Is this a trick for the poke?

You actually want to record me? Because I match.

I can go somewhere quieter.

That sounds really good. Where you are right now. Are the dishwashers on? We're trying a new thing where I talk to some New Zealand friends about the topic I'm going to do. Okay. And so I just wanted to run a topic by you.

Okay. And this is practice or is this real?

This is the real thing. Oh, no. But if you don't like it, I can not use it.

Okay.

Shoot. The episode that I'm going to be looking into is about how the us military trains dolphins over here to do. I'm not sure what crime. Anti crime to attack criminals in the ocean.

What?

Do you know anything about dolphins being trained to, I guess, attack other people or anything like that? Have you heard about this?

I have never heard about that, but.

I do have a memory. Do they use other aquatic creatures as well? I feel like I've heard about seals being used, or is that just because Navy Seals? Maybe I'm getting confused. No, I think there might be some other. I think maybe, yes. Never heard about dolphins being used.

It's horrifying.

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, one of the most amazing things I've discovered during my time here is that the US Navy has a fleet of trained dolphins and sea lions at their disposal. I thought this was a joke for ages until a guest on an earlier flight, this Barrett episode, confirmed it was all real and that shed helped train them. American sea life has not only been militarized to patrol us waters, but various creatures get sent off to combat zones all around the globe. The Iraq war, Vietnam. America's aquatic army has been there swimming around, doing God knows what, declassified in the early 1990s. I've been talking to a number of former Navy staff involved in the program to find out what the heck is going on. So grab your nearest dolphin and prepare to do some underwater recognizance, because this is the Navy dolphins episode. Fly this, fly this, fly this bird touchdown in America I'ma fly this bird touchdown in America. Rob, how are you?

Oh, I'm good.

It's good to be talking about dolphins attack dolphins that the american navy uses. I mean, America gets weirder and weirder every second I'm here, to be honest.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's weird to even me as an American, to hear about this.

This is good. You will notice at the top of this episode, I called Rosabelle, who I once cracked in air, gone. And she cried. But we're through that now. But, yeah. Okay. I think occasionally in the show, I'm gonna call back home and just get their take, because you hit me up about this, that occasionally I have a slightly warped view of things.

So, yeah, I think New Zealanders, we kept hearing them get mad at you that you were representing them. I thought it was important. Maybe let's get a baseline and make sure that the New Zealand perspective is actually being represented.

I think that's really important. And there's nothing worse after an episode of Flight this Bird, where I get abuse from both Americans and New Zealanders at the same time.

A man without a country, everyone.

So, yeah, I'm going to check in with Rosebel, occasionally, some other friends. Hayden, Eddie, Dan. But anyway, it's nice to have you here.

It's nice to hear all those other New Zealand accents, too.

Yeah. What did you think of Rosabelle's voice? Does it sound like mine? Do you listen to her and go, that's a New Zealand accent.

It sounds sweeter than yours.

She does have a really sweet voice.

Yeah. She seems much nicer.

Yeah. Great voice.

Good voice. Good voice. Yes.

Anyway, to you listening. Thanks for joining us on this new feed. Rob, you're here. You're co hosting and producing flightless bird now. It's so nice to have you here.

Yeah. This is the new feed. The show still exists. It does still us. I think we're excited to keep making.

This, and I did just want to quickly say thank you to everyone who has hit subscribe and rated, because in podcast land, having a rating and a subscription, it does good things with the algorithm. Other people can find the show. So if you did take the time to rate it. Thank you very much.

Yeah. People need to listen to this in order for us to keep making it, too.

It's how it works. Yeah. People don't listen.

It's just Rosabelle and your parents listening, then it's nice to them.

My parents don't listen. I've tried to get them to listen. I've set it up on my dad's iPad. He hasn't watched Mister organ, hasn't listened to the show at all. It's kind of like, what do you do? I'm like, I make a podcast.

Sounds like he doesn't love you.

There's love there. It's just he shows it in an unusual way.

Maybe if you include them in the. Ask a New Zealander, they'll start listening.

It's a really good idea. And I should call my dad. And both my parents are really good on the phone. Yeah.

I want to hear more from your mom.

My mom is very, very cute. Now, I also thought it would be a good thing because I was thinking about this, having you here because we came up, I think you came up with this idea when we were on a road trip because we were making Amche and dangerous on AMG expert, and I got stuck here because of COVID And we had this opportunity to have a weekly show, and we're sort of tossing ideas around. I think we were doing the tour, right?

We were doing the tour. And part of it was we were going to all these cities on the west coast, and you hadn't been to any of them. It was on you, any of the areas. So while the rest of the team flew to the cities, we decided to take a couple days and drive.

It was really, it was actually really nice.

And then going through all these weird little pockets along the way, we would have essentially these conversations.

Well, yeah, just differences. What I was experiencing, what was different, you know, you take me to all these beautiful coffee places, I'd start going on about how great New Zealand coffee.

Is and weird things like hurricanes, Utah. We went to that weird abandoned golf course community.

So weird.

And we walked into someone else's house on accident.

It's always good. Yeah. And I guess it was just, you know, we're sort of picking our brain. What is a podcast? What's a weekly podcast we can do? And eventually you just came up with, like, a very obvious idea of, oh, why don't you just make a show about you being stuck here in America and just looking into what makes America tick? And that's where the show came from.

I mean, I think the biggest inspiration for this show, which I don't know how flattering you'll find this I'm not happy about this was an idiot abroad.

