In the 1960s a NASA-funded
research unit investigated methods of talking to the sea creatures
Tuesday 13 June 2017 16:32 BST
Scientists once gave dolphins the
hallucinogenic drug LSD, in an attempt to communicate with them.
Funded by NASA, the Communication
Research Institute, informally known as The Dolphin House, investigated methods
of talking to the creatures in the 1960s. They also used a range of techniques
in an attempt to teach the animals English.
John Lilly, a neuroscientist who
led the work, studied three dolphins in particular, one of which he chose to
leave in an isolation tank with a human 24 hours a day for three months.
During the isolation period the
dolphin, named Peter, began making sexual advances towards
researcher, Margaret Howe Lovatt, who chose to relieve the animal's urges
because it was proving to be disruptive to the training.
Ultimately, none of the dolphins
were able to learn English.
But researchers found that they
were 70 per cent more vocal after they were administered with LSD.
Dr Lilly wrote that “the
important thing for us with the LSD in the dolphin is that what we see has no
meaning in the verbal sphere."
He added: "We are out of
what you might call the rational exchange of complex ideas because we haven't
developed communication in that particular way as yet.”
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