Secret sea labs, extraterrestrial intelligence and LSD experiments…. No this isn’t the plot of a new spy movie. This is the story of a very real experiment that took place in the U.S. virgin islands in the 1960s.
Join us as we tell the story of a scientist and intellectual who became obsessed with unlocking the secrets of language and the young, star-crossed lovers who would get entangled in the messy affair. This is a story of strange science, unorthodox experiments and interspecies love. And you’re going to hear it all today, on Impolite Society.
Email us your impolite questions at rude@impolitesocietypodcast.com and visit our website for info about the show and your hosts Laura and Rachel.
Secret sea labs, extraterrestrial intelligence and LSD experiments…. No this isn’t the plot of a new spy movie. This is the story of a very real experiment that took place in the U.S. virgin islands in the 1960s.
Join us as we tell the story of a scientist and intellectual who became obsessed with unlocking the secrets of language and the young, star-crossed lovers who would get entangled in the messy affair. This is a story of strange science, unorthodox experiments and interspecies love. And you’re going to hear it all today, on Impolite Society.
Email us your impolite questions at rude@impolitesocietypodcast.com and visit our website for info about the show and your hosts Laura and Rachel.
Secret Sea Labs, extraterrestrial intelligence and LSD experiments. No, this isn't the plot of a new spy movie. This is the story of a very real experiment that took place in the US Virgin Islands in the 1960s. Join us as we tell the story of a scientist and intellectual who became obsessed with unlocking the secrets of language and the young star CROs, lovers who got entangled in the messy affair. This is a story of strange science on orthodox experiments and interspecies love, and you are going to hear it all today on Impolite Society. Welcome. My curious little chickens. Come. Come look behind the Veil of Polite Society to explore the Taboo Strange in Macabre. I'm Rachel
Track 1:And I am Laura.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:So let's start the episode with a little game, uh, a
Track 1:Yay.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:game. Right now we're also a podcast that does game shows.
Track 1:I love guessing games.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Okay? So this is how it's gonna work. It's like a, what's am I game, right? Where I read you some clues about the thing that I am, and you try to guess based on the clues. Alright, here we go. I am a very social animal. I can't survive without others, but I am still an individual. I have my own name and unique interest, and through those interests I'm actually able to make friendships. I learned quickly and am renowned from my problem solving. Who am I?
Track 1:I'm a human. That's, that's, it's a human.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:right? It sounds a lot like a human, but these facts are also all true of another species. The humans of the sea, if you will. Dolphins So dolphins are actually pretty smart.
Track 1:That is always what I have heard. And in fact, I've watched a lot of David Attenborough specials and I, I've known that they're very, very smart. They have a very advanced communication system
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:And that's true. Dolphins are super fucking smart. I mean, everybody's seen the shows at SeaWorld or seen like a documentary like you said, I didn't quite really get how smart they were until I did this research. When you look in their eyes, they might look like, they're like bd eyes, but you can tell that there's something happening behind it, that they're intelligent, you can see their souls And this experience was shared by a man named John Lily who is going to have a big part in the story that we're telling today. John is described on his Wikipedia page as an American physician, neuroscience psychoanalyst, psycho knot philosopher, writer, and inventor.
Track 1:So I have no idea what a psycho knot is. It sounds like somebody that's an astronaut in a, in your psyche, and that immediately makes me think that he's a wackadoo.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, some kind of like explorer of the human psyche. And that's not too far off because that might be what's found on his publicly moderated Wikipedia page. But if you go to, uh, john c lily.com, he is described as the 20th centuries foremost scientific pioneer of the inner and outer limits of the human experience.
Track 1:Oh, geez. I was right. This is a crazy person, isn't it?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Oh yeah. And you could definitely tell that by the website. It is fantastic. It is like a living artifact. Okay. So imagine a dolphin pattern background, like a picture of a dolphin in the pattern
Track 1:Oh.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:again, like a grid. And it's got like pictures of John himself and there's like pixelated animated graphics going on, like a. Mystical diamonds over his forehead and all this stuff. It's just, it's fantastic. It's straight out of the nineties and it looks like every website that we had to make in school, like as a school project, it's got the left hand navigation where all the things are different JPEGs with and, oh, it's just, it honestly, it felt like a time capsule it, it felt a little bit like going home.
Track 1:I love finding sites like these on random Google crawls, and I feel like when you research the kind of more obscure things that we do and look into it deep, other than just a Wiki page, you find a lot of these and ah, they're always, they're always good to come across
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yes, I recommend checking it out for yourself, John c Ri, or johny lilly.com.
Track 1:trying see ri com.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:wrote wr, wrote that into my notes so many times and had to clean that out because it just rolled right off the tongue. But John, as he was working on exploring the limits of the human experience, he and his wife happened upon a beached whale in 1949. And as he stood there in complete awe of the size of the animal and how big its brain must be, his life changed.