You're such a shithead. No, I love that. Because an idiot abroad, if you haven't seen it, it's a great show with Carl Pilkington. Ricky Gervais basically took his friend out on the road, sent him to different countries. Carl hated traveling. He was an idiot, actually, a very smart guy who came across as an idiot, but as someone who. The very first podcast I ever listened to was the Ricky Gervais show, and Carl was the producer, and Carl slowly became such a big character. And, yeah, the show of Carl just being sent to all these places, being dumped in these places, and his observation.

Miserable miserable during them at all of these bucket list things.

A wonder of the world. And Carl, is there being like, why is there no cheeseburger here?

Why would anyone do this?

I don't just miserable.

This is terrible.

Is idiot abroad. There were a few other touchstones we had. And then I, you know, I said, you know, I've worked in news forever. I work in documentaries. So why don't we make a produced kind of. I go on a field trip, I talk to experts, and I present the story to you, and you can break it apart and talk about it.

Right? Yeah. I needed to have your thumbprint obviously, on it, so I think it's.

Yeah, it's nice having you here because we made this thing, and the other thing that I like is the image of me looking like an idiot in the main photo for this show. That was a very fun photo shoot where I went and hired an outfit from a Hollywood prop store, and we hired a studio and did some very funny photos, and that was how we further bonded with each other. And now I'm stuck with you.

We had originally done a photo shoot with you in a bunch of american flag jumpsuits.

Really cheesy, terrible.

Americana, jumping in a pool.

Wacky.

Yeah. Bunch of little dj vibes. And luckily, we had Dex to kind of guide the tone and vibe back to that iconic Bill Murray.

Yeah, the Bill Murray meme. Him in this incredibly american, prestigious outfit.

General's. General's outfit. There's a really great restaurant in Chicago called Boca that they have that on their wall, a painting of it.

That's the hero image.

That's where I saw it for the first time.

Yeah, right?

We went back there over the summer when we went to Chicago, and cool. Got to see that image there, and.

We'Re like, we can recreate that.

Bill Murray meets Carl, and you got David mixed with, like, beel juice now because of what's happened with your hair.

You know, I'm looking deranged right now. But, yeah, we got some really great creative guidance from Dex, and, you know, we sort of honed the show in, and we're now in a flow. And I think the one thing I would say, being on our own feed and doing this thing, I think we are going to get weirder and more specific. And I think elements of shed and dangerous will bleed in just more unusual bits of America. Nichey strange, which I think we both enjoy a lot. We're going to lean in.

Yeah, I think you're just going to get more unhinged is mostly what's going to happen.

Untethered, increasingly unhinged. I think that's the theme.

Yeah. And I guess hopefully I'll be here to rein you in.

That's the aim. You're much more tethered than I, and I appreciate that. And that's actually something quickly I wanted to sort of talk about. I wanted to know people might be coming to the show new. I want to know a bit more about you and what you do because I think a lot of people know you from Amchia. You produce a whole bunch of shows. Just like give me like a. If you're on Raya, if you're on like a dating app, what your little synopsis would be.

I've never been on a dating app, so I don't even know where I would begin.

You sort of just list some key aspects you're trying to impress people on there with what you've done.

Chicago, from Chicago.

From Chicago.

Grew up in Chicago, came to LA. I worked a lot, kind of in the creative space, a lot of different bands.

Music is a big part of your early life and still now.

Yeah, yeah. Like high school into college, I spent a lot of time just on tour doing little odd jobs for different bands. Mostly just got to travel the country with my friends.

Yeah, perfect.

Which is a lot of we wanted.

It's your current scam also.

Yeah. Of like, let's spend 8 hours in a drive and talk about nothing.

You do, though. You love it. Yeah. So that came from there, from touring.

And then I also, I was a projectionist for a few years, which I had to watch every single movie that came out for like three years because I was the one actually building the films when it was still film.

Yeah.

And then you'd have to watch and check that you spliced them together correctly, which then quickly turned me into a movie snob because I had to watch everything that came out that then my goal was, all right, now I need to find the weirder, more obscure films.

Yeah. And that turns you into that film buff snob.

Finding weird things like tv.

I think that's what we have in common. Yeah. We both love films, like a lot. And we agree on some things, disagree on another, but we both watch way too many movies and way too much tv.

Yeah. Then I found my way to LA and got into the podcast space.

Yeah.

Was kind of a really cool combination of all of my previous lives where I got to be creative, I got to be technical from the production side, figure things out, bring in music when I can work with these people. I used to watch in movies.

Yeah. It feels like this really good sweet spot that you're in. Right?

Yeah. It was not a roadmap or a plan to ever do it this way, but kind of just rolled with the punches and. Yeah. Ended up here.

Yeah. I love that. I still remember the first time I met you over Zoom, when I was in New Zealand, when I was on.

AMT, we talked about the veils on that first zoom, I think.

Yeah, veils. Yeah. This band that we both love.

So there was a movie when I was at the movie theater, still Mister Brooks, and there is this iconic scene in that. It's Kevin Costner, Danielle Pannebaker movie. And there's the song makes it. And it made me fall in love with this band, the veils.

Who are these guys?

Happened to be a New Zealand band.

Yeah.

And turns out New Zealand's very small. So when we had you on the podcast and we were. I was getting you set up with your mic beforehand, I was like, have you heard of this band? And.

Yeah. Yeah. Seen many of the shows and. Cause it's New Zealand. We all know each other, and I knew them. And, yeah, at some point, I think I brought you back a record from New Zealand and seen Finn, and he signed it, and. Just a wonderful small world old scenario. But I just think it's nice for people to know a little bit about you. I'm really glad you're here to talk about dolphins. Which brings us to today's topic.

Well, it's kind of full circle. We did a little boys trip to San Diego.

Yeah, we did. And we were paddling around. We're on a little boat.

We spent a couple days there with one of my Navy friends. Weirdly enough, my childhood best friend moved to San Diego and joined the navy.

