36 U.S. Navy dolphins armed with dart guns may be loose

[Jutboy]

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Click here to read on the observer

[Deja Q]

1. OMG! They'll shoot their rescue team in their nads!

:hide:

That or they'll shoot stray whales and walrusses (walrii?)...

Forgive me. I'm not insulting you or even intentionally trying to... I just had no clue that dolphins would be trained to kill. It seems so weird!

[superconnected]

3. It's sinister

Dolphins are considered intelligent and loving.

The army is sick for teaching them to kill.

[greblc]

40. Navy...The Navy has Dolphins. The Army has Tanks.

[Moochy]

5. They are very intelligent for sure

This behavior is taking advantage of the dolphin's natural ramming attack I beleive, if memory serves me correctly. They are fearsome in pairs, and can kill a shark by using their nose to ram the sharks sides.

Just wanted to argree with you it's sick of them to use them for this, whereas for scouting and minesweeping duties I see as less of a moral problem. Something like bomb sniffer dogs.

However if they used poison teeth replacements on a dog, this would be a similar moral situation.. ie. repugnant to weaponize a dog, why not a dolphin?

[Radio_Lady]

23. This has been (almost) debunked at snopes.com:

Here's the article:
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/rumor/dolphins.asp


Killer Dolphins


Claim: Dolphins trained by the U.S. Navy to hunt terrorists were washed out to sea by Hurricane Katrina and are now missing.

Status: Probably not.

Example:

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.



Origins: The winner for "Most bizarre rumor to come out of Hurricane Katrina" so far is the above-cited Observer report that a group of killer dolphins armed with "toxic dart" guns, and trained by the U.S. Navy to track down and immobilize spies and terrorists, was washed out to sea in the Gulf of Mexico by the storm. The cetaceans are now missing and presumed to be armed and dangerous, at least according to rumor.

The Observer article quotes a "respected accident investigator," Leo Sheridan, who maintains that the killer dolphins now supposedly on the loose pose a serious threat to innocent lives:
My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'
The sole source for this story seems to be the above-mentioned Mr. Sheridan, whose validity as an information source is dubious at best.
In 2003 Sheridan reported that he believed his private team of divers had located the airplane flown by Amy Taylor (an aviation pioneer who was killed when Airspeed Oxford she was flying from Scotland to Oxfordshire on went down in the Thames Estuary on 5 January 1941), but no more has been heard about the elusive airplane since then. Sheridan has also long been beating the drums about the U.S. Navy's having a secret team of dolphins trained "to recognize and drown enemy divers," claiming in another Observer article back in 1998 that sixteen of the animals were destroyed with small explosive charges planted in harnesses on the undersides of their necks and detonated via radio signals "in order to prevent the dolphins and the Navy's technology from falling into the wrong hands" when they got loose off the coast of the French Mediterranean.

The U.S. Navy does employ trained dolphins for tasks such as detecting and marking mines, but even such intelligent creatures as dolphins aren't too good at the advanced tasks of distinguishing friend from foe or ordinary scuba divers from terrorists. Killer dolphins are likely to be found only in the realm of fiction and overactive imaginations.

Last updated: 27 September 2005


The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/katrina/rumor/dolphins.asp

[Moochy]

28. Thanks for this

I hate propogating myths!

The "poison dart" angle seemed new to me, I do know that the navy had done research with Dolphins. They are probably too smart to control with a "collar"

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. I can't see how they are trained to

distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.

Even Flipper was fooled now and again. LOL

[Straight Shooter]

2. More ...

"(Leo Sheridan's) concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan."

Hurricane territory, and yet no one bothers to tag the dolphins with tracking devices in the event of a hurricane. Jeez.

Welcome to DU, jutboy :hi:

[PassingFair]

4. Are we SURE they're not GW's Sharks....

with lasers?

[ohio_liberal]

7. fricking sharks with fricking laser beams

is that too much to ask for? ;)

[DefenseLawyer]

42. Well the dolphins

ARE ill-tempered.

[peekaloo]

6. Flipper bin Laden.

:cry:

[stillcool]

10. ah...the image...

:rofl:

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I thought this was debunked

a month or so ago? And I thought the story was that they had bombs attached to them.

[BJW]

19. No--the potential threat here is VERY real

I worked with an animal rights group, about 15 years ago on this very issue of training dolphins (and other animals) for military use, and having them bear weapons, etc. There was some open debate about this at the time, but we were unsuccessful at getting the public's attention.