Track 1:What his brain, that's specifically what he was focused on.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:he was thinking, this is a big ass animal. It must have a big ass brain. They must be very smart.
Track 1:Hmm. I feel like brain size is not like a direct correlation with intelligence, but there is some correlation, like brain case size, not necessarily
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:he does cite that as the instance that sparked his interest and led him down this career path of studying these marine mammals. cause after this he turned that into a hobby. And he and his wife started cruising to the Caribbean as much as possible to observe these large marine mammals. Which I was like, yeah, sure. You, this was your study. You didn't just wanna fucking go on a cruise and drink mojitos
Track 1:Yeah. If you can get someone to pay for this. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's for quote research.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:And this is where I learned that. Our love for dolphins, you know how we've seen so many shows and made websites with them in the background. That's like kind of a newer thing within the 20th century. because before that they were just seen more as nuisances by fishermen and called herring hogs because they would thief the herrings that those fishermen were catching.
Track 1:Oh, I bet they're really good at fucking diving into a school of fish.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. And if we're doing all the work of catching them and hauling'em to the top, they're like not gonna pass up on that buffet.
Track 1:Mm-Hmm.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:But that all changed in the sixties with a place called Marines Studios, which John himself, um, was one of the first places he got to encounter dolphins specifically. And they had these dolphins that were on display for the public and that showed their lively personalities and how smart they were. And
Track 1:And then Flipper came in, right
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, it was actually in 1964 we got Flipper on TV and we all realized we could make a lot of money off dolphins, so maybe we should stop catching them in our nets and grinding them up into our tuna cans. Um, and that is what, you know, led down the path to the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. So Dolphins really had a turning point. You know, you could call the 1960s, the decade of the dolphin, and that is when John Lilly had a brilliant idea. He thought, you know what, I'm gonna teach these ERs to talk.
Track 1:as one does.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Right. Who doesn't see a large animal and think I'm gonna teach you to talk.
Track 1:good luck buddy.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:But he, he believed he had decent reason. To support this theory, right? Because according to his wife, a very objective observer, she said that the dolphins would try to imitate John when he talked to them with like a rah rah, and that they would then imitate the higher pitch of his assistant. So they were like doing different voices to mimic the people they heard speaking.
Track 1:I think that makes sense. They're an intelligent species. They also rely on social cooperation and they know if you're gonna give me fish, I'm gonna try to, ingratiate myself with you and try to mimic what you're doing. I bet you'll like that. I mean, that's the basic of human social and communication, right? Like you kind of reflect what somebody is back in your in yourself. And if they're intelligent social animals, it makes sense that they would be able to do that.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. Yeah. And that's what they thought. That's exactly the principle that they thought they could build it on, right? Dolphins are intelligent social animals. They have their own complex communication system, so therefore, through repetition, through imitation, you could, in theory, according to John, teach Dolphins to talk. And he captured this idea in a book that he wrote and then published that had kind of like a pop science hit in that decade called Man and Dolphin. And in this book, John made some totally reasonable predictions about the implications of these copycat dolphins, so he thought that this mimicking could then lead to the dolphins learning to speak English, and eventually holding a seat in the United Nations where they could weigh in on world affairs naturally. Okay. Now Laura, what do you think Ambassador E'S first order of business would be? On the un?
Track 1:More fish? More fish, more fish. I think there are probably some key things that John didn't consider that would get in the way of dolphins speaking English, which are the same things that would get in the way of humans becoming fluid in the dolphin language, which is anatomy. Because humans, uh, our tongue is very, very useful in speech and our language and the complexity of our alphabet and all these different sounds that we make, and. I don't think this is gonna work out for him because I, I, dolphins probably have tongues, but I doubt they have the ability to roll their Rs and Ah,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:We don't have to rule your RS in English.
Track 1:true. Okay. But you know what I mean, like there's a lot of different sounds.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Well, believe it or not, he was trying to teach them how to make some of the sounds through their blow holes, so,
Track 1:Oh geez.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:yep. They could roll their blow holes.
Track 1:So can I.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Well, Laura, you might be surprised to find out that you were absolutely right, right from living today, 70 years after the fact. We know that there are no dolphins in any governing bodies, not even in Florida, but that's just because the, uh, they surpassed the IQ ceiling to hold public office down there
Track 1:Aw W
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:and
Track 1:Florida Dolphin. That's the headline. Florida Dolphin. Google that and see what the Florida Dolphin has done.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Florida dolphin aggressively sexually assaults. That would probably be the headline we'd all see, which is not that different than the Florida man. I think we all remember a certain story about a Florida man keeping in the Gator hostage. No, that's just
Track 1:No.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I think the Gator ate his dog or something. And so in retaliation, he like tied it up and raped it a bunch. I, it's Florida man. It's
Track 1:Oh
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:gonna do? How does one rape a gator? I don't know. How does one have
Track 1:Oh,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:with a dolphin? We'll find out.