And I remember, yeah, we were in the bay, and we both got a massive fright when a top gun esque jet took off over our heads.

Yes.

And I remember seeing a bunch of seals lazing about at the time.

You thought they were dolphins.

Thought they were dolphins. And then we did the segment maybe, like, three or four months ago now for flight this bird, where people would call in with topics they wanted us to do. And we briefly touched on this topic where in San Diego and a few other places the US Navy trained seals and dolphins to do their bidding, which I became incredibly obsessed with and is what I wanted to dive into a little bit more intently today, because I just think it's the craziest shit I've ever heard.

Yeah, dolphins seem like a weird choice. They're very horny, from what I've heard.

One thing I know about them is incredibly horny.

If you were to pick an animal that you wanted to train to be an assassin, is dolphin where you go?

Yes. I mean, I'd even tend towards more trying to manipulate a shark. Do you know what I mean? A shark is a killing machine. A shark can do way more damage. So I'd be like, why don't we get a great white and try and train that? I guess the advantage of a dolphin is they seem very human like, and they're always seeming to, like, want to communicate with people or have sex with them, so maybe that makes them a good subject. Yeah.

They are supposed to be smart, but I mean, souls like an octopus.

Yeah. Octopi smart. It is. Yeah. It is an unusual choice. And also they're such a horny, friendly creature. Is this the creature that you want to militarize and make a killer?

Well, and when you're dealing with animals, do you think the personalities are specific to the country that they're being trained like an american dolphin? Because obviously, the advantage of a aquatic animal is that it can go undetected into other territories, completely underwater. You can't unleash a bunch of monkeys onto.

Look at all those monkeys coming towards us.

That'd be my pick. If it didn't need to be stealth.

You'D take some apes. Yeah, yeah. No.

Or some birds, maybe.

Oh, a flock of birds. Incredible pigeons.

But do you think american dolphin and a russian dolphin, are there different temperaments to these animals if they're crossing each other?

I think. I think absolutely. I think an american dolphin would be bolshy and loud and obnoxious, and I think a russian dolphin would be much more murky and devious and mysterious, I think. And they would turn on you as well, I think quicker than an american dolphin, I would trust an american militarized dolphin over a russian militarized dolphin.

Well, she mentioned on the flights of fancy, a russian beluga whale.

No, this reminds me. So I went out and talked to a bunch of people about this topic, just to canvas to see if Americans were aware of this. And one of the people I talked to actually raised that situation. Do you know anything about the US Navy's dolphin program?

No, I do not.

Never heard of it. To detect mines.

And is it.

Does it involve that woman who fucked a dolphin?

Excuse me? Oh, we read a film script about it about a woman who got slightly too intimate with a dolphin, and we didn't say yes.

To it because it wasn't called blowhole, and that was my only condition. This is all true, by the way.

This is 100% true. I'm not sure she was part of.

The Navy, but I think it was.

Do you know anything about the Navy's dolphin training program? Yes, actually, I do. What can you tell me? I don't know much about it, except that I just recently saw that they came across a beluga whale. Yes. That wasn't supposed to be where it's supposed to be, and had a camera thing on it. And then. So they were talking about that literally, you can see from the Ariel about the russian dolphin training.

So, yeah, so my friend had posted about it, and she was like, oh, when I get pregnant, I want dolphins to deliver my baby. And I was like. And I thought that was so outlandish. And I thought, I have to do research on it. So I researched it. Sure enough, it's very real. People actually have dolphins assisting in the delivery. It is the worst idea you can ever do. The worst. The worst. I read horror stories where people nearly died.

So you're in. So you're in the water with a dolphin, and the dolphins would have meant to calm you as you give birth. That's kind of the idea, if I remember correctly.

Yes. I remember for, like, 10 seconds thinking, this girl's crazy. And then ten more seconds thinking, oh, my God, you can give birth like a mermaid. And then another 30 seconds later. After I proceeded to do research, I was like, this. This is a horrible idea. This girl did no research. I did five minutes at best of research, and it was just not anything anyone should ever do.

I wouldn't trust a dolphin in with me if I was giving birth. Not that I'm going to, but I.

Wouldn'T trust a dolphin, especially since dolphins are known to rape. Wait, what? Rape what?

Dolphins are really horny around people. Yeah. They get really out of control.

They can kill you. They get erect, they hook between your legs, and they take you to the bottom of the ocean, and you can't breathe down there.

So, look, things went a bit off the rails there.

Yeah, sounds like it.

Particular woman got quite distracted by the horniness of dolphins. The horniness of dolphins. And there was a movement at one point to give birth with a dolphin in the water with you, and they got sidetracked when we were talking about Navy dolphins. Yeah.

I guess I just don't see the point of using an animal to do these things instead of having a human do it. Throw a scuba diver under the water.

There is a very simple thing. Why are we going through so much effort to get a dolphin?

I guess just their ability to go undetected easier than a human.

You're like, why not send a little submarine in or something like that, you know? And these dolphins, they wear like, a harness. They've got, like, they got, like, a strap on, so they're, like, reliable. So, yeah, if you see them, it's like. It's like the russian whale. They mentioned the beluga. I'm just reading there. It was spotted in northern Norway in 2019 wearing a camera harness. So people saw this dolphin. They're like, this is weird. Something's up.

So it's not any more stealthy than a human?