While it sounds like science fiction, I can assure you that it's not.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. Better tell Snopes

[BJW]

29. Snopes is great for debunking political rumors

and social rumors and the like, but I don't necessarily trust it for debunking information about government programs, nor do I think anybody should implicitly trust a sole source as "the" authority on this issue, or any issue involving government.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. I have never known them to be wrong

If what you say is true, this would be the first time.

[MisterP]

38. they disallowed caching (Google, Wayback Machine) after the Moore flap

[BJW]

43. Well, the difference is that for other items

the question or rumor is verifiable, one way or the other, with some leg work, phone calls and contacts, and if goverment info is needed to establish the truth or falsity, it's relating to a topic for which the government wouldn't have a vested interest in denying.

While I don't know for a fact, one way or the other, whether there are trained dolphins loose in the Gulf as a result of Katrina, I do know that in fact, the Navy has been training dolphins to do a variety of tasks, including working on training them for underwater assassins and "guard dog duty for some time now.

Here's the part of the Snopes debunker that is unnecessary to include and, because of my knowledge on the subject, quite suspect:

"The U.S. Navy does employ trained dolphins for tasks such as detecting and marking mines, but even such intelligent creatures as dolphins aren't too good at the advanced tasks of distinguishing friend from foe or ordinary scuba divers from terrorists. Killer dolphins are likely to be found only in the realm of fiction and overactive imaginations."

[ForrestGump]

9. This just sounds too much like the premise of a (likely pretty bad) movie

Life imitates art, sometimes, I guess.

That, or April Fools' is a little early this time around.

If the dolphins weren't actively training at the time of the hurricane, which I think is a given, is it likely they'd be packing heat? Presumably these dolphins tote some kind of harness-attached gun and haven't been engineered such that they can hold the gun with an opposable thumb or have the gun built into their heads. Sounds fishy. A whale of a tale. Though truth is stranger than cetacean. Sorry...that one was a particular stretch -- I did it on porpoise.

Flipper: The Revenge

[walldude]

17. Actually it was a pretty good movie...

Day Of The Dolphin, early 70's movie with George C. Scott. They were training dolphins to carry bombs to blow up enemy ships.

[BJW]

21. No, it's not a bad movie plot

I worked with an animal rights group, about 15 years ago on this very issue of training dolphins (and other animals) for military use, and having them bear weapons, bombs, dart guns, etc. There was some open debate about this at the time, but we were unsuccessful at getting the public's attention to put a stop to it.

While it sounds like science fiction, I can assure you that it's not.

[ForrestGump]

56. I don't mena the fact of weapons delivery, but that they've

escaped and may be a menace to humanity. The horror...the horror...

Still can't see why any of them would have the weapons strapped on, though, when it's so unlikely they were training and when their keepers should have been battening down the hatches.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I was right

Amazing what you can find out when you check Snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/rumor/dolphins.asp

The U.S. Navy does employ trained dolphins for tasks such as detecting and marking mines, but even such intelligent creatures as dolphins aren't too good at the advanced tasks of distinguishing friend from foe or ordinary scuba divers from terrorists. Killer dolphins are likely to be found only in the realm of fiction and overactive imaginations.

[BJW]

27. This is true, they aren't very good at certain tasks, BUT

I worked with an animal rights group, about 15 years ago on this very issue of training dolphins (and other animals) for military use, and having them bear weapons, etc. There was some open debate about this at the time, but we were unsuccessful at getting the public's attention.

We did, however, get the Navy at our local base to hold a hearing on whether their dolphins (which they admitted training for just these types of military missions, BTW) were properly controlled, and of course, we were assured that no harm would befall humans.

While it sounds like science fiction, I can assure you that it's not.

I like snopes for debunking political internet fairy tales, and rumors of social malfeasance (i.e., Katrina survivors being rude and criminal), but I don't always trust it for debunking info related to government programs.

[PSPS]

12. Where's Mike Nelson when you need him?

Lloyd Bridges, 1965. Photo Date: 1965 Photo by Gabi Rona

[Dogmudgeon]

16. Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop filling my tanks with Nitrous

--p!

[PassingFair]

47. Qui est moy macho?

Yack Lord or Lloyd Bridges?

[YOY]

13. NO FLIPPER NOOOOOO!!!

They say those that sail th' seven seas hear but one call 'fore the angel of death. Then they hear no more!