Track 1:oh. Teaser.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:foreshadowing. So dolphins, they're not running the world. They're not even running Florida. And I think that's a good thing, right? Because we all know that if we gave them any ounce of power, they would then win us over with their charm and their little smiles and they would eventually take power over all living creatures on land and sea. And we humans would all end up as pleasure. Slaves to the dolphins.
Track 1:They, they can't really get on land, but yeah. Okay. Yes. Good thing, good thing. I'm, I'm on board.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Well, they would take over the armies, obviously, and then they would take over the, the military through their charisma, through the riz. They would riz us all
Track 1:don't they, don't, they need water? the, I mean, I,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:They got this, character that's coming up in this story and they didn't even need to
Track 1:oh,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:her.
Track 1:all right.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:We keep
Track 1:Tell me more.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, we gotta get to her because it gets, this story gets raunchy Um, so while we have the knowledge today that dolphins can't not talk and it's for the best, John back in the sixties did not, and he was determined to deliver on his dream of dolphin diplomats. But where does one get the funding necessary for this endeavor? Well, well, mm, nope. They don't want the animals talking. They don't want people to interact with animals. They say don't touch an animal. That's what PETA wants. They don't want us
Track 1:touching one right now. Pet my putty tat and that's not a euphemism.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. God, that would be like the most awkward zoom call ever. But anyway, so you don't go to peta, you go to nasa, of course. Laura, can you guess the reason why NASA might have had this interest in talking Dolphins?
Track 1:Okay, so spoiler alert, I do know vaguely the story that you're about to tell. I know it has something to do with aliens. I, I'm reaching far back into my brain and I'm thinking that NASA thinks we're gonna discover aliens any second now. So if you can do the research to figure out how to talk to a dolphin, we can then build on that research for when we inevitably, get to aliens and then we'll, we'll have a playbook for how to talk to, to aliens.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Correct. Right. It's about establishing that communication, like that movie with, uh, the redheaded girl, Amy Adams, what is that called?
Track 1:Oh, uh, arrival. Yes. That's a good movie.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, it was, and that was exactly what they were trying to do here. Research into establishing communication with other intelligent life forms. So they were like shelling out the dollar, dollar bills and nasa, we hadn't even made it to the moon at this point. They were really just burning up cash. So John snatched up all his taxpayer money and he fled to St. Thomas and the Virgin Islands to set up this state-of-the-art research facility, which earned the very, very creative name. The Dolphin house.
Track 1:I know about this house. It was a very unique build, wasn't it?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, it was like on the ocean. And like the dolphins could like come inside and they made it even more special. They got even more creative as the experiment went on. And that's due to a woman who is about to step onto the scene of our story. And her name is Margaret Lovett. Margaret was
Track 1:it. Yeah, I bet she loves it.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Oh, I actually feel kind of bad'cause I don't know if she's still alive or not. And I was like, oh, this would be kind of weird if she's alive. Not that she'd ever listen to it,
Track 1:Hey, shit happens. It's history. She's a part of history now.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Hey. And it can't be worse than, you know what's coming guys. So here we go. Margaret was in her early twenties in the sixties, and she was living on St. Thomas during a Christmas gathering in 1963. Her brother-in-Law mentioned a new secret laboratory at the eastern end of the island and they were working with dolphins. Now, Margaret was a lifelong animal lover and thought, well, hell, if there's a secret dolphin shit going on in my hometown, in my neck of the woods, I'm gonna fucking be a part of it. Margaret drove down this random ass long muddy road to a big white building and she stomped her little sun tan ass right on in.
Track 1:You gotta go get what you want, girl. And you know, if you wanna be a part of this dolphin experience, you just stomp right in there and say, Hey, I'm young and I'm hot, and I'm free. You want some help?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:And I, I mean, I imagine her being very attractive because I think that might have played into the, the immediate next events because when she stomped in, she met this man named Gregory Bateson, and he was the director of the lab. And as I quote, largely misunderstood and great intellectual,
Track 1:Mm. Red flags immediately.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:So large margin charge comes in and says bro. I heard you got dolphins and I am very horny for'em. So can I have a job?
Track 1:Is that really what happened? Or did she say, I like dolphins?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:she probably, yeah, she was more along the, I like dolphins, I like really liked dolphins. I like really liked dolphins. And apparently apparently back then, all you needed to get a foot in the door was some self-proclaimed interest in the topic at hand and a bit of bravado because the lab director invited her in to meet the three resident dolphins and asked her to note what she observed about them. And despite her lack of any scientific training, Margaret passed his little test and he told her she could help or something. I'm not even really sure this was a paying job, to be fair. I think they were just like, oh, this girl wants to come hang out with some dolphins, you know, why not?
