CIA simulation of the "Oxygen Dolphin" operation
Recently, the Western media has paid great attention to the russian navy's use of dolphins in the port of Sevastopol to carry out military operations. The West also pointed out that the Russian military's move means that the US military is not the only one with military dolphins.
In the world, the U.S. Navy was the first to put dolphins into the military, and the related research and application are very in-depth. Ironically, however, while promoting that "dolphins are man's best friend", Americans are training dolphins as suicide weapons!
The United States first promoted that "dolphins are friends of mankind"
The United States was one of the first countries to train dolphins artificially. Around 1960, Americans took the lead in promoting "humans and dolphins make friends", especially through the 60s film and television program "Flipper", which formed dolphin pop culture in the United States and even around the world.
The 1963 film Flipper fictionalizes a cute, intelligent dolphin that lives in Florida, patrols nature reserves, and fights criminals. Dolphin Flipper is intelligent, obedient to orders, and a reliable friend of humans. A year later, American television launched a series of the same name (remade again in 1996), which further turned "making friends with dolphins" into a public topic and gradually established a sense of friendliness to dolphins in the public mind.
But in parallel to another hidden world, the U.S. Navy and the CIA began experimenting with the militarization of dolphins in the 1960s, racking their brains to design various attempts to use dolphins as weapons, some of which were very cruel!
Early revelations of U.S. military dolphins were primarily U.S. Navy projects, including dolphins being used to clear mines and obstacles in ports, or to use poison or oxygen needles to attack enemy frogmen (which would kill frogmen miserably). In 1970, the U.S. Navy first put a dolphin into the Vietnam War, taking on the role of defending against vietnamese frogmen in the port. However, these are just a drop in the ocean of dolphins "weaponized", and the real dark story is the CIA's "oxygen dolphins".
Dolphins trained to carry nuclear bombs?
In recent years, secret dolphin experiments by the CIA have been gradually revealed, the most important of which is the "Oxygen Program" launched in 1964, which not only involves bottlenose dolphins acting as spies, but also allows bottlenose dolphins to carry explosives and carry suicide attack missions.
A November 1964 document from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development, which had been involved in the study, revealed that the department was cautiously optimistic about the Oxygen Program: "Frankly, the project is progressing faster than we expected, although the current unbridled enthusiasm is unreasonable." The document notes that although there are communication issues between the operator and the dolphins and the need to determine the appropriate payload shape, they believe the CIA could conduct a full test by January 1965.
While carrying explosives was a key part of the Oxygen Program, the CIA documents did not disclose what kind of explosive device the dolphins carried, but later scholars have pointed out that the CIA may have planned to use conventional devices, such as the Limbpeter mine used by divers during World War II. But on the other hand, the CIA is also likely to consider allowing dolphins to carry nuclear weapons. In the 1960s, the United States had succeeded in partially miniaturizing nuclear bombs, and although it was still too large relative to dolphins, as technology developed further, nuclear bombs could sooner or later become capable of being carried by dolphins. In a February 1965 document, the CIA reported that "two dolphins now regularly transport simulated payloads."
Meanwhile, the CIA's maritime division, which operates at sea and along the coast, is very interested in using dolphins (which the CIA calls "unmanned systems"), such as how to drive trained dolphins to and from distant parts of the world for certain tasks, and how to train mammals such as dolphins to dive on missions. Eventually, the CIA decided to use a modified ship to transport the Oxygen Dolphins in and out of the mission area.
At the time, the CIA produced a printed copy depicting an "oxygen dolphin" sliding off a submarine and towing a bomb with a seatbelt fastened to the dolphin's nose. It was clear that this mode of combat was suicidal, and it was almost impossible for dolphins to survive the mission.
The failure of the Oxygen Dolphin program
The CIA envisioned a number of covert missions against dolphins, including "attacks on various ship types," "harbor and coastal reconnaissance through photographic means," specialized electronic intelligence gathering, and placement of "sonar, acoustic, and seismic buoys." The agency even envisions dolphins deploying weapons of mass destruction sensors, including "rocket detection buoys," biological warfare and chemical warfare sensors, and trace element sensors for detecting radioactive elements released into the atmosphere by nuclear explosions.
It is worth mentioning that the task of the United States to let dolphins collect nuclear test data is actually related to China. Because China had just conducted its first nuclear test in 1964, the CIA was eager to detect further data.
Despite the progress of the program, the CIA ran into a thorny issue, which was that dolphins, as wild animals, had eccentric personalities and were not particularly reliable. As early as January 1964, the CIA acknowledged the limitations of the use of wild animals as a "guided weapon" and sought help from the Naval Research Office. A month later, the head of the life sciences division of the U.S. Office of Research and Development said they feared the dolphins would become focused on "pleasing the trainer" and might overlook unfamiliar field agents when performing their missions.
In 1967, the CIA's technical committee suggested a change in strategy: "Oxygen Dolphin" would focus on intelligence gathering. In their new vision, the dolphins would approach hostile nations from at least 12 miles away. In this on-water version of the classic "dead drop" (a technique used in spy parlance to transfer items), dolphins retrieve objects that the spy left in shallow water or floating on the shore. However, the commission noted that it is difficult to train dolphins to travel more than 12 miles through unfamiliar waters.
In September 1967, the CIA's support for Project Oxygen began to lose momentum. On the other hand, there has been no progress on the proposal that the program become a joint Defense/CIA program, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had hoped to help fund the project. By 1970, however, the C.I.A.'s "Oxygen Program" had all funding gone to zero.
At this point, the CIA's plan to train "spy dolphins" failed utterly, and human trainers were unable to make dolphins aware of the importance of their work (if possible). The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, continues its own military dolphin program, which uses mammals to search for mines and other underwater explosive devices, which continues to this day. (Author: Tao Mujian)