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Armed Dolphins Released Into Gulf of Mexico
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Sep 25, 2005 09:46 PM
from the flippered-and-dangerous dept.
from the flippered-and-dangerous dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian is reporting on what may be the weirdest Hurricane Katrina story yet. Military trained dolphins may have been released into the wild by the Hurricane's devastation." From the article: "Experts who have studied the U.S. 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 U.S. navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing. Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The U.S. Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the U.S. defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly."
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Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
Before we starting carping on the ineptitude of our navy, I think we should more carefully exsalmon the situation - they may not be solely at fault. Perhaps Katrina is just a red herring here, and these killer dolphins have been floundering around for months. Maybe some deranged fool let them loose just for the halibut. Whoever is responsible should have their head on a pike.
Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want a real account of military-trained animals getting out and causing havoc, check this out [defensetech.org]. One of my old biology profs knew a guy who worked on this.
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
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Information on Marine Mammal Systems (Score:5, Informative)
Assuming that these dolphins are not part of a separate program, presumably the loose mammals are part of Marine Mammal System Mark VI. Note that the Navy Marine Mammal Program FAQ [navy.mil] includes the following item:
Does the Navy train its dolphins for offensive warfare, including attacks on ships and human swimmers or divers?
No. The Navy does not now train, nor has it ever trained, its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships. A popular movie in 1973 ("The Day of the Dolphin") and a number of charges and claims by animal rights organizations have resulted in theories and sometimes actual beliefs that Navy dolphins are assigned attack missions. This is absolutely false. Since dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal. The animals are trained to detect, locate, and mark all mines or all swimmers in an area of interest or concern, and are not trained to distinguish between what we would refer to as good or bad. That decision is always left to humans.
I find trace references [about.com] to the fact that the former anti-swimmer system (the Shallow Water Intruder Detection System) was supplanted by something new involving dolphins. In the old system, a sea lion would swim up to an unknown frogman with an open-jawed clamp attached to a line attached to its nose, ram into the frogman, and then signal the handler -- the frogman would essentially become "handcuffed" to the line, easy to reel in.
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Re:Information on Marine Mammal Systems (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
It's not like some idiot just let them trout, for shellfish purposes or otherwise -- tuna in to your tv, there was a hurricane. It's not like they cod have seen this as a possiblity with all the crabby, hammer-headed officials higher up in the food chain. Ask any general, and eel tell you that this was some shrimpy, reefer smoking, floundering good-for-nothing in charge, and didn't plan ahead.
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As they left... (Score:5, Funny)
"So long and thanks for all the fish"
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
"Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it."
That's gold!
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's pointless to fine tuna moderation like that.
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sound a little fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
How would that go?
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Re:Wit and Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:most dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
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Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Rumsfield, is that you?
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Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
In February 1998, dozens of dead dolphins began washing ashore along the French Mediterranean. According to Jon Henley, a reporter for The Observer, "Most bore an identical, and mysterious wound - a neat, fist-sized hole - on the underside of their necks."
Marine biologists were baffled but Leo Sheridan proposed the only explanation that has not yet been dismissed. "I am convinced that these were dolphins trained by the US Navy and that something went badly wrong," Sheridan told The Observer.
Sheridan believes "they were disposed of to conceal the existence of the Americans' military dolphin program." In fact it was 1989 when the U.S. Navy began its classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission. The San Diego-based operation involved fitting dolphins with neck harnesses that pressed small electrodes into their skin.
The animals were taught to recognize and drown enemy divers. The dolphins could be remotely monitored and controlled via electric signals transmitted through the neck harness. In order to prevent the dolphins and the Navy's technology from falling into the wrong hands, a small explosive charge was planted in the harness on the underside of the animal's neck.
Sheridan noted that 16 of the dead dolphins displayed the same kind of round puncture wound that is "consistent with a small detonation. "It seems to me no accident that these dolphins first began washing up in the middle of a military crisis when American warships and submarines were en route to the [Persian] Gulf."
I'd also not kill each with the same mechanism. Some could enjoy the release of a toxin they might have naturally eaten too much of, others an electric shock they might naturally have happened upon. In any event I'd be more inventive than blasting equivalent holes in 16 necks, then tossing on a few dozen other dolphins to cover the ass of a classified program.
BG
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Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Marine biologists were baffled but Leo Sheridan proposed the only explanation that has not yet been dismissed. "I am convinced that these were dolphins trained by the US Navy and that something went badly wrong,
I am convinced it was done by aliens hiding on the Canary islands... can't dismiss that either. See, it's easy to say something is the result of some secret project: Since all the evidence you would need to prove your case is secret, of course you can't provide any evidence.