Track 1:She's young and she's hot, and we're all old and sad scientists. So yeah, you're gonna get in a bathing suit before you jump in that tank. Okay?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:a little wetsuit. Ooh. Yeah, that's, you know, that's, that's the implication. That's, that's what we're reading between the lines. No offense, Margaret. You got to have a cool experience and after getting the offer to come in and help, that's when Margaret got to know Johnson Lefty and Tiny, which is what Gregory Lovingly called his genitalia. No, I don't know if that's, that was just another spin of mine, of how she got the job. I don't know if that joke needs to stay in there or not. But she did get to know the three dolphins that were in the facility, Peter, Pamela, and Sissy sissy was the biggest. She was pushy loud, and she sort of ran the show.
Track 1:My kind of girl. You go sissy.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:was gonna say, she was the Laura of the, of the episode of the Dolphin House. And then there was Pamela who was shy and fearful, which I guess would be the Rachel of the, of the dolphin house. And then there was little Peter who was the young guy, and Margaret described Peter in her own words as quote unquote, coming of age and quote, unquote, naughty. Well, if that doesn't just dampen your blow hole.
Track 1:Huh. Well, coming of age. So he was, was he, did she have any information on him being young or did she just assume and naughty? I don't. Mm.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:he, yeah, but the naughty part was like, Ooh, what's, what's Peter getting up to? We will find out. So while Gregory studied the much more legitimate science of trying to understand how these animals communicated together amongst themselves, Margaret pursued John Lily's dream and tried to communicate with these saraia. She
Track 1:that the Latin name
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I'm guessing. Yeah. I saw it. I saw it in my research. So I ran with it. I was trying to get some alliteration, but communicate doesn't really iterate with Saraia ea. but while she was doing this, she devoted her time to trying to get them to replicate English words, which surprise, surprise, she was not making that much progress in
Track 1:Uh, again, anatomy getting in your way.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, no kidding. Uh, no vocal chords on dolphins, I'm guessing. At least not the kind of flexible ones that you would need. but that didn't stop her'cause she had a very bright idea at that moment. She was trying to teach them language, but every day, at the end of the day, all the lab workers would pack up, lock the door, and drive home for the night to Marge. That seemed wrong. After all, how do we as humans learn language?
Track 1:Immersion.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Correct? Right. As somebody who is, has taught at least one person to talk so far, how do you do it? Like you said, you immerse them in the language. So that's when Margaret had this zany idea. She thought, I am going to convert the lab into a space that's livable for humans and dolphins, and I'm gonna move in full-time and teach a dolphin like I would my own child. And she pitched that idea to John Lilly, you know, the man who envisioned marine mammals in the un. So obviously he was all about the idea and said, let's get zany Margaret.
Track 1:And that was what I was thinking when I was talking about it being a very special house, like the different ways that it did this. So tell, tell me more.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:So the lab itself had like a ground floor that had access to the ocean and you know, a tank down there. Margaret was like, this isn't good enough. I'm going to plaster. The floor and a couple feet up the wall of the second floor so that we can flood that with water and a dolphin and a human could then live in it comfortably. And she was like, I'm gonna move in full-time and I'm gonna play house with a dolphin. And the dolphin she picked was Peter
Track 1:was the young naughty one.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Oh yeah, he was, yeah, he was chosen because he was young. And the sexiest of all the dolphins so there was some kind of legitimate reason behind it. They were saying that he had the least language experience. So it was like starting from a blank slate or something? Like a control, I don't know. The older
Track 1:that sounds
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just like, wouldn't you pick the one who already was doing more talking, I guess?
Track 1:Mm-Hmm
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:But for whatever reason they picked Peter seems legit. While they were living together, the two developed a very intimate relationship. You know, the kind that comes with sharing a space with someone. They had
Track 1:mm-Hmm.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:formal English lessons a day where she encouraged the young dolphin to speak and he had success making certain sounds. I listened to, uh, a clip of him talking and he's definitely making sounds.
Track 1:What kind of sounds
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:They're just like,
Track 1:do they do? They sound like they're, Imma like he's imitating her in any way.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:they definitely sound like he's imitating. Nowhere near as good as a parrott.
Track 1:Okay. Got
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:near as good as a parrot. And she said he was making progress. He worked really hard to make an M sound by fluttering or blowing bubbles with his blowhole in the water. The clip that I saw was him doing A-E-I-O-U and she was, she, he does it and she goes, you could do better than that, Peter at the end. And it was just like, I don't know if he can,
Track 1:I think that's as good as it gets
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I mean, I was pretty impressed that he did that. He was just like, ah.
