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US Navy:
Accused of Sacrificing Errant Dolphins

11.03.1998;
Suspicion has been cast on the US Navy following the deaths of nearly two dozen dolphins under mysterious circumstances. The dolphins began washing up on the beaches of Languedoc- Roussillon in southern France in early February, and by the end of the month the known death toll had reached 22. While a few are considered to have died of natural causes, controversy has surrounded an identical fist-sized hole in the underside of the necks of 16, suggestive of a small detonation.

Full post mortems have yet to be carried out, but in the meantime only one theory has been proposed that could explain the mysterious wounds.

Leo Sheridan, an accident investigator from the village of Ariège, has assembled a mass of documents, clippings and charts that he claims prove his case. "I am convinced that these were dolphins trained by the US navy, and that something went badly wrong," he told the Observer (March 1). "They were disposed of to conceal the existence of the Americans' military dolphin programme."

It is widely known that the US Navy, and formerly that of the Soviet Union, have experimented with using dolphins for military purposes such as planting limpet mines and smashing enemy divers in the sternum. After the end of the Cold War, many of these dolphins were believed to have been sold at knock-down prices, and the Observer does not explain why Sheridan believes these dolphins are related to the US programme.

According to Sheridan, the US Navy launched a classified programme, the Cetacean Intelligence Mission, in 1989. This involved placing harnesses around the dolphins' necks and implanting small electrodes under the skin. Working in teams of four, they were then taught to patrol nuclear submarines in port and stationary warships at sea.

At first, they were taught to recognise enemy divers as a threat, and the stress levels they exhibited were picked up by the electrodes and transmitted back to a control room. Later, two-way communications was developed to allow the control room to stimulate the dolphins to attack intruding divers by forcing them down to a dangerous depth.

Also packed in the harness, says Sheridan, was a small explosive charge on the underside of the neck which would be detonated by remote control if a dolphin became over- stressed or went missing, as amorous males are prone to do.

"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 Gulf," said Sheridan to the Observer. "Sixteen, in other words four teams, display this distinctive wound. And that wound is consistent with a small detonation."

Sheridan believes control over the dolphins was lost in an accident while they were being lowered into the Mediterranean, either from a warship or a helicopter, and they were killed to avoid discovery.