Killer Dolphins On the Prowl

Dr. Evil is working for the Department of Defense. While we don't have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads, the Guardian reports that we do, in fact, have killer dolphins equipped with toxic dart guns. Apparently, the Navy has trained US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. They're trained to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. But thanks to Hurricane Katrina, 36 of them were swept out to sea.

Leo Sheridan, "a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry," is the source for this info. He believes that the dolphins could fire on divers and windsurfers mistaken for spies and suicide bombers. Yet another reason I won't be surfing in the Gulf any time soon.

"The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?" Well I guess they'd die, Mr. Sheridan. Die and then be eaten.

I'm having some trouble buying Mr. Sheridan's story. Back in 1998, he was confident that a group of US Navy killer dolphins had come to grief off the French Mediterranean coast when they got loose and their handlers detonated a "radio-controlled explosion of their signal collars, so that no one could find out their missions."

I guess the dolphins were going to break under interrogation. It's a good thing they've yet to tap into previously unmined mental powers to spontaneously generate opposable thumbs. We'd all be sunk.