Track 1:Yeah, I would be very impressed with that.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:was pleasantly surprised so while they had these formal lessons where. Margaret really fully believed they were making some progress. A lot of the actual value came from the time where they weren't in formal classes. One describing the free time. Marge talks about how Peter was very, very interested in her anatomy to quote, if I was sitting here and my legs were in the water, he would come up and look at the back of my knees for a long time, he wanted to know how that thing worked, and I was just so charmed by it.
Track 1:That's interesting. I mean. If I did have an animal that came up and like looked at a specific part of my body, like a a foot or a back of my knee or something, like kept coming back to it, I would also find that charming and saying like, oh, like they are, they're interested in how I work relative to how they work. I would probably see that as a sign of intelligence. That's interesting.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Charming is a word for it. And it might have been charming if that's where the anatomy lessons ended. The thing about Peter was he was coming of age, as Margaret herself said he was entering blossoming into adulthood. And if you know anything about adolescence, you know it comes with the certain urges.
Track 1:oh God. Is the, the dolphin masturbating 24 7.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:He would if he could, but he ain't got no hands.
Track 1:I mean, he could rub up on things, right?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Oh, he did lots of rubbing up on things. And
Track 1:row.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:is where we start to run into some trouble because little PD was not spared these urges. That's for sure and he would start to get friendly with Margaret. I'm thinking maybe he was looking at the back of her knees for another reason. Anyways, in the beginning when this started happening, when he started to get a little Randy, she would take him down the elevator. Yes, the dolphin road elevator. I don't quite
Track 1:Oh what?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:but he did to go down to that main level where the two girlies girly dolphins were and she would say, Hey, go spend some time with the girly dolphins. Get all that out.
Track 1:Run it out. Run yourself down and then come back up and see me. Let's talk about this a-E-I-O-U situation.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Because that's what she was anxious to get back to. She thought that these little excursions were taking too much time away from the experiment, which she was like taking them down there and like leaving him for a whole day. So
Track 1:Yeah.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:massively interrupt the experiment. And you know, this is a very different time, this is the 1960s. Free Love was sweeping its way across the cultural zeitgeist, and the summer of love was just around the corner. So you know, people were a little bit more open-minded, a little bit more free thinking when it came to these kind of things. And that's when Margaret decided to not waste any more precious time. Because let's face it, we've all known a teenage boy at least once in our life, whether that was ourselves or somebody in our lives, and if they had to go take a daybreak every time the wind blew a little funny, nothing would ever get done. Those vows would never get learned.
Track 1:that is why teenage boys learn how to stack books in front of their boners.'cause they just have to continue with the school day. Peter doesn't have any books.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, he didn't have any books because again, no hands. No hands. That was the problem. He couldn't take care of himself and he didn't have any hands to stack books in front of him, So what is Peter to do? Well, luckily he
Track 1:a girl to do?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:yeah, he had a good friend in Margaret because whenever Peter got a little too, Randy, Margaret then rolled up her sleeve and lent her porus. Paula helping hand literally.
Track 1:She's giving hand jobs to dolphins.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yep.
Track 1:Well, I guess dolphin, she's, she's
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:a monogamist.
Track 1:Peter only, uh, okay. go, go on with your thoughts
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:it gets some more intense because Margaret goes on the record talking about these instances, right. And she will describe these encounters as follows. First quote, it was sexual on his part. It was not sexual on mine. Sensuous, perhaps
Track 1:What the fuck?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:quote two. It would just become a part of what was going on. Like an itch. Just get rid of it. That will will scratch and we would be done and move on.
Track 1:Okay. That one's a little bit more, I, I hate to say understandable when it comes to dolphin hand jobs, but San Sensuous. Yeah. Ugh.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:And just finally she said I was there to get to know Peter and that was part of Peter.
Track 1:Okay. mean.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:know somebody means always jacking them off.
Track 1:You getting to know the handies? Uh, my thought is, is that if this were a dude and a female dolphin, like I just had to finger bang the female dolphin.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, that's,
Track 1:they would've
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:to a whole new level.
Track 1:Yeah. They would've fucking locked this person up so fast. Or at least, I don't know if, I don't know if there's laws in the Caribbean about finger banging dolphins, but I just, you know, it gives you a sense of the difference. It's just fucking weird.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:but at the same time, you talk about finger banging, this isn't the only instance where humans manually pleasure animals for their gain. Right. Like
Track 1:what I was thinking about, like, like, uh, horse semen. Yeah. Like that's part of a medical or animal rearing,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, I read a book about it. I can't remember what book it was, but it was talking about how different pigs had different kinks. So if you got them aroused, they would produce more semen, then you could use that to fertilize more sows. And
Track 1:Oh God.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:different ones. Like different things. And one of the farmers said that one of his hogs, he would actually insert a finger in his anus to get the most semen out.