No, there's a whale with, like, a gun strapped to it. It's like it's probably being used for something devious, you know? As of 2023, the beluga whales range appears to have expanded to include areas of southwestern coastline of Sweden. So, yeah, this russian dolphin is out there doing its thing and we're very aware of it. So. Not that fucking stealthy, is it? Apparently not, but, yeah, I think the use of dolphins. Fascinating. So weird. We're going to get into the documentary in a second, but one thing I wanted to mention that had come up this week is that there was a headline on the BBC, lonely horny dolphin behind spate of attacks. And I think I sent this to you at the time, and I just thought it was a very typically wonderful headline involving a dolphin. A lonely and potentially sexually frustrated dolphin has been blamed for a spike in attacks on swimmers in a japanese seaside town. The bottlenose dolphin is believed to be behind 18 attacks near the town of Mihima so far this year, with one primary school aged child's finger needing at least 20 stitches. So that is a horny dolphin getting out of control.

I just think dolphins, they are endlessly fascinating. And I was very keen to learn about why the military decided that that is the animal we're going to use.

Hopefully we find out.

I hope so, too. The first thing I found out when researching this story is that the Navy tried training a whole bunch of different aquatic creatures to do their bidding, starting way back in 1959. They tried sharks, then stingrays, turtles, and even some seabirds, but basically most of them were pretty useless. They didn't take instructions well, got distracted, bit people too stupid. But two animals shone in the Navy's marine mammal program, dolphins and sea lions. Specifically the bottlenose dolphin and the California sea lion.

So each trainer is usually assigned to a team of three or four animals, and that's your primary focus for this episode.

I talked to three of the Navy's former trainers. I've changed all of their names just because, you know, Navy stuff. Nev worked at their main base in San Diego, working with a crew of about ten trainers.

I was primarily a dolphin trainer for the Navy marine mammal program for a little over six years. The Navy as a whole has a few different contracted companies working for them. So I was under one contract that is based primarily in San Diego, and then the navy has two other locations down in Kings Bay, Georgia, and then in Bangor, Washington as well. And those are where animals are working. And San Diego is more of a training facility where we have the majority of the population of animals, train them up, and then once they're certified, if there's a need for them, they're sent out to those different facilities.

Over her six years with the navy, Niamh trained a lot of animals. She said dolphins are trained to do a lot of stuff for the navy. Their sonar is really good for picking up mines on the ocean floor, and they're also good at tracking moving targets. Sea lions are apparently very good at attaching recovery lines to objects underwater. And both dolphins and sea lions are good at tracking down enemy swimmers and divers in american seas. As for training them to do all this stuff, much like a puppy or a small human, Niamh says the trick is to start young.

So we had some young juvenile animals, males and females, that are slated to eventually be either on a system that does swimmer detection or a mine hunter. So we had younger animals that they would determine their pathway based on their abilities and temperament. And then we also had four or five, like crestier dolphins that have been all over the world and served their country and less able physically to continue doing those missions. But the Navy's committed to their care for the rest of their lives. So they're retired, we call them, and they serve as mentor animals to these younger guys. So we, like, pair them up with them as they learn new behaviors, and they keep them in line and show them the ropes a little bit.

She says training a dolphin to do something like finding a mine or a bomb starts out as a simple game. Food is always the motivating reward, sort of like training a dog.

With the younger ones, you're essentially training them a concept like, do you see this object? Let me know in some way. And so it starts as like a game where they are looking around, they see an object, and then you are slowly shaping the behavior of that's the thing you're looking for. Let me know. Touch this or touch that. And so it kind of just starts as a basic concept.

From there, they get better at the tasks, eventually being able to complete a real mission. She says, the amazing thing is how far the navy sends these creatures. I'd assume they'd just swim wherever they needed to go, but no, they mostly go by boat.

What's incredible is how they get to those locations. We keep brushing over it. They've been to Vietnam, to the Persian Gulf, all these places. It's like, how how are we getting them there? That is what my crew primarily focused a lot on, is what we call beaching. So what that means is basically they're jumping out of the water onto a map that's onto a vessel. It's 30 foot boats. They have these padded gray mats, and they open up. The trainer goes to the end of the mat and puts a hand out to ask them to touch their hand. And the dolphin, the signal for them to follow the trainer is you just start backing up into the boat, and they follow you and jump up into the boat and usually have people on either side to help guide them into the boat and then give them some fish. And then usually the boxes come up and then they're along for the ride. So it's basically that alone is what I would say a majority of the training goes to in the beginning. Thats unnatural behavior for them to be like, hey, let me just strand myself and go into this boat.

The main thing I took away from all this youd think dolphins would be the easy ones to work with. I think sea lions seem kind of scary with all those teeth, but dolphins are the difficult ones.

Honestly, every day youre blown away. Whats so unique about dolphins or whats so challenging about working with them is theyre constantly evaluating you and your movements and your body cues to see what's coming next. So you always have to be conscious of yourself, even your energy. Working with them. For example, we'll have interns at the program, and they'll interact with the dolphin, and immediately the dolphin can sense their hesitancy, their nervousness, the way that their hands move, and then they will pretend they don't know any of the behaviors and, like, play them. They are a little shitty, love them to death. But they are constantly looking for, how can I do the bare minimum for this situation and get my fish?

Another trainer I talked to em, agrees dolphins are tough work.

I'll give you a forewarning. I am very excitable and I'm also from the midwest, so I talk very quickly sometimes.

So if you need me to slow.

Down, I will not be offended.

Em worked with the navy in South Georgia.

Dolphins are like cats and sea lions are like dogs. And when I was at my first internship, someone told me that and I was like, no way. I love dolphins. I want to work with dolphins so bad, and I'm a dog person through and through. And then I worked with both dolphins and sea lions, and I was like, I get it now. I get it. Dolphins are cats.

To be honest, dolphins sound completely insufferable. I think I'd want to be stuck with the sea lions.

Cats are always looking out for number one.

All of the trainers I talked to loved their jobs, generally leaving just because it's really tough physical work.