EKI EKI EKI! SQUEEK! CLICKY!

"trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater"

Was this a problem before? Was Osama training SCUBA-diving specialists???

Is this what they look like?

http://evildolphin.tripod.com/

Maybe these folks can help!

[BJW]

22. This is NOT a stupid hoax

I worked with an animal rights group, about 15 years ago on this very issue of training dolphins (and other animals) for military use, and having them bear weapons, etc. There was some open debate about this at the time, but we were unsuccessful at getting the public's attention.

While it sounds like science fiction, I can assure you that it's not.

I like snopes for debunking political internet fairy tales, and rumors of social malfeasance (i.e., Katrina survivors being rude and criminal), but I don't always trust it for debunking info related to government programs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. So you are saying the dolphins can sniff out terrorists?

Maybe they can find Osama.

[BJW]

46. of course not

While I do not know, and neither could Snopes, unless it had an inside informant at the Navy, whether their dolphins are loose in the Gulf specifically because of Katrina, I do know, in fact, that yes, the Navy has been engaged for a number of years in actively training dolphins to do a variety of tasks, including "guard dog" type assassinations.

What I take specific issue with is the odd and unnecessarily broad snark at the end of the piece:

"The U.S. Navy does employ trained dolphins for tasks such as detecting and marking mines, but even such intelligent creatures as dolphins aren't too good at the advanced tasks of distinguishing friend from foe or ordinary scuba divers from terrorists. Killer dolphins are likely to be found only in the realm of fiction and overactive imaginations."

The key to debunking any rumor is the ability to verify or discredit it via leg work, phone calls and contacts. If goverment info is needed to establish the truth or falsity, and if the government has a vested interest in not releasing certain sensitive information, well then it's a given that it would be next to impossible for Snopes to have sufficient information to make a factual determination.

[proud2BlibKansan]

54. The funny thing is

MOST of us here on this thread don't need Snopes to prove this is utter bullshit. LOL

:rofl:

[tamtam]

41. My husband is stationed at particular base

that trains dolphins and sea lions . He just told me a story about some guys looking for a missing sea lion that the Navy trained to hand cuff people. I know it sounds silly but it is completely true. I don't know about the dart guns but he did say they trained the dolphins to mark underwater mines.

[BJW]

48. yes, I'm familiar with the Navy's use of sea lions as well

and their attempts to train them for use in deep sea diving missions, planting various devices, sabotage stuff, etc.

The people posting on this thread who are scoffing outright that the Navy uses marine mammals simply don't have any clue, whatsoever, as to what the military does with all sorts of animals.

[YOY]

44. I don't doubt they would do such a thing...I'm just laughing at the Navy

I just think their reasoning is beyond logic's boundaries.

I can almost see some folks thinking Ivan Russki would try something James Bondesque back in the day but TERRORISTS??? Al Quada's SCUBA patrols no doubt were in the slide show for continuing the budget on this tragedy.

[BJW]

49. actually what they've been mostly trained for is

guard duty for sensitive areas--pretty much trained so that if they see a human in a certain area to go seek them out and make contact, which triggers the devices they are strapped with. I reallly am NOT making this up!!

It's really sick what our military uses all sorts of animals for--in experiments and as weapons.

While I don't know if the Navy dolphins in fact escaped because of Katrina and are loose in the Gulf, I really do know that the Navy does use dolphins this way.

I use Snopes quite a bit, but because of my particular knowledge here, the part that made me suspect about the debunking was the last paragraph:

"The U.S. Navy does employ trained dolphins for tasks such as detecting and marking mines, but even such intelligent creatures as dolphins aren't too good at the advanced tasks of distinguishing friend from foe or ordinary scuba divers from terrorists. Killer dolphins are likely to be found only in the realm of fiction and overactive imaginations."

In order to debunk something it stands to reason that a person would have to have sufficient information. So, even if Snopes asked for confirmation from the Navy (and by my reading this didn't occur) in order to prove or disprove it but they didn't want "terrorists" or just plain old Americans to know the specifics of what they're using the dolphins for, why would they confirm it?

