that male humpback
whales fight over females to mate with and that dolphins can do mean
things I normally attribute to your average fallable creature (males often
gang rape females and have even been known to deliberately take people
adrift in the ocean *away* from shore and rescue). I have no illusions
that they are any kind of peaceful, "spiritual" beings.

The best description I read about dolphins actually came from a science
fiction novel, one of the books in the Colossus: The Forbin Project series.

The Artilect Colossus once explained to his maker, Forbin, that dolphins
were more intelligent than humans, but we were far more intellectual.

When Forbin asked to see Colossus' research evidence on this, the giant
mind explained that it would take Forbin eight years to understand all
the data.

I think cetaceans are wonderfully designed for their environment, which
has forced them to become generally smart to survive in it, just as we
were shaped to become smarter during the last Ice Age. But they have
thought processes and actions that I do not think can be compared to
our ways of thinking and behaving, and we to they.

Does it make them less intelligent? I think it just makes them a different
from us, which could explain why we still don't really understand what they
are saying.

One interesting fact: A humpback whale's "language" is four times more
complex than ours. One scientist speculated that when they "talk" to
each other, they can get the whole history of the whale in one shot, their
language is that detailed, in addition to whatever immediate information
needed to be relayed.

I don't think we will have quite that kind of trouble with beings who communicate
between the stars, simply because if they want to talk to us, they are going
to start off the conversation as easily as possible. If certain ETI don't want to
talk to us, then they won't, just like the whales aren't trying to talk to us - or
maybe they are, but man are we on the wrong frequencies.