I definitely never thought, as a seven year old who wanted to be a dolphin trader, I would need a security clearance to do that job.

And all of them talk about it like it was the best job in the world. Jay tells me she still keeps an eye on the new tricks the Navy is teaching its animals.

There's this new thing, it's all over Facebook and Instagram. I'm sure you've seen it. Of the Navy Sea lion who plays video games.

I hadn't seen it, but now obviously I had to see it, and it is pretty amazing. The US Navy has trained a sea lion how to play a video game, at least a basic form of what looks like pong. This is a news report from last year.

US Navy scientists in California have trained sea lions and dolphins to play video games as part of their research on cognitive enrichment for marine mammals.

Take a look at this video. The Navy sent this out. It shows Spike. He's one of three male sea lions who have been trained to play a game developed by scientists in a sea pen. San Diego Bay. Now, he uses his nose to push four buttons, and he moves the cursor around through a maze on the screen. And when he crosses the finish line, he gets cheers. He gets a treat. You can tell he's happy about it. And Navy scientists say it's an interesting way to see just how developed the brains of these animals are. And Jay says, while it's impressive, it's just doing the same tricks animal trainers do. Lots of repetition, linking behaviors together, and a lot of snacks as rewards.

Beginning is always the toughest time to train the animal because you're frustrated, the animal's frustrated. You don't know how to communicate to each other. But now we have an animal who plays video games. And that is so cool.

That's amazing.

A sea lion playing video games. Who does that?

The thing I found most amusing in all this is that while Jay was out training dolphins and sea lions to go on important missions on behalf of the United States, things at home were an absolute shambles.

Honestly, the stereotype is animal trainers have the worst trained animals in the entire world because we get home and we let our animals get away with everything. At work, you're not allowed to, you know, you have to be very strict. Yeah, my animals are very well mannered. They're polite. They can't do shit. They don't know how to do tricks. Okay, I can go train a sea lion to go find a person or a bomb. I can't train my dog to shake like, this is so pathetic.

It's so upsetting. Stay tuned for more flightless bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless bird is sponsored by betterhelp. Now, what's something that you'd love to learn as an adult? Do you make time to learn new things as often as you'd like, or was that completely lost when you stopped being a kid? Because kids are always learning and growing, but as adults, sometimes we lose that curiosity completely. For me, I feel like with this show, I'm learning constantly. Like right now, I'm learning about how slime was sort of invented in America, you know, the stuff that kids play with. And that's now sold to kids all over the world and also adults to help with their stress and ASMR needs. Basically, learning is about a sense of wonder at the world around us. And therapy is something that can help you reconnect with your sense of wonder. Because as I found out with this show, your back to school era can come out at any age. Therapy for me has been pretty great over the last few years, just helping me put things in perspective to balance out the stress of being an adult with a reminder that life can also be pretty fun if you let it.

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A headline in the Guardian in 2005 Readdez armed and dangerous flippa, the firing dolphin, let loose by Katrina. Now, the navy's always denied that they train any wildlife to attack people and that they certainly don't arm them. This was the case with everyone I spoke to.

No, no. No weapons or anything.

Still, when Hurricane Katrina hit, some critics claimed armed dolphins had escaped in the flood waters. That piece and the Guardian went on to say this, dolphins have been trained in attack and kill missions since the cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vehicles. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the us defense program claim it is vital they caught quickly again, the navy denies this. Thats not to say that dolphins cant be scary. Neve told me one of the freakiest things you can do as a trainer is when you're training them to detect an enemy swimmer.

Another one that I worked on often at the training side of things is swimmer detection, detecting, we call them enemy swimmers, but they don't know it's like an enemy, obviously. They just are like, this swimmer's not supposed to be here. Tail the boat and then they go and mark them in some way. I think it was first used in the Vietnam war.

So to train the dolphins to detect a baddie in the water, they need a test subject. So one of the trainers will suit up and be dumped in the middle of a dark ocean. They float around out there, bobbing away, waiting for the dolphin to do its thing, which in this case is a dolphin suddenly whacking into you out of nowhere as they stick a small tracking device on your body and they can hit you pretty hard. So the trainers have to wear extra padding.

It's to keep us safe because the dolphin is ramming us, essentially. And that's fun because us trainers get to be the mock terrorists. So we'll be like on a boat in the San Diego Bay and we have shoulder pads on, neck protectors, a helmet, full body gear, kidney protector. It's very safe now, but all kinds of padding on. And then someone will be working a dolphin and then they'll tell us, like, okay, you're good, go ahead and get in. We get in to. And then the dolphin detects us, lets the trainer know, and then they send them with the mark. And then youre just kind of floating in the bay, just like waiting.

So there you go, floating out in a cold, dark ocean with God knows what for something to come and ram into you.

And then you hear like a breath usually probably like 20ft out, and youre like, okay, its going to happen. And then the impact happens and then they usually go flying back because theyre excited and you just let them know youre all good and carry on, but it definitely gets your heart going. You hear them coming, they're at the location, it's like click, click, click, click, click. And then out of nowhere, there's a dolphin. So that's really scary.

The other trainer I talked to em trained both dolphins and sea lions to do this.

I worked with animals once. They were fully trained, so they were essentially a layer of security, trained to protect the base via water. So they were trained to find any enemy swimmers, enemy divers. And basically, the sea lions have really great low light vision, which is really good because the water was very murky. It was the equivalent of swimming in coffee with creamer.

She described the job as essentially playing hide and go seek with dolphins and sea lions. She said, when it's two in the morning, freezing in the waters of south Georgia, it's not a fun game to play.