[Spinzonner]

14. Probably joined the Dolphin Liberation Front

[davidinalameda]

15. this is probably a fake story

but you know--lord only knows what the Bushies will try

I wouldn't put it past them to try something like this, and yes I'm fitting myself for this:

:tinfoilhat:

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. It is

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/rumor/dolphins.asp

[BJW]

24. No, I don't think it's fake because

I worked with an animal rights group, about 15 years ago on this very issue of training dolphins (and other animals) for military use, and having them bear weapons, etc. There was some open debate about this at the time, and we did manage to have a hearing at the naval base that was also attended by many members of the community, but we were unsuccessful at getting the public's attention.

While it sounds like science fiction, I can assure you that it's not.

[Radio_Lady]

25. Here's my former discussion from September -- good luck!

Archived at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4894910

[BJW]

45. Thanks--

Snopes is truly a useful site for debunking urban legends and social rumors.

The key to debunking any rumor is the ability to verify or discredit it via leg work, phone calls and contacts. If goverment info is needed to establish the truth or falsity, and if the government has a vested interest in not releasing certain sensitive information, well then it's a given that it would be next to impossible for Snopes to have sufficient information to make a factual determination.

While I don't know for a fact, one way or the other, whether there are trained dolphins loose in the Gulf as a result of Katrina, I do know and have known for a very long time that, in fact, the Navy has been training dolphins to do a variety of tasks, including working on training them as underwater assassins and "guard dog duty, in addition to the other listed tasks in the piece.

Here's the part of the Snopes debunker that is unnecessary to include and, because of my knowledge on the subject, quite suspect:

"The U.S. Navy does employ trained dolphins for tasks such as detecting and marking mines, but even such intelligent creatures as dolphins aren't too good at the advanced tasks of distinguishing friend from foe or ordinary scuba divers from terrorists. Killer dolphins are likely to be found only in the realm of fiction and overactive imaginations."

[Up2Late]

26. Still? Anyone have an update? This is a very old article

Update? :shrug:

[MrScorpio]

30. Sounds like a bad Sci-Fi movie

GeeZ!!

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. Cool sig pic!

:hi:

[MrScorpio]

35. Thanks!

:yourock:

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. Here's a problem they need to be trained to overcome:

The United Nations says additional protection measures are needed for dolphins and small whales.

A new global survey, released at a conservation meeting in Kenya, finds that more than 70% of species are at risk through snaring in fishing nets.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4464784.stm

I mean, if they can be trained to sniff out terrorists and other bad guys, maybe they can be trained to avoid fishing nets. LOL

[BJW]

50. they're not in areas where fishing is taking place

they are used as underwater guard dogs at Naval bases, and they are trained to approach any human that come into their "area" and make contact with them, which triggers the devices that are strapped onto them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

51. And how hard would it be to move them?

They are needed!! Dolphins are dying! 70% can't tell a net is going to trap them.

[katamaran]

37. I want sharks with frickin' laser beams!

Or at least some ill-tempered sea bass.

/got nothin'

[greblc]

39. Were they headed North? Minneapolis has a direct waterway

via the Mississppi River. Should I be concerned?

Do dolphins taste anything like Walleye?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

52. I'll just be more vigilant

when I am in the tub.

I will check the water carefully before getting in.

Thanks for the warning!

[BJW]

53. Hey All--Flipper's Trainer and Other Former Navy Trainers Say It's True

Read the transcript of what they had to say about what the Navy uses dolphins for.

http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/510/

<snip>

Mr. O'BARRY: There's some talk about a "swimmer nullification system," and -- You can see the training of this in Key West; it's very hard for them to hide that.

INTERVIEWER: But that's a pretty nice euphemism. That means killing people?

Mr. O'BARRY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And do you think that dolphins are being trained to kill people?

Mr. O'BARRY: I think so, yes. In the sixties, the "swimmer nullification system," as I understand it, involved an injection system of CO-2. It sends a blast of CO-2 into the body cavity and will literally shove your insides out your mouth and your rectum.

NARRATOR: Additional details about the Navy's marine mammal program were alleged by former Navy trainers who went public with stories of overzealous training and mishandling of animals. Among them was a dolphin trainer who worked in the program from 1984 to 1989.

Ms. RAYMOND: He reported incidents of abuse that he had witnessed over the years working for SEACO, which is the sub-contracting training outfit for the Navy, where animals were starved, kicked, hit with bucket lids, put in a pen where they could see other animals being fed and not being fed themselves.

NARRATOR: The Navy denies that its trainers mistreat animals.

<snip>

[Radio_Lady]

55. That's a pretty interesting transcript. Thanks for posting the link.