Track 1:my God, that is so fucked up. Where do you find yourself in your life? Oh, poor Margaret. Poor pig farmer.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:he's trying to make money, man. You know, I don't, Margaret's just doing it for free. Probably. I,
Track 1:Yeah. That was immediately where my mind went to. I was like, there are some like legitimate, causes that people use to, to jack off animals. Yes, exactly.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Focused. And while it makes everybody kind of go, ugh, she claimed it was all above board and that it was done in clear view of the lab. It's on video. I, I don't know if that really helps, but as it did for us, and maybe for you listener, it definitely grabs attention and, uh, sticks out in people's minds, right? And it's not always in the best way. So Margaret and Peter's relationship was actually featured in Hustler Magazine with an article and to borrow a word from the girl herself, a sensuous illustration. And while Margaret is adamant that she never had sexual intercourse with a dolphin, um, the imagination of the illustrator ran wild.
Track 1:How did Hustler get the word about this? That's what I wanna know. Is this later on or is this stirring?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:During, while she was working there, she bought up all the copies in the store so her family wouldn't see it. Um, which I don't know, thinking her family was gonna get in Hustler. Yeah. I don't know how it got leaked. I don't know. Apparently hustlers got their, their ear to the ground, their nose to the ground. They got their finger in the pulse of, uh, all the weird sex things that are happening
Track 1:All the weird blowhole across the world. No, but like of course it's gotta be hustler, like, of all the porno mags for you to be featured in. I'd be like, hustler. God at least put me in playboy.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit more classy. But to be fair, the illustration was actually rather sensuous. It was not very exhibitionist, is that the right word? It wasn't like exhibitive.
Track 1:Gratuitous.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:yes, it wasn't Gratuitous. They both looked like they cared a lot about each other.
Track 1:Oh
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:It was a very romantic scene. Maybe we're all just warped in this day and age of internet pornography, but it looked romantic.
Track 1:Uh, can I find the picture?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Just Google her name and hustler and it pops right on up.
Track 1:I mean, It's a very tame
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, that's what I mean.
Track 1:Yeah. There's no even fake boobs. Like all the parts are. No, no. I get back. It's not tame. It's gr Well, it, it's gross. Her legs are spread and there's a dolphin between her black
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, but he's not, there's not like three Dolphins
Track 1:and not like a giant dolphin dick. Okay. I guess I see your point, but still
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:looks, she's smiling.
Track 1:She looks really happy.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, it looks like, I don't know. I didn't think it was that bad. Granted, I wouldn't want my likeness drawn like that with any
Track 1:Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Uh.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:or in avians. But, then again, I am not jacking off dolphins left and right. So there it goes. Dar did not mean to victim blame anyways, so as you can imagine, once you get an illustration of you in Lovers embrace with a Dolphin and Hustler Magazine, you start to get a little bit of infamy and you start to get a little bit of negative attention, and that attention is put on not just you, but the lab itself and what kind of research is going on there. And that was not helped by John Re himself, who he had kind of left the deep, deep oceans behind. He was much more interested in dancing with Lucy in the sky with diamonds, if you know what I mean.
Track 1:No, I don't. That's a Beatles song. Oh.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:man John, oh this is great. He first tried the drug at a party hosted by the producer of Flipper. So it all comes full circle. He was brought in to talk about dolphins and like consult on the dolphins. And the next thing you know he's tripping balls with the guy who made it wild. And this again, John, a theme of his life is having one encounter and then being like, ah, yes, this is gonna be my area of study.'cause
Track 1:This is the answer to everything.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yes. Yeah. Truly because after he did LSD, he was like, holy fuck this. This is gonna unlock the potential of the human mind. And he took this cause seriously, he fully dove into the LSD, hallucinogen study, I guess you would call it. And he went from being a true scientist with a white coat to a full-blown hippie. And that is a quote from one of his close friends.
Track 1:He grew his hair out. He started stinking of patchouli. No one could stop him
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yep. Hanging out on a beach in the Virgin Islands.
Track 1:with a dolphin and giving him a handy, oh wait, no. He leaves that to his free assistance.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. Yeah. He keeps his federal funding for himself, which he somehow acquired. Again, I mean, I don't know if it was funding or he got, he was blessed by the US government to do these LSD studies. And what does he decide the first thing to do when he gets the government's blessing to study
Track 1:Oh no.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:he's gotta shoot up the dolphins, man. He's gotta test it on the dolphins,
Track 1:I hate this shit. Like mind altering substances, all that kind of stuff. Like it's this, it's in the essence of you being dosed and like when you are primed, you have a concept of what these drugs are gonna do, and then you take them, that is a completely different experience as opposed to it's been slipped on you because if it's been slipped to you, it causes panic because you have been violated
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah. You don't have, you don't have your, what do they call it? Vision guide or whatever, who's helping you through it?