That was very scary, waiting for these animals to come find me in the same water where bull sharks and alligators live. Brackish water. Sometimes the dolphins, you can hear them because they use their echolocation, which is essentially biological sonar. But the sea lions typically will take a breath pretty close to when they come to you if you're at the surface. And then the dolphins, even if your head's above the surface, sometimes you can feel them echolocating on you.

After talking to Nev and M, I decided I wouldn't like this job. I find the ocean scary as it is, even in the daylight. 02:00 a.m. bobbing around, waiting for those creatures to give you a slap. No way. Armed or not, too scary. And the other scary thing about working with underwater sea life? Well, what's it like working with animals that are so horny?

Yeah, it's challenging. Unfortunately, I'm very well versed on dolphin anatomy. With the navy, they typically house males and females separately. But not that it matters, because with dolphins, they are extremely sexually fluid. There is no gender, age, familial relation. They just want to fuck. It's a pretty fluid thing. It's just part of their daily lives. So, typically, from a trainer standpoint, if we try to walk down to a session and there's just a giant dolphin orgy happening and there's wieners out, we're just not going to start that session yet. They're not going to be focused, so we're just going to be like, all right, let's give that a sec, and we'll come back and see if they're done. Some of them just can't even focus. They're so horny when they're with a syrian dolphin that it's impossible. And dolphins, we call it like a sex coma, and it happens with both males and females. They. I don't know what happens to their bodies, but they just are overcome with feeling horny. And they just will lay with their bellies up. Their eyes are, like, closed, and they'll be, like, twitching. And then they, like, sometimes will even sink to the bottom.

It's really something. Then usually the other dolphins, we feel like they're, like, messing with them. They're like, ah, she's feeling it today. And they'll, like, go really close and push them around and jump on them.

With all that in mind, sometimes people like Nev were tasked with cleaning up the mess.

The males are just so they will use their penis on pretty much anything. They're very creative. If you give them any toy or something that has a hole in it, it'll be utilized essentially. They will sometimes rub against things in their environment. They're very tactile. Any kind of rubs get them going to. So there'll be mornings when we come in and we'll do our body checks to make sure they're looking good from the night. And one of our males will have a full bushel of kelp and seaweed trailing out of his genital slitzenhe because.

He spent the evening just like fucking Zimalgi, basically.

So then you have to spend the next hour or so trying to have him let you get it out for him. So that has happened on multiple occasions.

All in a day's work for an animal trainer with the US Navy. I felt very lucky to have learned about America's Navy marine mammal program. And the few times I've gotten in the ocean since learning about all this, it's made me wonder what zooming around out there, and if I'll ever get mistaken for a target suddenly side swiped by a dorsal fin or slapped on the face by an angry sea lion. So, Rob, there was a barrage of information to take in there. It's a lot to take in.

Yeah, that was a lot. For starters, those were fake names for everyone you talked to.

They were fake names. I made those up.

Yeah. Where did Nev and M come from?

What? They're just names. Nev was Nev Campbell, who was an actor that I thought was cool when I was a teenager.

You mean Nev Campbell?

I was at Nev. Yeah. Oh, God.

Okay.

Or Niamh and M. Em.

So her name started with M and you just got lazy.

Sure. For Emma.

So her name was Emma?

No, no, I just thought M, I thought was a cute name, you know? M. I didn't know there were rules for making fake names.

They were just very specific fake names.

You're right. A fake name needs to be more generic, right? Like Susan.

I think so. But it can also, like. It needs to tell their personality.

Yeah.

You pick their name after you talk to them. You know them a little bit.

Yeah. She wasn't a knee Cheryl. No, it wasn't a Cheryl. I think Neve was an Eve and M was an M. But to clarify, m was em. Sure. For Emma.

I am not the initial m. I did write em. So is this whole program top secret, then?

No, not really. There's a website. If you just Google Marine mammal program, the Navy has a website, and it's got a big photo on their front page of a seal hitting a green button with its nose. Did you ever watch seaquest DSV? It was this. There were all these amazing shows in the nineties that was, like, a big concept. And seaQuest DSV was about a submarine that would go exploring. It was like Star Trek, but in the ocean, basically. And one of the characters was Darwin, who was a dolphin, was a trained dolphin, and Darwin had this device on it where it could talk to humans, and it had a personality. And I loved that show so, so much. I just remember that now. I was obsessed with that show, and I literally just remember Dao and the talking dolphin now. Such a good show.

So you're an animal lover?

Big time. It's my favorite thing.

How do you feel about employing animals? Are they paying them minimum wage? Is that animal cruelty?

I think it's pretty murky territory. I mean, I think all animals should be out in the wild just doing their thing. So the idea of getting a baby dolphin instead of training it up to be militarized is pretty insane. And saying that in talking to these trainers, and if you talk to any kind of animal trainer, they do really care about the animals, like, a lot. And so I feel a bit judgmental sitting here saying all these animals are having a terrible time. I mean, I imagine some of these dolphins are having a great time patrolling the bay. But then I'd also argue that in a perfect world, they probably shouldn't be trained at all because they're a wild animal.

Well, it's like, the larger ignorance is bliss. Like, is that the case with these animals? The smarter they are, the more miserable they are. But I would imagine they're living pretty nice lives if they're getting fed.

I like to think so. I mean, I think they're probably having a better time than a dolphin in a tank.

I.

Good healthcare. I'd say better than being in a tank at sea worlds.

Yeah.

You know, they're out there doing that thing, and they're being stimulated, and they're out there having dolphin orgies, apparently. Some mornings, I mean, that sounds kind of fun, but I think there's certainly some animal welfare issues around it. But they could probably also be, like, a lot worse off.

Did you get aroused when she was talking about the dolphin orgies?

