A bizarre story emerges from Katrina reading like something from a cartoon, or a tin-foil hat conspiracy:
The Observer | International | Armed and Dangerous – Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina
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.
Let’s hope they are smart enough to tell the difference between a surfer and a terrorist. Or perhaps there is no difference?
I was thinking the military might go the way of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. But this is good too.
Anybody who takes British rags least of all the Guardian at face value is diluted.
Killer dolphins? Now I’ve seen it all. Is there no longer any innovation in America that doesn’t revolve around killing something?
I wonder how many Hollywood script writers are firing up their word processors right now?
But what I really want to know is… what the heck?
In what possible scenario would a dolphin armed with a poison dart be a useful tool for national security? Maybe against those al Queda scuba divers assaulting our shores?
I always heard that they were training dolphins to identify sea mines. This seems like it could be useful.
But poison darts? What?!?!
How many of our tax dollars have gone to this project?
US scum suckers earthquake please take these scum suckers off our beautiful planet so we can get back to enjoying our lives US go away never come back will it be war the entire planet against the US I will fight to destroy the US
These Dolphins have been around for YEARS… back before the days of Flipper the navy was already exploring the use of these animals for search and rescue of downed subs..
Another use of these animals should be to protect certain beaches from sharks.. it would be nice if we could have them trained to protect a mile or so of beaches so that ocean swimmers can feel safe in the waters swiming/surfing..
Oh yeah… this one has a real ring of truth to it… keep 36 armed and ready dolphins in tanks, ready to be released at any time. Even if they are trained to find peple, and possibly attack on command, why would they be constantly armed with live weapons. Makes no sense.
In the photo, what you see is a video camera, strapped to the dolphin so that the handlers can see what the dolphin sees. That is the real purpose of these animals… to send them out on inspection tours, looking for object shapes that they are trained to recognize, such as mines or people, and let the handlers see them. The dolphins respond to sound instructions, much like sheep herding dogs, and can lots of terrain (waterain?) very quickly.
As a side note, how does that video camera work wirelessly underwater?
Honestly, some of the blog articles are starting to be really dumb. The site admin stuff is mostly interesting, but some of the other stuff looks like bad trivia. And it bothers me because the large number of dumb stuff is pushing the truly interesting stuff off the bottom of the page, killing one of the most interesting features of the blog: the commentary.
OK. You’re confusing me now. Who’s Numlock?
Numlock is John CS Dvorak…my son. He digs up some offbeat stuff and posts it when he can.
Wow… I think this article may be the most ridicules thing I have ever read. The Navy does not even facillite any of thier dolphins on the east coast or in the Gulf of Mexico. The Navy’s dolphin program is entirely based out of california. Secondly, dolphins have NEVER been use as “attack animals” by the US. Navy.
I think the writer of this piece is very confused. The only dolphins in the news associated with Hurricane Katrina are eight bottle-nosed dolphins from the destroyed Marine Life Aquriam in Gulf Port, Mississippi, that were washed out to sea. The only involvement by the Navy with the Gulf Port dolphins was that they provided some portable pools for the homeless creatures. By the way,according to staff from Marine Life, all eight dolphins have been rescued and are recovering nicely .
This photo made it’s rounds a few years ago titled simply as some of the military’s killer animals. It’s back in the top 25 urban legend emails circulating again… what fun.
http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/rumor/dolphins.asp
I can’t believe 2 media sources didn’t check their sources first. It’s an obvioulsy photoshopped pic.