Track 1:It's just, it's really cruel to animals. I've never thought this stuff was funny, you know? And people are like, I'm gonna get my dog high. And like, you know, you blew their smoke in their dog's face. I'm like, that's not funny. I don't think that's funny. In the slightest.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I, I get it.'cause as any human who's maybe ingested something that was different than what they thought it would be, or stronger than they thought it would be, it's not a fun experience. Right. Um, but luckily in this case, LSD does nothing on dolphins. another thing that John was very wrong about, but they didn't know that at the time. So he was like, I'm gonna fucking shoot these dolphins up with LSD. And as you can imagine, Margaret was not so happy about the idea of her dolphin child slash husband being dosed with hallucinogenic drugs. So she was able to protect little Pete, uh, but she was not able to spare the two female friends who were living on the first level. So like, Margaret, we see you. You're not a girl's girl, you're just like, I just gotta protect my boys. Hashtag boy, dolphin mom. Um,
Track 1:Yeah, she's clearly got a special relationship with little Peter. That's creepy. That's weird. Nah,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:sure. but even still, time was running out for the old Dolphin house because John's attention was directed more and more to his LSD studies, which, he was also involved with very personal, he is very hands-on approach to this LSD studies.
Track 1:so these are human LSD studies that he's involved in.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:uh, the ones he does on himself. Yeah,
Track 1:Oh, okay. It is just him like tripping balls. Okay.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:is for sure. But like there, people, there was a time in American history where people were like, we really need to study these. There's some documentary on it, on Netflix called How to Change Your Mind or something. And it
Track 1:Yeah, I have seen that.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:was very enlightening. It made me think that we should all be doing mushrooms, but, um,
Track 1:psilocybin and shit. Yeah. I, I have read some stuff recently and I'm more and more I'm like, well, maybe I need to just microdose psilocybin.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:So even still with all these things, John was way into the LSD and Margaret's infamy. Um, with the Hustler article it was no surprise that after her proposed six months of them living together drew to a close. And, you know, Peter was still not fucking talking. Shocker. They announced that the lab was going to be closing and everyone was like, I guess fair. but what would become of the dolphins? Did they get a seat on a local governing body or perhaps maybe released back into the ocean to live their lives and tell the stories of all that they learned about humans and their time at the lab, while also relaying their stories of interspecies sex Capades.
Track 1:Well, I imagine they just came in from the, they lived in the ocean, right? They didn't live in the dolphin house. Like they would come and go,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:No, they were captive dolphins.
Track 1:oh, they were captive. Got it. So. Just release him back out, right?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:you would think, but no, no, because there's still property. Right? And you don't wanna lose that because Because like all great love stories, there is no happy ending. John Riley was doing experiments with dolphins at another lab in Miami. This is where it gets so fucked up. Laura. Oh, he, he was also like an early experimenter, maybe like founder of sensory deprivation tanks. Like he would float around in them and do stuff. Then he would also experiment with, um, with the dolphins. So these dolphins went from living in the dolphin house on the ocean, having ocean water and interaction daily to living in these sensory deprivation tanks where they were smaller and windowless.
Track 1:Ah,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:horrible. Uh, just literally
Track 1:it's, that's torture. They're fucking torturing these animals.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Oh yeah. Oh, it was not good. And you know, You try to make light of it. Right. You know, but it's just that, like you said, it's torturous to these social animals. After enjoying the freedoms and you know, the On-demand Handies of the Dolphin House, this transition was hard for Peter it was only a few weeks after the move that Margaret got the call. John himself phoned her to share the sad news. Peter was dead. He had committed dolphin suicide.
Track 1:Uh, with a knife, with a, with a fish. Did he choke himself on a fishbone?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:no. Dolphins are actually known for their suicide, because they are not obligatory breathers. They consciously breathe. So when you consciously breathe, you can choose to not breathe. So after the shock of the move or losing his human bride, maybe Peter just decided to stop breathing. He didn't want underwater and he did not come back up. It's like a very common, not very common, but it does happen with do dolphins and captivity, where they're just like, I'm done. It's
Track 1:Oh, Jesus. That's awful.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Humanity.
Track 1:Oh,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Moment of silence for Peter.
Track 1:I guess yay dolphin manatee. Like,, that's really interesting. We know dolphins are incredibly social and intelligent, but we also know that they can choose to opt out. That's bizarre and also really fucking sad. I had always known the story as he killed himself because like he was away from his lover. But yeah, you take me away from the environment that I know and put me in a fucking sensory deprivation tank. Fuck. Good for you, Peter. You stick it to John or whoever it is, and you say, fuck you. I'm your fucking property. Oh yeah, I'm gonna kill myself. Fuck you, Poor Peter.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I know, I know at least he, he burned bright while he was alive. But your reaction was actually really similar to Margaret's, because when she heard that he had died, she felt more relief than grief. She and I quote said, I was more unhappy about him being in those conditions than not being at all. Nobody was going to bother Peter. He wasn't going to hurt, he wasn't going to be unhappy. He was just gone. And that was okay.