I wanted to see one. I mean, I'm curious about this now. So what you mentioned at the beginning, are these the best animals to train? And obviously, they are super smart, so you can train them to do behaviors, but then the horniness is literally a problem. Some mornings I can't train them because they're too busy fucking. It's such a bizarre aspect to have to deal with.

Well, okay, so back to you being an animal lover. Are there any animals that you. You feel like you could trust with your life? They're teaching this dolphin to use a laser or gun or whatever they're doing to assassinate. They're getting close enough with this weapon to this dolphin to be like, this is your target. Kill it. Would you trust it not to be just turning to you and be like, you didn't give me my food today what I wanted, so I'm gonna kill you instead.

I am relatively trusting towards animals. Maybe too much. I mean, sometimes there was that squirrel incident, which was a problem, but, you know, I was lying on the ground with this big, like, pit bull the other day. My friend has this big pit bull, scary dog, and I was sitting there, and I was, like, scratching its tummy, and I looked at its face, and it was just so massive and huge. And if it wanted to, it could bite my face off.

Rip your face off.

But I trusted this dog, and this dog's wonderful. And I feel like I would be the same with a dolphin with a laser on its head. I'd be like, we have an understanding. I feel like I'm more trusting towards some animals than people, which is possibly problematic.

Yeah, I just. I think I would have a hard time trusting its intelligence enough. When they're saying, go assassinate this terrorist, are they teaching them who the target and the mark is?

Or is it just they suddenly get it wrong?

Any human? Also, how often is a terrorist just floating around in the ocean?

I do wonder how often these dolphins are actually utilized doing anything useful. You know, the idea of patrolling the bay for an enemy diver. Like, how often are they coming across an enemy diver? But you're right. Look, I would want to be familiar with the program. I wouldn't want to jump in the ocean tomorrow and be fiddling around with the dolphin with a laser beam on.

His head because they're going to just kill any human they see at that point. I would imagine. It's just here we're going to drop this dolphin into enemy territory.

I think that's why some commentators were really worried during Katrina, because they were worried that these armed dolphins were just out in the water and they could start killing willy nilly.

It seems like it's a tricky territory.

Surely the navy wouldn't be doing this unless they had a pretty good handle on it.

Right. Well, then I guess the question is we're assuming that these dolphins are way smarter than we're giving them credit for.

Yeah, we probably are. I mean, they are obviously intelligent animals. I mean, I was swam with dolphins and you sort of look a little dolphin in the eye and there's something in there. It's a big brain. You can see there's something in there.

Do you have dolphins in New Zealand?

We've got dolphins. We had a lot of controversy recently because there were some sort of rich men racing super yachts around and they raced them through marine reserve where there were lots of protected dolphins, and that caused a big uproar.

I have seen dolphins recently in Santa Barbara. I took Calvin on a boat, a boat ride, and there were dolphins that would ride with us.

Beautiful. I mean, it's so beautiful. Any lasers mounted to their hips?

No lasers up there. I mean, it really just sounds, though, like they're breeding psychopathic dolphins. Listed a bunch of movies about dolphins, and I don't know how they haven't made that movie yet. They have. Thanks. Killing and completely gremlins. Yeah.

Why is there not a dolphin on the loose with a laser on his head? The other thing that came to mind while I was thinking about this, and I might have talked about this before because I love talking about it, but I came across this book on Amazon called Wet Goddess, and it was written by this guy Malcolm, who back in the seventies had a six month sexual relationship with a dolphin.

Yeah. You love this book.

It's just. It's an amazing book. It's out of print now, but if you can get a copy of where Goddess is, great, because it sort of raises this really interesting ethical question, because he was working at his friend's aquarium and there was a dolphin there, and he claims that the dolphin basically came onto him. So he was just in there minding his own business. A female dolphin came up to him and started rubbing up against a female.

This.

This is a female dolphin.

It's a little questionable. Did he have sexual relations with the dolphin?

He did. You know, so cut a long story short. He fucked the dolphin. The dolphin started it. You know, if a dolphin rubbed up.

Against him, that doesn't count. Like my dog rubs up against my leg. That's not initiating.

No, I mean, your dog is sometimes. I mean, dogs. Okay, you know, let's just think about this dolphin scenario. He claims the dolphin came onto him. He ended up having sex with the dolphin. They created a bond. And when he left to move to another city to study, the dolphin got so depressed because the dolphin was in love with him, it held its breath, sank to the bottom of the pool and drowned. Died. Dolphins are one of the few mammals that can commit suicide. And this dolphin was so sad. Killed itself. So did Malcolm do the right thing? Who was in the wrong? An incredibly intelligent animal coming onto him. What was he meant to do? Do? Was there animal abuse?

I would say so. I probably.

Probably was.

Absolutely.

He argues he lives in Florida.

Of course this man's alive.

We're Facebook friends. Yeah. Yeah.

He didn't go to prison or anything.

Yeah, no, Florida.

You know, he's fine in Florida.

Yeah, no, it's all fine in Florida. Yeah. My point was, dolphins are very horny. They're very intelligent.

I mean, we did have a guest on armchair anonymous who fell in love with a dolphin.

Well, there you go. Was he called Malcolm?

It was a male dolphin, though. But he did not.

Once bestiality is involved, it's a no go. Yeah. And I do want. I'm being devil's advocate. I don't think anyone should. I don't think there should be sex between dolphins and people. I just think it's interesting how this came up in the Navy conversation where that becomes an issue when they're training them just because they're that horny.

Yeah, well, clearly they are very horny.

And there are stories from Jessica Alba while she was shooting Flippa about certain days where they couldn't shoot because the dolphins were too turned on by the people that were in the water, which is an insane thing to think about. So, in summary, the US Navy does train dolphins and seals to detect enemy swimmers, to find mines, allegedly to shoot weapons, although I found no proof of that whilst researching the story.