In fact it was 1989 when the U.S. Navy began its classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission.
Well, if you trot over to the program's official web page [navy.mil], you can see they have been training toothed whales since 1962. And once again, how does he know the specifics of something supposedly top secret (but with an official web page, of course)? Maybe it began in 1987, and it's even more advanced!
Speculation is fun, but when you do it too much and for too long you simply start seeing patterns that aren't really there. You start believing anything that fits your pattern, even when far simpler explanations fit equally well. Occam's Razor goes out the window. I wonder what Sheridan thinks of the movie A Beautiful Mind [imdb.com].
Parent
So long.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So long.. (Score:5, Funny)
The Pan-dimensional creatures have officially returned to the cosmic spotlight after a reclusion in the backwater planet of Earth, taking the second most intelligent race with them.
When asked to comment about their unusual extraction method, they issued this statement:
"We have completed our mission, and so have left Earth. Having found the secret to life, we can now return to the mainstream galaxy, and establish our control over the interdimensional biosphere.
In our effort to leave, we caused a weather distortion, and as such have taken the dolphin race with us to act as our agents in galactic control."
When asked to elaborate upon the dolphins, they replied:
"The dolphins were conducting a case study of the primitive humans and how they used the tools at hand to advance their agenda. They allowed themselves to be retrofitted with primitive weapons by the humans, let themselves be 'trained'. They were on the verge of prooving their thesis that primitive government is overrated, and is doomed by corruption though the lack of intelligence in the upper classes of society when we were forced to extract them. While their thesis remains unprooved, they gained valuable experiance in terrorizing with head-mounted implements. We plan to upgrade them from dart guns to lasers in the near future."
When the galactic president, Zaphod Beeblebrox, was asked to comment, he refused to say anything but "I for one welcome our head-mounted laser-wielding attack dolphin overlords."
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The dolphins have FLIPPERED out. (Score:5, Funny)
On a serious note I say the answer is to just buy a bunch of six packs of beer, drink em and then toss the can rings into the ocean. TV has told me this will kill all manner of marine life. TV is seldom innacurate.
Oooh, I got one... (Score:5, Funny)
These men/dolphins promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade/maximum security pool to the Los Angeles/Texas underground.
Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.
Warning - will work for mackerel.
Re:Oooh, I got one... (Score:5, Funny)
Squid pro quo, Clarice. Squid pro quo.
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Movie plot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Movie plot (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Movie plot (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Movie plot (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Movie plot (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Movie plot (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of many thousands of miles of U.S. coastline, they picked New Orleans, which is below sea level and prone to flooding;
They were not smart enough to evacuate these valuable and dangerous animals before the hurricane;
They didn't bother to remove the weapons from the animals;
They didn't even think to UNLOAD the weapons. Apparently, these dolphins swim around fully armed, 24-7!
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Re:Movie plot (Score:5, Funny)
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could be... (Score:5, Insightful)
And every military aircraft that flies 'could be' carrying nuclear weapons.
But they arent.
Re: could be... (Score:5, Insightful)
Naval Dolphin Trainer 2: Yeah?
Naval Dolphin Trainer 1: The mother of all hurricanes is about to come down on us.
Naval Dolphin Trainer 2: So?
Naval Dolphin Trainer 1: You think we should strap-up our dolphins with a full rack of poison dart guns right about now?
Naval Dolphin Trainer 2: Hey dude! Good idea! *goes off to the munitions locker*
Now I know the military can be stupid sometimes, but surely not stupid enough to have their trained killer dolphins armed up during an incoming major hurricane?
Seriously?
Parent
...or we could just go to the page in question (Score:5, Informative)
Does the Navy train its dolphins for offensive warfare, including attacks on ships and human swimmers or divers?
No. The Navy does not now train, nor has it ever trained, its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships. A popular movie in 1973 ("The Day of the Dolphin") and a number of charges and claims by animal rights organizations have resulted in theories and sometimes actual beliefs that Navy dolphins are assigned attack missions. This is absolutely false. Since dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal. The animals are trained to detect, locate, and mark all mines or all swimmers in an area of interest or concern, and are not trained to distinguish between what we would refer to as good or bad. That decision is always left to humans.
Does the Navy ask the dolphins and sea lions to do dangerous things?
