In a 2007 news story, it was revealed that a reporter from Tampa, Florida, was successful in trying to replicate an experiment conducted on 1944. The experiment, “Response of Captive Alligators to Auditory Stimulation,” had one goal, which was to see how gators reacted to certain sounds (as the name suggests).
The experiment was conducted at Gatorland, a tourist attraction near Kissimmee, Florida. William Mickelsen, the Florida Orchestra’s star tuba player and one of his students played different notes on the tuba to see how gators reacted. When a B flat was played, alligators swam toward the tuba players.
When the tuba players went down to the boardwalk and played through the wood, the male alligators even repeated the B flat. It was also confirmed that it is only the mating male alligators who are attracted.
They are famously noisy during the spring (mating season), which could explain a link to the response to the B flat. Tim Williams, an alligator wrangler who guided the group, claims to have also heard gators respond to the sound of airboats.