But we're assuming with how tame what they're doing, that it's gotta be more fucked up than we know. It's gotta be at least weapons.

At least weapons. At least weapons.

Maybe more.

Well, it's one of those very american things where it's just something I would never imagine in a million years. It's America going, there's a dolphin. We're gonna. We're gonna train it to, like, kill. It's just. Is there anything more american than that? I think not.

I did not know you could feel a good location if you were. Oh, I'm telling you, they need to make horrible movies.

It needs to be a movie. No, the idea of. Yeah, the idea of being out there floating at night in the water and you can hear this thing coming.

Well, she said you could feel it. You could feel the sonar. So there's high frequency clicks and other sounds, and you can feel that.

Truly terrifying.

Right. I mean, I don't. I don't like swimming in water where there's just unknown beneath me. Did you have the show, are you afraid of the dark?

No.

It was a nickelodeon show in the nineties, and there was an episode where they were in their school swimming pool and this creature was underneath and, like, pull them under.

Yeah, no, that is scary.

Ever since that, I don't love being in a deep end or anywhere where there could be things underneath me.

I mean, I also think about that when I'm in the ocean, even when I'm in the pool, where the filter is and the words getting sucked over the side like that is scary to me. But it still wouldn't stop me from getting in and having a frolic with a dolphin.

And when you say a frolic with a dolphin, you mean explicitly? Nothing sexual?

Nothing sexual at all? No. Just looking at dolphin in the eye and saying, hey, what's up?

Just wanted to make sure you clarify.

Just to clarify. But, yeah, I think this is an incredibly american thing. Dolphins and sea lions being sent out to defend the country. All right, before we go, something we wanted to start doing was a bit of a mailbag segment where we sort of reflect on the last episode. There's always, like, a lot of feedback.

That happens or just. You got things wrong.

I often get things incredibly wrong. Okay, so it's like a correction. Mailbag segment.

We're gonna just steal it from Seth Meyers. Corrections?

We are, pretty much, yeah. I mean, Onlyfans was last week, and I got a lot of feedback from other creators. The one thing I would say is that people have such remarkably different experiences on OnlyFans. Some creators have the best time, others have a terrible time. It seems so deeply unique to every person, and that was my one takeaway from that. But the one bit of feedback I did want to read from the mailbag was a really lovely message I got from Kay, and it was just about the whole show. Hi, David and Rob wanted to say how excited I am for the next chapter of Flightless Bird. In short, the podcast has helped me find some appreciation again for the country I grew up in. Frankly, a hard thing after everything that has happened since Trump was elected and what I saw it do to my husband. And she sort of went into a really intense bit about how difficult it was during COVID and her husband had a whole lot of stuff happen that wasn't great. And then she wraps it up by saying, it's such a strange feeling to be so deeply angry at the country you grew up in.

A little bit like you've been cut off from a family member that raised you. You are who you are because of it in many ways, and you want nothing to do with it. But week by week, as I listened to flight this bird, I slowly reconciled and mended it all back together again, which is so fucking lovely. We've also now been back twice to visit family in America, a trip I wasn't sure my husband would ever make again to wrap up this unintended novel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rob.

So we saved a marriage.

Is that we saved a marriage?

Is that what I.

No, I think we saved a couple's relationship with the country that she grew up in, which I just thought was really lovely. And I think that's the dream result of this, is people being able to listen to these weird stories about this weird, diverse, crazy place and go, oh, that's fascinating, maybe to fall back in love with the weirdness again. I guess what that feedback kind of brought to mind is we're going to be taking some weird dives into this country. And sometimes it might get slightly political and odd. But I think I like the idea that in all these spaces we dive into, there are going to be these redeeming, fascinating things that we can all kind of latch onto and identify with. And if some weird topic we covered made someone fall back in love with the base, then I'm all for it.

Yeah, I mean, I think the bigger thing with this show is that there are all of these different pockets and unique perspectives in this country completely. And even though it's different from living in Los Angeles or Chicago or other pockets, it's great, even as american, to learn about these weird, odd things and take away positives from them, too.

And, yeah, I think we can criticize, we can be positive, we can be all those things. Like, more than one thing can be true at once. And I just think diving into all these different, you know, it's 50 countries in one. And I just can't wait to get super weird with where this goes and super specific in Alaska. Oh, my God, I can't wait. I can't wait. I just had a friend that went on a fishing trip to Alaska and bought back doing fishing. Got so many fish, her whole freezer is just full of fish. And all she's eating for the rest of the year are these fish from Alaska. I want to go to Alaska. I want to figure out what Alaska's about. All I know about Alaska is like.

Sarah Palin and our friends in Portugal, the man. We gotta have John take us up to race some dog sleds in Alaska and go fishing.

Yeah. This is the sort of shit we need to do. This is good.

Add it to the list.

Oh, my God. Done, done, and done. Got a lot of stuff coming up. Thanks for, again, for subscribing to the feed, rating things and telling your friends and family. Tell your friends, email them, say, sure, listen, send them the link. All those things. It all helps. Beautiful. Rob, I will see you next Tuesday. Same place, same time, same place, same channel. Bye.

Calvin, can you tell me what you know about dolphins?

Well, they live in oceans, and I like ocean animals, and I.

And they're my favorite color.

And they have a hole in their.

Head that blows out water. Do you know if they're smart?

Yes.

Sometimes they, like, play balls. One time I went to Chicago and I saw a dolphin throwing balls and getting, and throwing in the ball over and over again. Okay, thank you. Like, and subscribe.

Subscribe, guys.