Track 1:Oh,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:know it took, yeah, it took kind of a sad turn and that reads almost like verbatim, like a quote from the book, black Beauty. When he sees a dead horse being taken away, that resembles his friend he's like, I wasn't sure if it was her, but I wished it was because then her troubles would be over. I'm like, God damn. Black Beauty is a good book. People need to be nicer to animals.
Track 1:totally.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yes.
Track 1:Still gonna eat'em, but I'm gonna treat'em as nice as I can until I eat
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, But even though the lab was no more, and PD was gone. The humans in the story, they, they continued on. Our friend John, he did continue trying to learn how to talk to dolphins. Some of it was bizarrely mystical, like using telepathy. And some of it was more, a little bit more science based, like using musical tones to like try to strike that center. but he never did try to teach dolphins to speak English again.
Track 1:Oh, I wonder, using telepathy, I'm no wonder that didn't go your way. Little bit too much on the LSD, sir.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:gonna say. He steered a little bit too far into the LSD experiments. But he had a long career and he did lots of research and some of it was picked up by NASA and used by NASA for, their alien translation. Shit. He got to go on. He wasn't kept in a de sensory deprivation tank. But you know, who was outside of the dolphins? Margaret. She was in a sensory deprivation tank of love. No, I'm sure she felt a little, I'm sure she felt a little weird after that. Because in some sense she never left that lab. And that is actually in the literal sense because she lives there.
Track 1:what?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Y.
Track 1:She's, oh, that's sad. You live in the house of your dead lover.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Well, I mean, they bought the lab, her, and her husband and they converted it into a more traditional home. I mean, a nice home is right on the water. What are you gonna do? You know? She lives in it and her and her husband had three daughters and she raised them there. She's an older lady, the one the, I read this article, so I'm sure the, the daughters are moved out and living their own life. But yeah, the man that she married was a guy who worked with the lab as well, and they had a beautiful life together. And after quite some time, she only occasionally calls him Peter.
Track 1:I mean, okay. He's gotta be a bit of a freak too, right? If you know this girl is the one that's jacking off dolphins, and you're like, yeah, I'm into that. And then can you imagine being the daughters, you'd be like, God, mom. Why you gotta be a dolphin fucker. Can you imagine what their grade school experience was like? Oh my god.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, those four kids or they were like, oh my God, if you had just stuck it out, we could have been beautiful. Half do and half human hybrids. We could have been the real mermaids. I'm gonna be where the people are. I mean, that is quite the story. Yes. This is the sad, strange story of the dolphin lab and the lady who talked with dolphins
Track 1:and jacked with dolphins.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:no kidding. And like all I can say, my biggest takeaway is I am so glad the days of white men in white coats doing whatever the fuck they want are behind us. And that science is a little bit more sy these days.
Track 1:A little bit.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Yeah, I
Track 1:Well, not when it comes to probably animals, but, eh,
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I think there's probably a lot more stringent, I would hope,
Track 1:I hope so too. Yeah, this one was way more of a bummer than I anticipated.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:it's Just kind of hilarious that he's like, oh my God, these animals are so smart. They must be so intelligent. They could be equal to us. Let me totally deprive them of freedom and free will and force them into sensory deprivation tanks. John.
Track 1:gotta be When did he die? What year did he die in? Do you know?
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:I think according to john c lilly.com.
Track 1:Okay. Well, so he lived a long life.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:You know, unlike Peter, pour one out for Peter guys and, um, as you pour one out, be sure to subscribe and like, and rate. Yeah, that feels weird. That's a bad transition. Heartless,
Track 1:okay.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:go onto our, go onto the podcasting platform of your preference and leave us a review let's make Peter the new Harambe. Let's say hashtag never forget. Hashtag pour one out for Peter. Let's do it.
Track 1:Pour one out for Peter. Review us on all. Yeah. Impolite Society, apple Podcasts. Leave us a review. Put us, uh, hashtag Peter. Yeah. Wait, that's Instagram threads, not Facebook threads. Uh.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:put us on Zuckerberg's threads.
Track 1:And most importantly, guys, tell a friend, if you know anybody who's given Dolphin Handies for free, let them know they could be featured in Hustler Magazine and be in the anals of weird science experiments. And also tell them to listen to Inplay Society So stay curious your fucking weirdos and keep marching to the beat of your own drum beat. Get it beat.
squadcaster-513j_1_01-27-2024_212018:Beat off the dolphin. Frankie the cat. He is just stinky little cat. He's sitting on my lap. He fell into a trap. He thinks he's so cute, but he knows that it's true. Say hello to Frankie the cat.