The dolphins locate and mark the location of sea mines which are designed to be set off by large ships, not aquatic animals. In the swimmer detection program, dolphins and sea lions move so quickly and with such accuracy that human swimmers in dark or murky waters are located and marked before they know what has happened. Once the marking has been completed, the animals are removed from the area before mines are disarmed or swimmers are apprehended by trained security forces. Marine mammals are actually in more danger from sharks, and wild marine mammals are put in much more danger by people who feed them (which is why it is illegal).
Why have there been so many rumors about the NMMP over the years?
Several decades of classification of the program's true missions of mine-hunting and swimmer defense, led to media speculation and animal activist charges of dolphins used as offensive weapons, speculation and charges that could not be countered with facts due to that classification. Additionally, fantasy is often times more interesting than reality. With declassification of the missions of the program in the early 1990s, the Navy has repeatedly and openly discussed those missions, but rumors are not easily forgotten, and there are those who continue to actively promote them.
In response to charges that the program abused the animals, the presidentially appointed Marine Mammal Commission investigated the program in 1988 and 1990. The Commission reported that the allegations were not only false, but that the Navy's care of its marine mammals was "exemplary."
Then, of course, we'd realize this guy was a kook, and that Slashdot is recycling stories that Art Bell wouldn't cover. Certainly makes you think twice about the journalistic integrity of the Guardian, though.
Parent
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
In the communication, Skippy confirmed that he and the other dolphins were indeed armed, declared himself and his compatriots "freedom fighters" for an organization called the "Cetacean Liberation Front" or "CTF", and demanded that all other wrongfully imprisoned cetaceans be released immediately, or the group would initiate hostilities against surfers, SCUBA divers, and windsurfers.
The following is a transcript of this communication:
At this point, the administration still has issued no official statement concerning this situation.
Fear mongering (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is fear mongering.
They Called Him... (Score:5, Funny)
He'll Dart you Faster than lightning
No Dolphin you see
Has more bloodlust than he
Thank the Navy! Navy!
For this stupendous new blunder
stalking there under...
under the sea!
So long.... (Score:5, Funny)
Not a big deal (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, ok. Right. This is believable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please. What a craptastic, misleading headline for Slashdot. I don't comment much here on Slashdot but in the name of all that is holy, who posts this crap?
At least it's not a dupe, yet.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.... (Score:5, Funny)
"What the hell? That sounds really weird... I never heard anything that quiet, but yet surely, there's something th---"
"DARTS IN THE WATER! Incoming darts!"
Next day:
An American Sub Sunk During Routine Exercises
The DoD still hasn't released any detailes about the incident, although they have confirmed that a Seawolf class submarine took a hit from an unknown weapon during a routince training exercise in the northern part of the Atlantic. It is speculated that the submarine was wrongly identified as a terrorist vessel by a squadron of the Dolphin Anti-Terrorist Task force. The Departament of Defense refused to comment.
they're not always 'learning' what you think... (Score:5, Informative)
Huh. How'd they do that?
I hope they didn't do it in the same way the Russian army taught dogs to drop satchel charges under German tanks. You see, they used Russian tanks to train them. So when they got into battle with the Germans, what did the dogs do when given live, armed satchel charges? Delivered them right under Russian tanks, of course. That plan was rather quickly abandoned.
The US Army hasn't faired much better; they armed bats with incendiary devices [wikipedia.org]- the plan was that, release from a plane over Japan, they'd find refuged in building overhangs and whanot. They were kept calm by refridgeration. So during one of the trial runs (incidentally, the first trial run with live ammo), some genius decides they need a picture of the bats. It's pitch dark, so the photographer uses a flash. Which not only wakes up the bats, but startles them as well...
...and as they say, "hilarity ensued."
Re:they're not always 'learning' what you think... (Score:5, Insightful)
The most critical part about retrieving them is not that they *could* "attack" divers with their head-mounted laser beams (where are those sharks when you need them), but that they've been captive-raised all their lives, much like the dolphins at the SeaWorld parks.
Parent
How'd they do that? (Score:5, Funny)
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Navy attack dolphins... (Score:5, Funny)
We must release the Navy Seals
(Sorry, had to be said)
A serious post (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I seriously doubt that dolphins are being used with poison darts, since the Navy seems to prefer using sea lions [usatoday.com] now (They don't need storage pools, work better in tight areas like harbors and piers, and tolerate more varying temperatures). And even if there *were* poison dart weilding dolphins, why on earth would they be left armed while at a training facility during a storm?
Re:Frickin'.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:they are smart , but... (Score:5, Informative)
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I heard... (Score:5, Funny)
(sorry!)
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