They're the next best thing to Dr. Evil's sharks with frikkin' laser beams attached to their heads: dolphins armed with toxic darts. However, unlike the sharks with frikkin' laser beams or the ill-tempered sea bass, the armed trained attack dolphins are real. Oh, and they might be missing. So long and thanks for all the fish.
It might be just a rumor. Trained attack dolphins are one of the worst-kept military secrets since Area 51. Unnamed government sources "close to US government marine fisheries" have supposedly told a "respected accident investigator who has worked for the government and industry" that the dolphins escaped. Suspicions arose when the Navy--which operates the Cetacean Intelligence Mission--helped a local seaquarium to locate some of their resident dolphins that got loose into the Gulf of Mexico during the hurricanes, but were very keen to examine the prodigal cetaceans before returning them to the care of the seaquarium. It isn't a big jump to the conclusion that the Navy was making sure those were the unarmed dolphins. We wouldn't want to go through all the trouble of training an anti-terrorism marine mammal just to have it jump through hoops for herring.
UPDATE: Snopes.com has put this story in the "dubious" category owing to the lack of reliable (or multiple) sources that I alluded to above. As amusing as the story is, it is rather fishy. One would think if the military had trained attack dolphins, they probably would take steps to make darned sure that, hurricane or no, they don't get out and mix with wild populations. Particularly in light of the recent observations that dolphins can learn behaviors from other dolphins.
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