NASA, Dolphins, and
Learning from History
It’s said that if you don’t learn from history you’re doomed to repeat it. So we’ve been doing quite a bit of learning recently. Learning about things like why looking up to Hunter S. Thompson past the age of 24 makes you look like a moron and how to start a savings account. Important things. Most importantly we’ve learned how to run an LSD infused dolphin research program without getting too handsy.
It all started with Dr. John Lilly. Who in 1961 wrote a book called “Man and Dolphin;” which suggested that not only could dolphins talk to humans, but they also wanted too. This bizarre interest got connected to a couple scientists who had interest in talking to extraterrestrial life.
Astronomer Frank Drake read “Man and Dolphin” and thought Dr. Lilly was on to something. He connected Dr. Lilly to NASA to secure funding to run a series of experiments in order to create a way to communicate between dolphins and humans. This funding was used to create a lab/ workspace known as dolphin point.
This is where Margaret Lovatt enters the story. A 23-year-old who came to Dolphin Point for no other reason than hearing there were dolphins at the location and hoping to help in any way she could. The lab director, Gregory Bateson gave her a job observing the dolphins and writing down what she saw. She did well enough to be invited to help at the lab despite having no scientific training in any way shape or form.
Margaret Lovatt became quickly enthralled with the project and with the three dolphins involved; Pamela, Sissy, and Peter. She worked tirelessly trying to teach the dolphins to make some sort of noise that could be interpreted as a human word.
She felt that there were not enough hours in the day so she decided she’d move into the research center. Flooding the living quarters with a couple feet of water she created a space where both human and dolphins could cohabitate. Peter became the primary dolphin to live in the shared space with her. For six days they would live together and on the seventh Peter would go back in the enclosure with the other dolphins.
After months of living with the dolphins Frank Drake sent someone to check in on the progress that was being made at Dolphin Point. After seeing that Lovatt, who was not a scientist, was left to live with the dolphins trying to teach them English rather than trying to decipher the dolphin’s own vocabulary, the end was imminent.
As the end of the funding was in site Dr. John Lilly became less interested in it and more interested in LSD. So much so that he was part of a select group of scientists that were licensed by the government to research the effects of it. He then began seeing if some sort of connection could be made by dosing both himself and the dolphins with LSD. This disregard for the animal’s safety was the final nail in the coffin for their funding.
After the experiment ended Peter the dolphin was separated from Lovatt and sent to another research facility where he committed suicide shortly after arriving. Dolphins do not breath automatically like humans. They must consciously breath, and in some cases, dolphins will consciously not breathe and sink to the bottom ending their own life.
Lovatt married the photographer who worked on the project with her and they converted the Dolphin Point lab into a home for their family.
The project wasn’t talked about again until 50 years later when Margret Lovatt gave and interview for a documentary on the experiments. During these interviews she casually mentioned that she would semi regularly masturbate Peter the dolphin when he was aroused so that he could go back to focusing on the experiments at hand.
And that’s how NASA paid for a dolphin to get a hand job from a lady.
Our hope is to bring awareness with our shirts that only people do acid and don’t touch the dolphins, don’t put them in cages. Just leave them alone.
Also, if you do acid be safe or something.
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